Brihadeeswara temple, Brihadeeswara temple Tanjore India, Information about Brihadeeswara temple

I decided that this time during the vacations I would go around the temples in Tamil Nadu like I did last year. I had been to Kancheepuram and Madurai and I really liked the idea of being in the atmosphere exuded by the temples in this part of the world.

So this time, I set forth to the Brihadeeswara temple in Tanjore district in the Tamil Nadu state in India. This is actually one of the first granite temple in the world. It shows a great example of the great heights that the kingdom of the Cholas achieved in terms of architecture. A great tribute and a fantastic reflection of the Raja Raja Chola power. Today it is still revered as a great architectural glory and is the perfect example of excellent Indian architecture. Today it is a part of the UNESCO World Heritage and is a great example of the “Great Living Chola temples”.

It is also known as the Peruvudaiyar Kovil and is one of the most precious architectural Indian sites. It stands amidst great walls of the 16th century and has a tower which is around 216ft high. Today it is the tallest of such kinds of temples in the whole world. There is a bulb like structure in the top which is the kumbam or the kalash. It is also known as the Chikharam.

As I entered the temple, I just was enthralled by all this and I also got fascinated to see the huge Nandi statue which is believed to have been carved out of a single piece of rock. The statue stood at the entrance and measures a good 16feet long and around 13 feet in height. Hard stones made of granite comprised the temple structure which is a great part of the Thanjavur or Tanjore district.

This temple was built by Raja Raja Chola in the district of Thanjavur somewhere in the 1010 AD. It is known as the Big Temple. Today it is around 1000 years old.

I saw the river that lie beside the temple and the moat that was built around the complex by channeling the river. The walls around the temple resembled a fortress. There were many structures which were aligned in an axial manner along the complex. There was a five storeyed tower which stood on one of the axis. There was another entrance to the main square area through another gopuram which was smaller in structure.

There were around 16 stories and columns, piers and pilaster were attached to the entire surface of the temple.

I entered the main temple which lay in the huge square area. The square area had a statue of the Nandi, a sanctuary and a hall with pillars besides an assembly hall or the mandapa with many smaller temples. The inner assembly hall with huge walls divided into various stages was the main feature of the temple. In this hall there were many sculptures which were cut sharply and they divided the hall into different levels. The pilasters made up the deep bays and also the intermittent gaps. A bay was there on either side of the sanctuary and these actually gave a better look to t

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he cult icons. The internal portion of the sanctum sanctorum was known as Karuvarai – a tamil word which meant “Interior”. I saw an idol of Shiva here. There was a gigantic stone linga. Karuvarai actually means the chamber in the womb. It comes from the Tamil word Karu which means foetus. This chamber can be visited only by the main priests of the temple.

The whole thing was constructed in Dravidian style and it was shaped like a small vimana and the other structures resembled southern Indian temple architectural style. This included the inner wall and outer wall creating a kind of circumambulation around the garbhagriha.

I was struck by the entrance. It was beautifully decorated. Then I went to the Ganesha temple. There was a massive gateway and there were around 400 pillars in the portico inside the temple.

It is said that Raja Raja Chola wanted to build this temple when he was living in Sri Lanka as an Emperor. There were many other deities in the temple like the Koshta Moorthigai, the Suriyan, the Chandran, and also the Ashta dik paalakas which is the Lord of the Eight Directions.

Around 130,000 tons of granite have been used to build this temple. The vimana here which measures around 60 m is said to be the tallest in India.

This

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temple in Thanjavur district is easily accessible by road, air and rail. There are all kinds of facilities to reach this temple from the nearby towns of Chennai, Kumbakonam, Trichy, Pudukkottai, Karur, Coimbatore, Mayavarametc. Tanjorejunction connects this city to the rest of the places.