Ponniyin Selvanin Selvam.

Thanjavur, one of the most popular temple towns of Tamil Nadu, has always fascinated me. I still remember how when i was Class IV, I had worked on a school project about Thanjavur and had pestered Appa and Thatha for information about the city.

The eagerness to visit the place increased manifold after I finished reading Ponniyin Selvan, a year and a half back. And when my parents suggested we go there for the weekend, I was thrilled beyond words.

And so began a magical journey that I'm unable to recover from even though it has been almost a week since I got back now.

The weekend was so much fun not just because it was a trip with the family after ages, but also because we had two absolutely delightful people from the TN Archaeology Dept who gave us a guided tour of the town and all the other places that we visited nearby. In  my next few posts, I will cover each one of the temples that we visited over the weekend. 

Every little temple in this town has an interesting history and some truly marvelous architecture involved. The sheer size of some of these structures leave you awestruck.  

The Peruvudaiyar Kovil, more famously known as the Brihadeshwara temple is proof enough for the magnificent Chozha architecture. It was built by Emperor Arulmozhi Varman aka RajaRaja Chozhan as instructed by Lord Shiva in one of his dreams. 

Just how they managed to erect such a mammoth structure within five years when there was no complicated or advanced tools or machinery like what we have today is beyond me. To add to this is the fact that there were/are no rocky mountains near Thanjavur and every single piece of Granite used to build this temple was sourced from a place called Mammalai near Trichy. 

The moment I set foot at the temple, all i could think was 'now I will die in peace'. I'm yet to get over the magnificence that is this temple. Almost every rock and every pillar is carved or painted. Various forms of Lord Shiva, stories from the Shiva Purana and the Karanas codified in Natyasashtra are some of the things depicted by way of sculptures and paintings. The scriptures on  the temple walls, tell the story of how everything was done during the Chozha rule. Right from how the administration was run to the contribution made by various people towards this temple, everything is captured on the walls of surrounding the main temple. Our guide read out a few lines for us from here and there and it was a delight to hear the stories that way, to say the least. If you are able to read ancient Tamil literature (which you can apparently master in 3 months with proper practice) the  entire journey becomes even more enjoyable, said our guide.

What made the trip more magical (if there is even such a thing) was that we got to visit the areas of the temple which is restricted to general public. If i was stunned earlier, the little more I saw left me thunderstruck, almost literally. The view of the hollow temple tower from inside was one to behold. How incredibly talented and intelligent the Master Engineer should have been to bring life to such a massive structure and the kind of rapport he must have shared with the Emperor to understand exactly what he wanted and to execute the same is one more than that leaves your mind reeling. And absolutely no mortar or cement was used. A technique called Bolt & Socket is what holds the entire structure in place.  

My writing would never do justice to the beauty that is this temple. Hence leaving you with a few pictures hoping they do more justice. 

Looks like the elephant is smiling, no? :)

Few of the paintings that were retrieved

I see a lizard, do you?

Photo 1 courtesy Ramkumar Ramachandran Photography. Everything else is from my phone.