This is about tanjore big temple built by the King Raja raja Chola

1. TANJORE BIG TEMPLE
-ARCHITECTURAL MARVEL
j pushpakalaivani

2. An exemplary of fully realised “DRAVIDIAN
ARCHITECTURE”.
Built by the great king RAJARAJACHOLA I
Between 1003 and 1010 AD
It is a part of UNESCO WORLD
HERITAGE site.

3. *The Brihadeshvara temple plan and
development utilizes the axial and symmetrical
geometry rules. The temple complex is a
rectangle that is almost two stacked squares,
convering 240.79 metres (790.0 ft) east to
west, and 121.92 metres (400.0 ft) north to
south.

4. The building is fully made up of granite stones
but the granite stones are not available in the
nearby areas .They should be transported from
a place which is 50 miles away from the
temple.

5. The stone on the top of
the vimana weights
almost eighty ton and it
needs massive hardwork
to lift the stones to the
top of the tower that
too without any modern
equipment and
machines.
The Nandhi statue
which is massive in
structure is made up of
single stone.

6. Through the inscriptions
made by the king Raja raja ,
we are able to get many
information regarding the
temple and his kingdom, like
Raja raja’s , his queens 'and
,sister’s donation for the
temple.
But the construction of this
temple still remains as an
engineering marvel.

7. The sculptures are indeed a
living evidence of excellent
craftsmanship during chola reign
The king used prisoners of war
for the temple construction. It
is evident from this fact that
there should be high degree law
and order maintained during
Rajaraja’s rule in his kingdom
that could even control the
prisoners of war and making
them to do the construction
work in free space.

8. The temple has an underneath layer of Chola
paintings on the sanctum walls .Natural colours
were used and it is infused in to the wet
limestone layer.
The theme of the paintings are mainly related
to shivism , but there are also some paintings
which depicts chola royalty,culture and
common life.

9. A historic novel “ponniyin selvan “ written by
kalki depicts the early life of king Raja raja .
According to that novel Raja raja will visit
Srilanka and got inspired by the large Buddha
statues. The spark to build a structure that
will live for ages may be from that event.

10. Another Tamil historic novel “Udayar “
written by Balakumaran can be considered
as the sequel to Ponniyin Selvan depicting
Rajaraja Chola's rule and the construction
of the big temple .

11. Thus the name and fame of Raja raja chola and
his ethnic work Tanjore big temple will live for
years .