01The king’s ledger in stone
Rajaraja I had the base of the temple turned into an account book. The inscriptions list the gold and jewels he and his sister Kundavai gave, the villages assigned to feed the lamps, the 400 dancers brought from other temples with their names and street addresses, and the drummers, accountants and washermen paid from temple land. He records that the copper finial on the vimana was placed on the 275th day of his 25th regnal year, in 1010 CE. No other temple of that age tells so much about how it was run.
02The vimana and the Nandi
The vimana rises in thirteen storeys of granite, though there is no granite quarry anywhere near Thanjavur. The capstone, a single block, sits at the top like a crown. Inside, the sanctum holds one of the largest lingas in Bharat, and the passage around it carries Chola wall paintings rediscovered under later Nayak plaster in 1931. The great Nandi in its own mandapa is a monolith; the present Nandi mandapa is a Nayak addition of the 16th century. The Marathas of Thanjavur later added a shrine and kept the temple in worship.
The life of this place
- 1010 CERajaraja I consecrates the temple in his 25th regnal year.
- 1931Chola-period murals are found beneath Nayak paintings in the circumambulatory passage.
- 1987Listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, later grouped as the Great Living Chola Temples (2004).
- 2010The temple’s thousandth year is celebrated in Thanjavur.
Go at sunset when the vimana turns gold. The temple is in daily worship; footwear is left at the gate.
