Bruhadeeswara temple, Thanjavur

The  Lingam (Lord Bruhadeeswara) -meaning the big Easwara has  a great statistics. It is the biggest single stone lingam in India measuring 23 feet on a base ( Avudai) having a perimeter of 54 feet. The tower above the lingam is about 200feet in height, which is a double walled construction. On the top of it sits an octoganal shikaram piece weighing about 81 tons. The whole of Thanjavur district is cauvery delta region with no hills nearby. It is really an engineering wonder that such a big temple with a huge stone lifted to 200 feet was constructed 1000 years ago. There is  a record saying that the stone was moved on an inclined plane whose base was located at a village (sarapallam) about 8kms away. Another interesting feature in this temple is that there are frescos of all dancing poses and mudras inside the walls of the tower. One has to get special permission to see this.

The temple is laid on a huge ground measuring approx 7.5 acres.There is a dias round the huge Nandi, in which 1000 dancers performed Bharata Natyam recently to commomerate the 1000 years of the temple. This should give the idea of the size of the temple. The temple stands within a fort with a dried moat.

Main Entrance

When we went to the temple, Mrs.Suganda helped us in having darshan without standing in the long queue( There were about 300 people). She got us the permission to see the frescos , but the officer-in-charge told that it would not be possible at that time ( 12 noon) because of hot sun. So we did not see the frescos. After having darshan of Bruhan Nayaki, we had the excellent lunch served by Mrs.Suganda and then proceeded to our next destination

Plan to visit the temples of Thanjavur

Having made a number of trips to visit the temples in Thanjavur area, I wish to share my experience. As the local people say- If you trip on stone and fall, your head will be at one temple and your leg will be in another temple , there a lot of temples in this area.There are 191 shiva temples , sung by the great four . and 42 Perumal temples (divya desam) . Besides these, there are a number of temples which are known for some miracles.
The positive side of this plentiness is that one can always visit some temple in the available time, travelling along any road in the area. But the main problem with most of  the temples is that they open only about 6 in the morning and close by noon after uchchikala pujai. The temples open by 4 or 4-30 P.M. So, one has to plan the afternoon carefullyto avoid travelling back to base, be it Kumbakonam, Tiruvarur or Thanjavur. Fortunately there are some temples that are open for longer period and there are some which are open through out the day.
To make the best use of the limited time of the temples, one has to plan the route and the temples to be visited. I shall tell about my recent tour in my next letter

Darasuram -Chola's Unique temple

Musical Steps

Darasuram Temple

Majestic Nandi

The temple at Darasuram, about 3 kms from the town of Kumbakonam, was built by Chola dynasty in 1150 A.D. We visited this unique temple on our trip to Kumbakonam. This is a world heritage monument under the control of Archaeological Survey of India.
This temple is one of the four temples built by Cholas,in which the tower above the sanctum sanatorium is taller than the entry tower( Raja Gopuram).  This tower will be of a pyramid shape. This is some what similar to the towers of north Indian temple. Perhaps  the chola king, after conquering north India, wanted to build temple differing from the regular dravidian style.The other three temples are at Gangai konda  cholapuram, Tribuvanam, and Thanjavur. Darasuram temple is the smallest one , but with lot of sculptures- photographer delight. Another unique thing is the musical steps,   These stone steps produce different swaras when struck . [The temples of Pandyas ( Madurai , tirunelveli districts) have musical pillars.] . This temple is a Must Visit for its uniqueness.

I am not writing the legendary story of the temple.

wonder of Thiruvidaimarthur

When we went to the Thiruvidaimarthur, we all know that it is a very big temple. After having the darshan of Mahalingeswar , we are doing the pradakshinam, we saw  the awesome sculpture of Ravan lifting the Kailas.Then a local man told that if go to the outer prakaram, there are two holes behind this . when we went there, the man asked us to keep the ear in the hole .We heard the veena music clearly. We are not able to understand the method how the music is produced. Definitely we had great temple builders who produce unique structures.
There are quite a number of special things in Thanjavur temples. Will continue in the next