You say ‘Thanjavur’, I say ‘Tanjore’

13th January, 2019 – Tanjore – A Palace, a Temple and a lot of Chola Bronzes

We drove off the 55km eastwards to Thanjavur aka Tanjore. We were getting close to Pongal, the harvest festival and it was getting more apparent as there was a lot of sellers of black-stemmed sugar cane, which is a favourite to take home and chew on. Of course, getting it home might be a problem…..

We went first to the Royal Palace Compound which includes the Durbar Hall, which our guide advised us was not really worth paying extra for, though having looked at the photos online, I rather wished we had visited. Next time… We did The Art Gallery where there is a magnificent collection of Chola bronzes, housed in a high-vaulted building dating back to 1600. A few words about Chola bronzes.

The Chola dynasty took over from the Pallavas (no need for a pun, thank you) in the 9th century, I think and had about 250 years of power, centred on Tanjore. They went on to defeat the Pandyas and Cheras and also conquered Sri Lanka, the Maldives and the Andamans with enclaves in Java and Sumatra. One of their claims to fame was the bronze statues that decorated temples, made via the ‘cire perdu’ or lost-wax method and using 5 metals – copper, silver, gold, brass and lead that has its roots at least as far as the Indus Valley civilisation of 2500 to 1500 BC and the finest were perfected by the Cholas running from the late 9th to early 11th century AD. The most popular subjects are Shiva and his consort Parvati. I could go on, but here are a select few on display at the art gallery in Tanjore.

Some of the bronzes are contained in the H.H. Raja Serfoji II Memorial Hall and Museum. In the 18th century, the youthful Serfoji was the victim of a feud between the Pandyas and Hoysalas and was held in a pitch-black prison cell for years. Despite several attempts to suffocate him by burning red chillies in his cell he survived and was rescued by a Danish missionary in 1789 and became Maharaja of Thanjavur.

We also visited Saraswati Mahal Library and Museum, which has some 44,000 manuscripts, 80% in Sanskrit, many on palm-leaves, where the script is sometimes made by pricking holes in it. There is a rather bizarre array of books including an exquisitely illustrated ‘Punishments in China, published in 1804 with some extremely gruesome prints. Sadly no photos allowed inside, but here are some shots of the outside and other bits and pieces.

It was time to head off to our next amazing temple, in this case, the Brihadishwara Temple. It is not as flamboyant as earlier examples we (and you) have seen, but we liked it a lot. In a way, the lack of paint gives it a more ancient feel and, indeed, it is ancient, having been built in the Chola period by King Rajaraja I to facilitate the worship of Shiva. As ever, you enter via a gopura, that then leads to another one.

The next gopura was not far away and of the same pattern as the first, though I especially liked the two enormous gatekeepers. These are mighty fanged dvarpala door guardians, mirror images of each other and thought to be the largest monolithic sculptures in any Indian temple.

Now all this was impressive, but was merely the starter to the main course that is the main temple, a granite construction consisting of a long, pillared mandapa hallway followed by the ardhamandapa or ‘half-hall’, which in turn leads to the inner sanctum, the garbha griha. The plinth of the central shrine measures 46 sq metres and above it the pyramidal vimana tower is 61m high. It was built in 1010 AD and has 13 diminishing storeys, the apex being exactly one-third the size of the base. The stone at the top is said to weigh 80 tonnes and the popular theory as to how it got up there is that they built a 6-kilometre-log ramp, having covered the bit they had already built in huge amounts of soil. Another theory is that it is not one piece of stone!

First though we had a good look at the resident Nandi, having become something like experts on the matter (I am not sure what ‘something like an expert’ is, but I am sure that is what we were) and very fine he was too. We could not enter the sanctum sanctorum (or sanitarium as one of our guides called it) as non-Hindus, which was good, considering the crowds, but a shame as the 3.5m high black shivalingam must be worth a look. It is called Adavallan, “the one who can dance well”, a reference to Shiva as Nataraja, the King of the Dance. For the uninitiated, as far as I can gather, virtually every temple’s main point of worship is a lingam or phallus resting in the yoni, the representation of female sexuality all of which represents Shiva, as the generative power, all of existence, all creativity and fertility at every cosmic level. As far as I can see, it is usually just a pillar of stone.

There were some interesting sort of side chapels….

And so to the ‘piece de la resistance’, the main temple. There is an extraordinary amount of inscriptions on the base providing incredible detail about the organisation of the temple and recording the gifts of King Rajaraja I including the equivalent of 600lb of silver, 500lb of gold and 250lb of assorted jewels and income from agricultural land. No fewer than 400 female dancers, devadasis (literally ‘slaves to the gods’) were employed and each provided with a house. Some photos….

And that was Thanjavur (and Tanjore). We made our way back to Trichy for another night at the Sangam Hotel and looked forward to our next port of call – Pondicherry.