Brihadisvara at Thanjavur

The Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur, late afternoon.

A thousand years old, and still the tallest thing in town.

One mass of stone

You pass through two gateways into a courtyard big enough for a crowd, and the tower stands at the far end. It is the vimana, the tower over the sanctum, and here it rises about sixty-six metres in granite. The capstone at the top is said to weigh around eighty tonnes. Nobody is fully sure how it was raised, though the usual answer is a long earth ramp. Up close the tower is carving and doorways. From the far side of the courtyard it is one shape.

Still a working temple

Brihadisvara is a temple of Shiva, and worship has gone on here for a thousand years. People in town call it the Big Temple. Families walk the courtyard in the evening and children run on the warm stone. A huge Nandi, the bull who faces Shiva’s shrine, sits under its own pavilion, carved from a single rock. Along the inner walls runs a long corridor of shrines and old paintings. At sunset the granite turns gold.

Why people come

The temple was built by Rajaraja I, the Chola emperor, and completed in 1010. The Cholas ruled much of South India and sent fleets across the Bay of Bengal, and this was their statement. With two other Chola temples nearby, at Gangaikondacholapuram and Darasuram, it forms a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Great Living Chola Temples. Visitors from abroad come for the engineering. Tamil visitors come because it is the best-loved monument of their history.

Getting there

The nearest airport is Tiruchirappalli, usually called Trichy, about an hour away by road, with flights from Chennai, Bengaluru, the Gulf and Southeast Asia. Trains from Chennai reach Thanjavur in about six to eight hours. The temple is close to the town centre, an auto ride from the station. Entry is free. Shoes are left at the gate, and the inner sanctum closes for a few hours in the early afternoon.

In the courtyard

• Come after four. The stone is too hot for bare feet at midday.
• Stand in the far corner of the courtyard to see the tower whole.
• Add Darasuram, near Kumbakonam, about forty kilometres away. It is smaller and usually quiet.
• In town, look for Thanjavur’s gold-leaf paintings and nodding dolls. The palace has an old library worth an hour.

Walk away across the courtyard and look back once. That is the view the builders meant.