BRIHADEESWARAR TEMPLE THANJAVUR

Brihadeeswarar Temple, Thanjavur

One of the largest temples in India, the ‘Brihadeeswarar Temple’ is dedicated to Lord Shiva and is located in the Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu. Built under the reign of the Chola dynasty in 11th century AD, the temple stands tall as a testimony to the opulence and grandeur of the Chola rulers. Today, the temple enjoys the status of a UNESCO World Heritage Site under the list of ‘Great Living Chola Temples’ and is visited by hundreds of thousands of devotees and tourists every year. The greatest attraction of the temple is its 216 ft. Tall

       ‘ Vimana’ or tower that is also claimed to be the tallest in the world. The ‘Kumbam’ or the apex structure on top of the Vimana, weighing 80 tonnes and carved from a single granite, just adds to the magnificence of the entire structure. Also, the Brihadeeswarar Temple has another feather to it with an acclaim of being the world’s first temple completely built from granite. With no granite quarry within 100 km. radius of the temple, a visit to this temple definitely makes one wonder about the logistics and efforts that must have been required to transport tonnes of granite to this site. Not only transportation, just imagine how such a heavy rock must have been first carved owing to the fact that granite is one of the hardest stones to be cut, and then later on embellished on top of a 216 ft. tall Vimana during the times when the technology was just in its early stages? Well! the answers to these questions can only be given by expert architects and engineers but, for ordinary people like us, the structure of the Brihadeeswarar Temple and its grandeur today, definitely leaves us awed with the extra-ordinarily brilliant engineering skills of the then engineers, architects and artisans.