Recently we had a trip to Tanjore Big Temple(Brihadeeswarar Temple) from Chennai.
We started from Chennai in SETC bus around 10 PM and reached Thanjavur(Tanjore) by 8 AM in the morning. It was one of the finest ride as we were able to get a good glimpse of the agricultural areas. We stayed in a lodge nearby the main(New) busstand and finished our breakfast before starting to the temple.
It costs you around Rs.30 in an auto from the New busstand to the Temple. We were welcomed by an elephant in the Temple Gateway (Interestingly i found a similar elephant in most of the pictures in internet w.r.t Tanjore Big Temple :-) ). The Big Temple belongs to Chola dynasty and i wonder how the kings have nourished the Art & Temples in those days !
One of the speciality of this temple is that the Shadow of the temple will not fall on the floors at any circumstances by sunlight. It is one of the strange architecture in the world today.
The entire temple is made of hard granite stones !! The Nandi is sooooooo big and carved out of single stone that held us our breath for a second. Its eyes were very lively and i could visualize it even now . It is a very big temple and the Lord Shiva idol is fantastic. There are lot of stone deities around the courtyard . It was interesting to find a series of stone carved Nandis on the wall surrounding the temple !
The temple gives us an idea about the strength of Chola emperor in Architecture, Sculpture, Painting and Designing. No surprise, Tanjore(Thanjavur) is one of the biggest Tourist places in South India.
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