Thanjavur big temple

City: Thanjavur
State: Tamil Nadu
Location: South India
Year of Construction 1003 and 1010 A.D.
Constructed By Raja Raja Cholan
Type of Construction Ancient
Type of Building Temple
Religion Hinduism
Best Time Winter
Visit Timings 9 a.m to 1. p.m, 2.p.m. to 6.p.m.
Entry Formalities Ticket Rs.3
Accessibility: Thanjavur is accessible by road and train from most cities of Tamil Nadu, which includes of course Madras. Trichy has an airport with flights from Madras and Colombo (Sri Lanka), and is also an important railhead. Gangaikondacholapuram is 71 kilometres from Thanjavur. The city of Kumbakonam is 40 kilometres from Thanjavur and a further five kilometres brings you to Darasuram.

Templenet focuses this week on the glorious temples attributed to the reign of Raja Raja Chola and his successors in the Thanjavur Cauvery belt of South India.

Historically speaking, these temples are not as ancient as the 274 odd Saivite temples and the 108 Vaishnavite Shrines sung by the Nayanmars and Alwars of the 7th through the 9th centuries; however they stand out as towering monuments proclaiming the glory of the Chola regime and its committment to the arts and culture.

The districts of Thanjavur, Kumbhakonam and Nagappattinam (constituting the erstwhile Thanjauvr district) boast of hundreds of ancient temples. The town of Thanjavur was the seat of the glorious Chola Empire of Tamilnadu, and was later on the seat of the Nayaks and the Marathas. True to art historian Fergusson, the Chola artists conceived like giants and finished like jewellers.