Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c27.18

c27.18

Outside the main enclosure, but in axial alignment with the eastern gopuram from which it is separated by an intervening busy thoroughfare of traders' shops, is the large supplementary hall of the Vasanta or Pudu Mandapam, commonly known as Tirumalai's Chaultri. This is in the shape of the parallelogram measuring 330 feet by 105 feet and is recorded to have taken seven years to build, from 1626 to 1633, being a contribution to the temple scheme by Tirumalai Nayak. Its use is as a reception hall or temporary place of residence for the presiding deity during a certain festival season of the year. Divided longitudinally into a nave and two aisles by four rows of pillars, all elaborately carved, the long columned perspective of its interior, although lacking in feeling, is rich and impressive. Towards the centre of the hall the regularity of its line of pillars is interrupted by a group of these columns being accorded different treatment from the others. On their shafts are sculptured, in the round, ten life-size statues each of which portrays a king of the Nayaka house of Madura, the last of the line being that of Tirumalai (1623-52) the builder of this fine mandapam (Plate LXXVIII, Fig. 2).