The Colas c35.23

c35.23

The earliest specimen of the time of Parāntaka I is the temple popularly known as Koranganātha in Śrīnivāsanallūr (Muśiri taluq, Trichinopoly district), of which the deity is described as Tirukkurakkuttuṟai Perumānandigaḷ in the earliest inscriptions.¹³ A medium-sized temple (fig. 10) with an overall length of 50 feet, it has a square *garbhagṛha* of 25 feet side, and a *maṇḍapa* in front 25 feet by 20. The top of the *śikhara* is 50 feet from the ground and the cornice of the *maṇḍapa* and *garbhagṛha* 16 ft. The cella, which has the appearance of being doublestoried on account of a cornice at its middle height, is 12 feet square inside and entered by an *antarāla* borne on four pillars. A projecting niche in the middle of each of the three free sides of the *garbhagṛha*, and the recesses on either side of it accommodate icons or portrait sculptures of about half lifesize and of such high relief as to appear almost as in the round. The north and south walls of the *antarāla* have similar niches which must once have enshrined Durgā and Gaṇapati. The niches for the *dvārapālas* are also empty. The decorative designs of the arches above the niches are intermediate between those of the Kailāsanātha of Kāñcī and of Tanjore. There is no *kapota* on the basement and its place is taken by the frieze of *simhas* nearly as prominent as at Tanjore in the next period. There is no *gaṇa*-frieze below the cornice of the *garbhagṛha*, where we see instead over the beam the projecting ends of the rafters inside, imitated from the wooden rafters of a brick and mortar temple.