The Colas c35.39

c35.39

Built within twenty years of the completion of the great Tanjore temple, that of Gaṅgaikoṇḍa-cōḷapuram (VI, fig. 12) reproduces almost all the main features of Tanjore, but in quite a different spirit; Percy Brown has called it ‘the feminine counterpart of Tanjore,’²⁹ lacking the virile qualities and masculine vigour of its predecessor, but possessing a rich and voluptuous beauty of its own. The difference in effect is almost entirely the result of the introduction of more ornamentation as in the pediment and of curves in the place of straight lines in the composition of the *vimāna*. This great temple has suffered much from modern predatory engineering,³⁰ and seems once to have been as much fortress as temple; there is a large bastion on its south-west angle, and a smaller one on the western side.