The Colas c35.46

c35.46

Other developments to be put in the same class were the *gōpuras* and *maṇḍapas* which also grew in importance in the late Cōḻa period and continued to retain it in subsequent times. A single modest *gōpura* was part of the temple plan even from Pallava times, and we have seen examples of it in such transition and early Cōḻa temples as those of Tirukkaṭṭaḷai, Mūvarkōvil and Erumūr. Again an inscription³⁹ from Vṛddhācalam (S. Arcot) of the twelfth year of Uttama Cōḻa records the construction by his mother, Śembiyan-mahādēvi, of a complete temple unit comprising *śrīkōyil*, *snapana-maṇḍapam*, *gōpura* and minor shrines. The large inner *gōpura* Rājarājan-tiruvāśal, and the outer *gōpura* Kēraḷāntakan-tiruvāśal of Tanjore, both of stone, were coeval with the main shrine. Another all-stone *gōpura* is the small and beautiful one of Nīlakaṇṭheśvara at Laddigam (N. Arcot) of the time of Rājēndra I (VII, fig. 14). Kulōttunga III was the last great builder among Cōḻa monarchs and the *gōpura* of his great temple at Tribhuvanam (to be described presently) marks the last phase of the Cōḻa style of *gōpura*. It is a squat oblong structure of five diminishing storeys with a rectangular *grīva* surmounted by a wagon-top *śikhara* with large *kūḍu*-ends on either side and a series of *kalaśas* on top. None of these *gōpuras*, however, is designed so as to interfere with the domination of the entire temple-complex by its central *vimāna*. The position was more or less exactly reversed under the later Pāṇḍyas and their successors, the rulers of Vijayanagara. To some extent the Pāṇḍya practice began when the Cōḻa style had not cleared the stage, and the Pāṇḍyan *gōpuras* of Cidambaram, Tiruvaṇṇāmalai and Jambukēśvaram (1100-1350) chosen by Jouveau-Dubreuil to illustrate that style considerably overlap the later Cōḻa period. Likewise the *maṇḍapa* is also an essential part of the temple plan as it was developed by the Cōḻas and only received a greater emphasis, often carried to meaningless excess of display, under their successors, particularly the Vijayanagar monarchs and their feudatories. Even if we take no account of the pillared cloisters of the peristyle—the *tiruccurrālais* as they were called—sometimes built in two or three storeys, the *mahāmaṇḍapas* of Tanjore and Gaṅgaikoṇḍa-cōḻapuram, and earlier still that of Mūvarkōvil must be held to be the precursors of the later more extensive *maṇḍapas*. A *maṇḍapa* called Arumoḻidēvan was built on the north of the Mēlpāḍi temple in the fourth year of Rājēndra I.⁴⁰ Though the *snapana-maṇḍapas* may not have been large structures, *nṛtta-maṇḍapas* in temples of which we hear in inscriptions must have attained a fair size. Some of these *maṇḍapas* were big enough to serve as royal camps or courts of enquiry in important causes where investigations had to be conducted by royal officials. Śēkkiḻār is said to have first expounded his *Periya-Purāṇam* in the reign of Kulōttunga II in the 1000-pillared *maṇḍapa* of the Cidambaram temple; this may mean only that that *maṇḍapa* had been built when the *Śēkkiḻār Purāṇam* which narrates the event was written; but enough has been said to show that, very probably, a *maṇḍapa* of good extent was available for Śēkkiḻār’s use.