The Colas c35.6

c35.6

The rule of the Cōḷas covered roughly a period of four centuries (a.d. 850-1250). During this long period not only was the entire Tamil country studded with stone temples of varying sizes, the erection of *karṟaḷis*, all-stone temples from base to finial (*upānādi-stūpi pariyantam*), being often mentioned as a mark of distinction, but the canon of Cōḷa architecture was adopted and followed in areas outside the Tamil country—Ceylon, Mysore, Drākṣārāma and other places in Andhra for instance. It is not possible to survey here all these monuments; we must confine our attention to the Tamil country proper and to a few typical structures that possess the leading characteristics of each stage in the development of architectural motifs and designs. The number of temples of which the precise date of construction is known is not many, but the architectural motifs when carefully studied reveal features typical of each phase of the art; the Śiva temple at Koṟkai in Tinnevelly district, (Pl. III, fig. 5) for instance, looks like a very early Cōḷa temple, but its walls bear no inscriptions earlier than the time of Kulōttunga I; if, however, it is noted that the late inscriptions occur only in the *mahāmaṇḍapa*, and that the *garbhagṛha* and *ardhamaṇḍapa* have nearly the same external and internal dimensions as the early Cōḷa temples of Pudukkottah, that the cornice here carries a *haṁsa* frieze underneath, and that there are no niches on the exterior of the walls of the sanctum, there can be little doubt left that the main shrine was certainly pre-Rājarāja in date, and the *mahāmaṇḍapa* a later addition. On the other hand, some features of the early Cōḷa and in places even pre-Cōḷa style, like the plain bevelled corbel without the triangular tenon-like projection, appear in temples known to have been built late in the Cōḷa period like the Mayūranātha of Māyavaram (Tanjore) and Brahmēśvara in Brahmadeśam (S. Arcot). Another difficulty arises from the additions made to early temples in later times; they are mainly in the form of pillared *maṇḍapas* and corridors which often obscure the leading traits of early art; subsidiary structures, surrounding walls and *gōpuras* on them create a somewhat confusing temple complex, the growth of which through its several stages is not always easy to trace. The temple of Uyyakkoṇḍān-Tirumalai near Trichinopoly, for instance, was at first a free-standing early Cōḷa temple on a hill; under Rājēndra I it was surrounded by *maṇḍapas* erected at some distance from the main shrine so as not to obscure its features; but subsequent additions have not been marked by such taste, and have made it difficult to visualise the original beauty of the shrine and its situation.