The Colas c35.7

c35.7

The replacement of brick by stone structures went on steadily under the Cōḷas, and is often mentioned in the inscriptions. Perhaps the earliest instance is that of Tirukkaḷukkunṟam in the Chingleput district; all the early inscriptions of the temple occur in an apsidal stone building with a flat top which now serves as a strong-room; its architectural features are either late Pallava or early Cōḷa in character; an inscription of the twenty-seventh year of Rājakēsari⁴ suggests that the temple must have been in existence as a brick structure from the days of Skandaśiṣya (if not earlier) to those of Āditya I, when it was built of stone and its original grants dating from Skandaśiṣya’s time renewed and confirmed. At a later date even this stone temple was abandoned in favour of another large stone temple. Āditya I is praised for his having built stone temples of Śiva from Sahyādri to the sea. In his reign, however, brick temples were also built; a Paḷuvēṭṭaraiya chieftain Kandan Maṟavan built a brick temple of Tiruttōrram-uḍaiya-mahādēva which was rebuilt of stone many years later in the reign of Kulōttunga I;⁵ at the same time another fine stone temple of Agastyeśvara (Pl. IV, fig. 8) was built in the same place in Āditya’s reign, and this temple well preserved to this day conserves the most notable features of the transition from Pallava to Cōḷa architecture—such as pillars with squatting lions forming their lower half and marked by large thick *palagais* over their capitals (Pl. V, fig. 9). At Tirukōḍikāval (Tanjore district) Queen Śembiyan-mahādēvi rebuilt of stone an old brick temple in the eleventh year of her son Uttama-Cōḷa’s reign, and Rājarāja I ordered in his twenty-eighth year the reconstruction in stone of the temple at Tirumalavāḍi, a task completed by his son as recorded in one of the inscriptions.⁶ Other examples need not be recounted; obviously brick and stone architecture flourished side by side, and to this day we have the all-brick Cōḷa temple at Nāngūr (Tanjore district) which reproduces all the mouldings in the basement and other architectural features typical of the Cōḷa style.