A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c21.83

c21.83

The temple of Gangaikondaśōlapuram, the creation of Rājarāja's son Rājendra, was evidently meant to excel its predecessor in every way. The town which once surrounded it, as also the large lake of fresh water that once adorned the neighbourhood of the Chola capital, have now disappeared, and this fine temple therefore stands in the solitude of the wilderness except for the mud huts of a small village nearby. Erected about 1030, only two decades after the temple of Tanjore and in much the same style, the greater elaboration in its appearance attests the more affluent state of the Chola empire under Rājendra. It is larger in plan though not so tall, the vimāna being 100 feet square at the base and 186 feet high. The temple, which forms a large rectangle 340 feet long and 110 feet wide, occupies the middle of an immense walled enclosure partly designed for defensive purposes, as may be seen from a substantial bastion at the south-east angle and a smaller one on the west. Its main entrance is on the east, next to which is the mahāmaṇḍapa, a rather low building 175 feet by 95 feet with over 150 pillars of ordinary design. These pillars are arranged in colonnades on a solid platform 4 feet high which is divided by a wide passage or aisle down the centre while a narrower passage on the same level is carried round the hall. Between the mahāmaṇḍapa and the sanctuary is a transept with doorways to the north and south, 'both deeply recessed side entrances approached from outside by flights of steps'. As in Tanjore, there are in the transept two rows of massive square piers, eight in all.