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THE CHOLA TEMPLES (ARCHITECTURE)

To understand the architecture of the Chola temples, it is essential to know something of the preand post-Chola architecture. The Pallava temples ofthe seventh to the ninth centuries, the earliest in south India, have certain features which differentiate them from the later ones

ARCHITECTURE

To understand the architecture of the Chola temples, it is essential to know something of the preand post-Chola architecture. The Pallava temples ofthe seventh to the ninth centuries, the earliest in south India, have certain features which differentiate them from the later ones. As Jouveau-Dubreuil has very clearly illustrated, the niche, the pavilion, the pillarand pilaster-corbel and the horseshoe-shaped windows (kudu), among others, are the most important factors which help in the ascertainment of the dates of the monuments.

A typical niche (fig. 1) in the earlier Pallava rockcut monuments at Mahabalipuram and in the KailSsanatha temple at Kanchipuram is rather wide, and the makara-torana decoration on the niche-top is flat, the floriated tail of the makctra overflowing on the sides; but in a Chola niche, as in the later Pallava ones, the space is narrower and the decoration on the niche-top more round. The simulated railings for the pavilions on monuments at Mahabalipuram are quite different from their Chola counterparts. The ku#u (fig. 2) which at the Mahabalipuram monuments has a shovel-headed finiahdevelops a lion-head in the Chola monuments, and this continues thereafter. The capital of the pillar (figs. 3 and 4) and pilaster in the Chola monuments, rectangular with its sides cut off in a slant at 45┬░, has the central portion project┬м ing. It is from this that the later Vijayanagara lotuscorbels develop. It is easily seen that without the central projecting block the Chola corbel is not essentially diff┬м erent from the early Pallava one, where the same angle also occurs in addition to the rounded corbel.

The central shrine in the Pallava structural temples, like the Kailasanatha at K&fichipuram, is prominent and the gopura is quite dwarfish. In the early Gho}a temples the shrine is magnified, and in the time of R&jar&ja and his successors it becomes colossal, as one notices in the temples at Thafij&vur, Gahgaikondacholapuram, Darasuram and Tribhuvanam. The gopura in the early Ghola temples, though larger in size than in the Pallava ones, is still comparatively short, and it is only in the late Ghola period that gigantic gopuras come into being and dwarf the central shrine. The earlier Pallava dvara-palas (door-keepers), with a very natural look and mostly with a single pair ofarms, are replaced in the Ghola structures by those with a fierce mien and four arms, the ones in the Tharijavur and Gahgaikondacholapuram temples being typical exam┬м ples: they carry the triiUla (trident) on their crowns, bear tusks protruding from their mouths and strike terror with their knit eye-brows, rolling eyes and hands always in the tarjani (threatening) and vismaya (wonder) atti┬м tudes. In the large Ghola temples, long flights of steps from the sides lead to the platform, whence one enters the sanctum; the balustrade is massive, curls up at the end and is decorated on the exterior. Alternating koshtkapanjaras and kumbha-paHjaras (fig. 5) form a regular feature of the decoration, and the niches are flanked by pilasters crowned on the top by a curved roof-moulding adorned by two kudus with crowning lion-heads. The base ofthe entire series ofthese niches hasjw/j-decoration and at corners and intervals there are ma^am-heads withwarriors in action issuing from their mouths. The pavi┬м lions are usually two panjaras flanking a said (wagon-roof pavilion), the former with a single finial and the latter with three. The kumbha-panjara itself shows stages of development, and the earlier and simpler ones, which we find in the early Chola temples, become more decora┬м tive and developed in the later ones.

Separate mandapas, which form a regular feature in the late Chola and Vijayanagara temples, with a number of pillars adorning them, are not so prominent in the early Chola structures, though the front of the temple is a long mandapa for different forms of bhoga-worshiip. A large courtyard and small shrine against the enclosurewall at the cardinal and inter-cardinal points for the dik-palas (guardians of the directions) form a feature in the early Chola examples. The following pages describe three of the most important Chola temples, viz., the two Brihadisvara temples, respectively built by Rajaraja I (985-1012) and Rajendra (1012-44) at Thanjaviir aiid Gangaikondacholapuram, and the Airavatesvara temple, built by Virarajendra (1063-69) or Rajaraja II (1150-73) at Darasuram.



















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