THE CHOLA TEMPLES (ARCHITECTURE)
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.