Brihadeeswarar Temple (Peruvudaiyar Koil)

Deity

Brihadeeswarar with Brihannayaki and the great Nandi

Where

Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu · 10.78N 79.13E

Usual hours

6 am – 12.30 pm, 4 pm – 8.30 pm — hours change with festivals and the season; check before travelling. Were these right when you went?

Grahas

Suriyan Guru

Visited for

Rajaraja Chola’s temple, the linga nearly four metres tall. Maha Sivaratri and the Sadaya Vizha are its days; visited for standing, for authority and where Suriyan is weak.

This is a royal foundation rather than a purana site, and it has less sthala purana attached to it than almost any temple of its size. What tradition it does carry is about the building: the siddhar Karuvur Thevar is said to have been present at the consecration and to have settled the linga when it would not stand, and his shrine is inside the complex.

Brihadeeswarar was built by Rajaraja Chola I and consecrated in about 1010. It is the best-documented temple in south India: the base of the vimana carries long inscriptions recording the endowments made to it — land, lamps, gold, and the singers, dancers and drummers assigned to its service by name.

It is one of the three Great Living Chola Temples inscribed together on the UNESCO World Heritage list, with Gangaikonda Cholapuram and Darasuram.

Chola wall paintings were found in the dark circumambulatory passage around the sanctum, under a later layer of Nayak painting, and part of them has been uncovered.

The vimana over the sanctum rises far higher than the gopurams in front of it, which is the reverse of the later Tamil arrangement and the first thing a visitor notices.

The linga inside is very large — it is the reason for the name — and the Nandi facing it, carved from a single block and set in its own pavilion, is one of the biggest in the country.

Two gopurams lead in through a long walled court. Karuvur Thevar’s shrine, the Subrahmanya shrine and the Amman shrine stand in the outer prakaram, the last two added under later dynasties.

Maha Sivaratri and the Aadi and Thai months are the busiest religious days; the Margazhi mornings fill the outer court.

The Sadaya Vizha, kept on Rajaraja’s birth star of Sadayam in Aippasi, is the temple’s own day and is marked by the town as much as by the temple.

Also called

Peruvudaiyar Koil, Rajarajeswaram, the Big Temple

Period

Chola, consecrated in the early eleventh century under Rajaraja I

Reaching it

The temple is inside Thanjavur town, about 2 km from Thanjavur Junction railway station. Thanjavur is roughly 55 km from Tiruchirappalli and 40 km from Kumbakonam.

• Punnainallur Mariamman Temple 5.6 km · Sakta (Amman)
• Thirukkandiyur Brahmasirakandeeswarar Temple 6.4 km · Saiva
• Aiyarappar Temple, Thiruvaiyaru 11.6 km · Saiva
• Thingalur Kailasanathar Temple 12.3 km · Saiva
• Garbarakshambigai Temple, Thirukarukavur 18 km · Saiva
• Alangudi Apatsahayesvarar Temple 20.9 km · Saiva

Been to this temple? The things that change — whether the hours on this page were right, whether the sannidhi was open, how long the queue was on a Saturday — are exactly what no printed source keeps current, and what the next person travelling here needs.

• Were the hours right when you went?
• Is anything on this page wrong or out of date?
• A photograph of the gopuram, the tank, or the notice board

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