Three Chola Temples at Thanjavur, Gangaikonda Cholapuram and Darasuram Are Still in Daily Worship, More Than 1,000 Years After the First Was Consecrated in 1010

The Great Living Chola Temples are three Shiva temples in Tamil Nadu that UNESCO lists as one World Heritage property: the Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur, inscribed in 1987, and the Brihadisvara temple at Gangaikonda Cholapuram and the Airavatesvara temple at Darasuram, both added in 2004. According to UNESCO’s statement of value, the worship begun over a thousand years ago at all three “continues daily, weekly and annually”.

Rajaraja I built the first, his son Rajendra I the second and Rajaraja II the third. Both kings have their own articles, Rajaraja Chola, emperor of the seas and Rajaraja Chola and Rajendra Chola, so this piece stays with the buildings and the people who keep them.

What UNESCO listed in 1987 and 2004

At its 11th session in 1987 the World Heritage Committee inscribed the Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur, under criteria (ii) and (iii). Seventeen years later, at its 28th session, it approved the extension to Gangaikonda Cholapuram and Darasuram, renamed the property Great Living Chola Temples and added criteria (i) and (iv). The listed area is 21.74 hectares, with a buffer zone of 16.715 hectares.

Criterion (i) describes the three temples as an “outstanding creative achievement in the architectural conception of the pure form of the dravida type of temple”. Dravida is the southern Indian temple style, with a tower called the vimana over the sanctum. Under criterion (iii) they are an exceptional testimony to the architecture of the Chola Empire and of Tamil civilisation in southern India.

The spellings of the names differ between sources. UNESCO’s listing text writes Brihadisvara for the Thanjavur temple, Gangaikondacholisvaram for the second temple and Gangaikondacholapuram for the town, and Britannica writes Brihadishvara. In English the Press Information Bureau writes Brihadeeswarar, and in Tamil it writes பிரகதீஸ்வரர், கங்கைகொண்ட சோழபுரம் and தஞ்சாவூர். This article follows UNESCO.

Thanjavur: a granite tower consecrated in 1010

Rajaraja I may have started the temple in his 19th regnal year (1003 to 1004 CE) and consecrated it with his own hands in his 25th (1009 to 1010 CE), UNESCO says. The SOAS art historian Crispin Branfoot gives the date as 22 April 1010 in an essay for Sahapedia. Britannica names the architect as Kunjara Mallan Raja Rama Perunthachan and says the king set a gold-plated finial, the kalasam, on the tower in 1010.

In Britannica’s account the inscriptions call the temple Dakshina Meru, the Mount Meru of the south, and it was first named Rajarajeswaram, after the king. By the 16th century it was Peruvudaiyar Kovil in Tamil, and the usual local name now is Thanjai Periya Kovil, the Thanjavur Big Temple.

On size, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) gives the inner courtyard as 240.9 metres long and 122 metres wide. UNESCO puts the vimana at 59.82 metres, in 13 tiers under an octagonal crown. Other published heights differ: more than 200 feet (60 metres) in Britannica, and 216 feet, about 66 metres, in news reports of the 2020 consecration. Britannica adds that the granite came from at least 45 kilometres up the Kaveri and was laid without mortar.

At the top, the ASI says, the octagonal sikhara rests on a single granite block, a square of 7.8 metres, that weighs 80 tons. Britannica also gives about 80 tons for the kumbam, the cupola on top, and says it is carved from a single rock. A ramp some 6 kilometres long is said to have raised the stone, but Britannica calls that a legend.

The big Nandi, Shiva’s bull, sits in a pavilion near the east entrance and weighs an estimated 25 tons, according to Britannica. It is later than the Cholas. The pavilion was added under the Nayakas, who ruled Thanjavur after them, Britannica says. Branfoot dates both the present image and its pavilion to the 16th century and says the Chola-period Nandi was moved to the southern enclosure wall.

Murals, 81 dance poses and the bronzes

Expansive mural paintings cover the temple walls, UNESCO says, and 81 of the 108 karanas, the postures of Bharatanatyam, are carved on the second-storey walls around the sanctum. The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) adds that the carving stopped after the 81st.

Inside, the ASI ranks the paintings of the lower ambulatory among the finest Chola and later work, and says the Nayaka-period Thanjavur school of painting is largely laid over the Chola murals. Branfoot reports that the 11th-century murals were found in 1931 under 17th-century Nayaka paintings. Per IGNCA, the Chola paintings in the passage around the sanctum are “the only remaining examples of Cola paintings that we have today”.

R. Nagaswamy, a former head of the Tamil Nadu archaeology department, says the Rajaraja-period paintings show Dakshinamurthi, Tripurantaka and Kalyansundara, along with the life of the saint Sundaramurthi and the king himself visiting the Chidambaram temple.

Bronze casting is one of the Chola achievements UNESCO says the three temples show, and it calls the bronzes of Bhogasakti and Subrahmanya at Gangaikonda Cholapuram “masterpieces of Chola metal icons”. Nagaswamy says the bronzes Rajaraja and his family gave to Thanjavur carried inscriptions fixing where each was to stand, and that a person was assigned to each one to look after its daily worship and safety. Apart from the Nataraja, which was found broken and later repaired and reconsecrated, he says the original bronzes are no longer there. At Gangaikonda Cholapuram, he adds, a Subramanya bronze is still worshipped.

Gangaikonda Cholapuram: a capital built for a campaign

Rajendra I chose the site for a new imperial capital, most probably in the first quarter of the 11th century, to commemorate his conquest of the northern territories, according to the ASI. The Press Information Bureau says the city stayed the capital for over 250 years.

UNESCO gives 1035 as the year the temple was completed, while Britannica’s architecture entries say about 1025 and 1030 to 1040. The Press Information Bureau says the 2025 celebrations marked 1,000 years since construction began.

The 53-metre vimana has recessed corners and a graceful upward curve, UNESCO says, in contrast to the straight, severe tower at Thanjavur. Branfoot gives about 51 metres. Speaking at the temple on 27 July 2025, the Prime Minister said Rajendra built the gopuram lower out of respect for his father’s temple at Thanjavur. UNESCO’s two heights, 53 and 59.82 metres, show the later tower is the lower one.

Here the layout follows Thanjavur, the ASI says, and the architect corrected some of its shortcomings, for example by providing for a wooden scaffolding inside the masonry of the sanctum. Six pairs of monolithic dvarapalas, the guardian figures at the entrances, stand at the doors. Among the sculptures the ASI lists are a dancing Ganesa, Ardhanari, Dakshinamurthi, Harihara and Nataraja, and it singles out the Chandesanugrahamurti and Sarasvati, in the niches beside the northern steps to the sanctum, as the most outstanding. The lion-well, the Simhakeni, was part of Rajendra’s plan, per UNESCO.

No inscription of Rajendra himself survives at the temple, the ASI notes. The earliest is his son’s, recording his father’s donations. In the 19th century a British officer judged the temple the best source of stone for a weir across the Kollidam river and ordered its demolition, and protests by local people stopped it, the ASI records.

Darasuram: a hall built as a chariot

Rajaraja II reigned from 1143 to 1173 according to UNESCO and the ASI, and from 1146 to 1173 according to Britannica. Branfoot says the Airavatesvara temple was complete by 1167. With a 24-metre vimana it is the smallest of the three, and the ASI calls it highly ornate.

UNESCO and the ASI say the front hall, called Rajagambhiran tirumandapam in the inscriptions, was conceived as a chariot with wheels. Branfoot describes the stairs on the south side as having stone wheels and rearing horses. Labelled miniature friezes show events from the lives of the 63 Nayanmars, the Shaiva saints, and the ASI says the king made donations for singing the Thevaram, the Tamil Shaiva hymns, in this temple.

The complex was built all at once, with no later structures, UNESCO says, and the Deivanayaki Amman shrine, slightly later, stands in its original form in its own enclosure. A number of the sculptures, including the full set of Bhikshatana figures with the wives of the sages, are now in the Thanjavur Art Gallery, the ASI says.

Nagaswamy says the name Airavatesvara is a later colloquial one. In his account the temple was originally Rajarajesvaram, which became Daraisvaram in speech and then Darasuram. UNESCO and the ASI use Airavatesvara, and so does this article.

What living worship means, and who looks after the temples

All three monuments have been well preserved since inscription, with no major threats, UNESCO says, and the ASI maintains and monitors them. At Gangaikonda Cholapuram on 27 July 2025, the Prime Minister’s release says, the programme was accompanied by the chanting of the Odhuvars, the traditional singers of the Tamil hymns.

Thanjavur held its consecration ceremony, the kumbabishekam, on 5 February 2020, after 23 years. Holy water was poured on the gold-plated kalasam at about 9.20 am and thousands came to watch, Matters India reported. Before that, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court ruled that the ceremony could be carried out in both Tamil and Sanskrit and dismissed the other pleas, according to News Today. The News Minute reported that the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) Department had told the court it would use both languages, and that the ASI had permitted the ceremony subject to 15 conditions.

Protection came in stages. UNESCO says the ASI has protected the three temples since 1922 (Thanjavur), 1946 (Gangaikonda Cholapuram) and 1954 (Darasuram), and that all three came under the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act from 1959. Conservation of the structures, paintings and sculpture rests with the ASI alone. Temple administration, meaning staffing, accounts, records and rules, belongs to the state’s HR&CE Department. For Thanjavur and Darasuram the two agencies also consult the hereditary trustee of the Palace Devasthanam, and when the extension was nominated they agreed in principle to draft one joint management plan.

Still to come, UNESCO’s text says, are a Conservation Management Plan and a Tourism Management and Interpretation Plan to guide future work. It also records that the 2003 periodic report noted chemical cleaning of structures and replacement of the whole Thanjavur temple floor, interventions that could affect authenticity.

The 2010 and 2025 anniversaries

For the Thanjavur temple’s 1,000th year in 2010, Britannica says, the Reserve Bank of India issued a commemorative 1,000-rupee coin showing the temple, which had already appeared on the 1,000-rupee note of 1954. IGNCA records an exhibition from 24 September to 3 October 2010 marking the thousand years of the Periya Kovil.

In July 2025 the Ministry of Culture held the Aadi Thiruvathirai festival at Gangaikonda Cholapuram from 23 to 27 July, marking Rajendra I’s birth anniversary, 1,000 years since his maritime expedition to Southeast Asia and the start of construction of the temple. Exhibitions on Chola Shaivism and temple architecture, a heritage walk and guided tours were hosted by the ASI. On 27 July Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the festival, worshipped at the temple and released a commemorative coin honouring Rajendra I. The release says he also announced that statues of Rajaraja I and Rajendra I would be installed in Tamil Nadu.

Visitors can find all three temples open from 06:30 to 20:30 every day, with free admission, on the ASI’s page. It puts Thanjavur about 330 kilometres from Chennai, Gangaikonda Cholapuram about 250 and Darasuram about 290.