India is a very beautiful country with lot of spiritual places and magnificent architectures. One of such is Brihadeeswara temple which is located at Tanjore in Tamilnadu state of India. It is one of the exclusive wonders of the world.
This is the biggest temple in the world. It is also known as RajaRajeswara Temple. The temple construction started in 1004 CE and completed in 1010 CE. The spell bound architecture represents the intelligence of chola dynasty. The Granite stone and sandstone are used to build this temple. The temple was built by Emperor Arul̥mozhivarman, who is a great devotee to Lord Shiva and he is known in history as Emperor Raja Raja Chola I. It is declared by UNESCO as “Great Living Chola Temples” World Heritage Site. The temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva. The architect and engineer of the temple was Kunjara Mallan Raja Raja Rama Perunthachan as stated in inscriptions found at the temple.
Some Of The Interesting Facts Are:
1. The temple tower is 216 feet or 66 meters high.
2. The main temple is built by using granite and to build the temple more than 130,000 tons of granite is used.
3. The rounded apex dome on top is made from a single stone which weighs approximately 80 tones.
4. The Kalasam or Gopuram on top of the dome is 6 feet tall.
5. At the entrance of the Gate, 16 ft long and 13 ft high Nandi (Sacred bull) is carved out of a single rock.
6. There was not a single granite quarry in about 100 km radius of the temple which astounds historians even to this date. It is evitable that transporting these stones would have been a herculean task.
7. The different kinds of jewels, eleven varieties of diamonds and rubies, twenty three different types of pearls used in the period are mentioned in the inscriptions.
To celebrate the 1000th year of Brihadeeswara Temple, the state government held many cultural events and also released commemorate coins and stamps. Here are the few ones coins released by state government.
Reserve Bank of India released ₹ 1000 currency note on 1 April 1954 to honour the historic Brihadeeswara Temple which is a UNESCO World heritage site.
It is a great tribute to Raja Raja Chola who gave us this India’s pride and legendary architecture which stuns the people around the world.
Don’t miss to watch the beautifully carved scultptures in Brihadeeswara Temple. Plan a trip now .
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