Mystery Behind Brihadeeswara Temple - தஞ்சை பெரிய கோவில் - SJ Informative

Mystery Behind Brihadeeswara Temple

    Tamil Nadu's special thing will be defined by its architecture, because of its majestic construction, Brihadeeswara Temple, known as Thanjai Peria Kovil in Tamil. In any time, any period, any kind of people have curiosity to visit this temple, because of its unbelievable construction.

    There were various kinds of temples in Tamil Nadu which are going to describe history and pride, but thanjai kovil was special and it was precursor for all temples. In 1010 AD, this temple was built with full of granites, but history revealed that there was no granite stones in that area so they decided to take granites from 50miles away. At the same time, experts told that there is possible to build temple like this now.

    Raja Raja Cholan was the powerful king in south, the Chola emperor, who decided to build this temple, in order to prove his power and the pride of tamil language to all kind of generations after his death. After that he got advices from his Ministers and they were also spoke with him and then they came to decide to build this temple in Thanjavur. They decided to build this temple through powerful stones, so they have used granites stones, they used elephants to lift these stones.

    Using elephants to lift the stones was not an easy thing, because one lakh thirty thousand tonne stones were used for this construction, In order to lift these stones, 30000 elephants required for this, but its not possible for the elephants, but this was done perfectly by Raja Raja Cholan. For construct this temple, Raja Raja Cholan used 600 sculptors and more than 1 lakh workers were involved in this construction.

    Top plane of this temple, we can easily this top from any location, but King and his workers were faced toughest situation to construct this top plane and it was constructed with the help of two stones, each one was 40 tonne, totally 80 tonne and this used in the construction for the top of temple. But still experts and people didn't know how the 80 tonne stone lifted to the top. Height of this temple is 216 ft. Elephant can bear 25 tonne only at a time, this was the greatest unsolved puzzle in this temple.

    In those days, in order to cut granite stones, some holes were drilled in inline and then water was poured into it and then wood was inserted into the hole, with the help of water wood was grown in bigger than actual size then granite stone was cut into two pieces in exact straight line. Without any superior technology, Raja Raja Chola built this temple in 7 years. There were lot of paintings inside the temple, now its very difficult to build the temple like this. 

    Nandi,(in sanskrit, looks like cow), it was the Guardian for Lord Shiva. Nandi was constructed in the single stone with 16ft length and 13ft wide. There were mysterious tunnels inside the temple but there were no more evidences for that, but some told these tunnels were used to escape from enemies at the time of war.

    In order to prove that all are equal, all names of workers who were involved in this construction were encrypted in this temple. But there was one lady name which was engraved in the top plane of this temple. There was a reason for that. At the time of the construction, one old lady who served water and butter milk for the workers, one day all workers were unsatisfied because the top plane not suit properly in its place, while heard this incidence, that old lady brought one stone from her house and told workers to use this, but workers didn't have belief in that and they took that stone and fixed in the top, this time top of the plane was fit exactly in its position.

    This news was sent to the ears of Raja Raja Cholan, the king ordered to engrave her name "Alazhi" in its top of the plane. Raja Raja Cholan have great faith in god and also in Tamil language, because history revealed that, there was 18ft gap under Lord Shiva Linga Statue, this denotes the count of 'Mei ezhuthukkal' (tamil words), and Shiva Linga was 12 ft high, this denotes the count of 'Uyir Ezhuthu'(tamil words) and the total height of this temple 216 ft, it denotes the count of 'Uyir Mei eluzhu' (tamil words), this was the symbolic nature of Tamil, that's why it was considered as majestic temple.

Thanks,

S.J.