Tanjavur:
There was a demon called Tanjan who troubled the inhabitants, so Vishnu came as Nilamega perumal.This is the hagiology of the place.
Dikshitar's stay in Tanjore was significant in the sense that the musical activity took on a technical turn. It is said that the king Serfoji invited him and that the king is referred to as a devotee of the lord in the song on Brhadeeshwara in Nabhamani.This is a disputed kriti as there is no guruguha mudra.There he is supposed to have been in touch with shyama shastri who lived at the other end of the same west main street.
It was here that he came into contact with the four dance masters, Ponnaya, Chinnaiya, Sivanandam and Vadivelu, who adopted him as their guru.Vadivelu learnt the violin from Baluswami Dikshitar.Later he was under the patronage of the Swati Tirunal the King of Travancore who was a great patron of fine arts
To the big temple(Periya Kovil) at Tanjore the four brothers were attached.Kuravanchi dance drama by devadasis was a regular feature here.
Dikshitar compiled a corpus of songs to illustrate the 72 mela scheme of the Kanakambari nomenclature and the Venkatamakhin school using raga names with katapayadhi prefixes of this school.It is said that the idea
of Lalithopakhyana and Sivalalitopakhyana krithis, was conceived here.
Deities :
- Big Temple(Periya kovil) - Brhadeeswara, Brhannayaki
- Konkaneshwara and Gnanambika
- Vishwanatha - South Main Street.
- Kamakshi-West Main Street
- Varadaraja and lakshmi-South Main Street
- Shweta Ganapathy - East Gate Market.
- Agastheeshwarar,Anandavalli-Vennar bank.
- Karuttangadi -Kodanda Rama
- Dakshinamurthi
- Krishna
- Prasanna Venkateshwara
- Govindaraja - Tanjore.
This temple occupies an area of 3,20,000 sq. feet in a small fort encircled by a moat. This was built by Raja Raja I. The temple has a huge tower, colossal linga and the monolithic bull.
A local legend says that the king was suffering from leprosy. His spiritual preceptor suggested that he could get rid of his disease by building a temple for shiva, in which a lingam brought from River Narmada was to he installed . He did accordingly. It took twelve years to complete the temple.After the Kumbabhishekam, the king had a bath in the tank and was cured of his leprosy. The vimana is 216 feet high and is built of Stone. The cupdic dome rests on a single block of granite slab 25 1/2 feet square estimated to weigh 80 tons. This was moved into position by means of an inclined plane starting at sarapallam a village 4 mile South.It is said that the gopura kalasam's shadow does not fall on the ground.
The figure of Nataraja is exquisite. Brhannayaki is in a separate sanctum. It is a later addition, near to main temple in the North West Corner, there is an elegant shrine dedicated to Subramanya which is an exquisite piece of decorative art of carved stone work, built by nayak rulers the patrols are guarded by huge dwarapalakas eighteen feet high, each made of single stone.
A massive monolithic Nandi is placed in a mantapam in the foremost part of the temple. This Nandi, twelve and a half feet high and nineteen and a half feet long is the second largest in India the largest being the one in Shrishailam Andhrapradesh
There are Chola Fresco paintings in the corridor. The entire wall is full of paintings of different periods of the Chola and Pandya rule narrating the various mythological and social customs of the different periods.
The important festivals observed here are
- chithra Brahmotsavam
- shivarathri
- thai Poosam
- mAsi Makam
- skanda shashti
- ArudrA darshanam
- vinAyaka Chathurthi
- Birth day of Raja Raja Cholan(Arulmozhi varman) - Aippasi Sathayam.
