Tanjore's Temple- India's Unheralded World Wonder

I love the temples of south India, not just because of religious significance but also because you can relive history at these sites. I miss these treasures even more as I live away from my homeland.

One of the most famous and the most grandeur temple of its kind in Tamil Nadu is the Brihadeeswara temple in Tanjore (erstwhile capital of the Chola's). It is a beautiful temple built by Raja Raja Chola 1 at the height of the Tamil kingdom's golden period. The temple was consecrated in the year 1010 AD. Coincidentally the year 2010 marked the 1000th year of the temple. I had the fortune of visiting the temple in the year 2009 and all these photographs were taken at that time.
To know more about the temple please visit th wikipedia location at :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brihadeeswarar_Temple

All Indians can be really proud of heritage sites like this one. In every Indian city or town there are numerous such temples and heritage sites that announce to the world about the greatness of our civilization. I do feel that our generation needs to cherish and preserve this history and heritage and pass on to our future generation. As far as I see it, the Brihadeeshwara temple is no less significant than Taj Mahal or the other wonders in the world. There are numerous documentaries that detail how the great Brihadeeshwara temple was built. It is fascinating to know these details and the commentary about that day and age.

At last if you want have a virtual visit to the temple here is a useful link:
http://view360.in/virtualtour/thanjavur

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India's treasures - One more unraveled

I have never been to Sri Anantha Padmanaphasamy temple in Trivandrum, Kerala but I have always been enamoured by the temples of Kerela. I have visited some of the other famous temples and really been mesmerized by the ambiance and the way the temple custodians go out of the way to maintain the decorum and enforce temple rules. That said the reason I'm blogging is because of the interesting breaking news about the treasure trove found at Sri Anantha Padmanaphasamy temple ($ 22 bn by one estimate).

While the whole country and media is going berserk and debating on who must be responsible and what must be done with the treasure and how must it be utilized in the future, I for one is excited with the find.The treasure represents our country's history and a provides a rare insight and  reflection into our country's heritage.

The treasure must remain under the custody of the temple authority as the treasure rightfully belongs to the temple. The royal family must be commended for the way they have managed the temple and the treasure for hundreds of years. I think the issue is that we have very little appreciation of the history and part of this is because of the effective damage to our psyche by the British rule and I think policy makers even after independence have made no elaborate attempt to repair that damage. A good example is the history that is taught in schools. Each state has its own history text book with a lot of focus on independence struggle. Agreed that the independence struggle is an important aspect of our history to learn but what about the history for over 3,000 years before that!

We must revamp the history our kids learn in school and provide them with insights into the vast treasure trove of history that we have as a nation. If that is not done  then we would never realize the real value of the treasure like the one found at Sri Anantha Padmanabhasamy temple.

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Tanjore Temples - One of the Gopurams

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Tanjore Brihadeeshwarar Temple

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