Tag: tanjavur

Nallur March 2014

I just realized that I had not posted my Thanjavur jilla (mostly around Kumbakonam) pictures on my blog. I had shared several on FB and twitter, but had not shared them here. I will share them in parts.

Where is Nallur?

Outer Gopuram

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Inner gopuram

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Guardian of the temple –  Nandi

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Agraharam Street

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All images were taken with a Samsung Galaxy Grand (yes, you read that right), and post processed with the Snapseed app. Filters commonly used were Drama and HDRscape.

 

Beautiful Darasuram

Visited the beautiful temple of Darasuram (about 5 km from Kumbakonam). The temple is one of the two temples built by the Raja Raja Cholans (I and II), which have striking resemblences to the big temple in Tanjavur (the other one is in Gangai-konda-chozhapuram). The temple has now been taken over by the Archeological Society of India (ASI) for preservation and restoration. More info on wikipedia here.

The ASI has really done a nice job landscaping the outer periphery of the temple.
Restoration work being carried out by the ASI.

Notice the similarity of the Gopuram to the Big temple in Tanjavur.

Lot of greenery around the temple.

Legend: The temple kurukkal (priest) gave us a run down of the legend of the temple. The white elephant of Indra (Airavatha) was cursed by someone and became black. The elephant then, came to Darasuram, took bath in the temple tank, and then did abhisheka to the Lord, and Lord Shiva gave papa-vimochanam, and turned him back to his regal white color. Hence the name of the diety – Airavatheshwara. Lord Shiva’s consort name here is Periya nayagi.