Overview
The Brihadisvara (Rajarajesvaram) temple stands in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. Rajaraja I commissioned the granite complex between about 1003 and 1010 CE: a towering vimana over the sanctum, a large Nandi pavilion, circumambulatory corridors, and a programme of inscriptions that list gifts, dancers, and land. The tower is often cited near 66 m; the linga in the garbhagriha is among the largest of the period.
Frescoes in the circumambulatory passage and later Nayaka additions sit on the Chola core. The Archaeological Survey of India conserves the living temple. UNESCO listed the Great Living Chola Temples in 1987 (ref. 250) and extended the serial site in 2004 to include Gangaikonda Cholapuram and the Airavatesvara temple at Darasuram — this dossier is the Thanjavur anchor, not the whole serial.
"Rajaraja, who covered the temple of Rajarajesvaram with gold, gave the great stone linga and established the worship, recording the gifts of villages, ornaments, and temple servants on the walls of this house of Shiva."
— Chola wall inscriptions of Rajarajesvaram, Thanjavur, early 11th century CE (South Indian Inscriptions tradition)
Read beside Mahabalipuram for Pallava rock-cut experiments that precede Chola structural granite, and Hampi for a later imperial sacred landscape in the peninsula.
Worship continues; archaeological reading has to separate Rajaraja’s inscribed fabric from later plaster, painting, and festival fittings.