Pāṇḍya Prākāras and Gopuras

The Cholas were succeeded by Pāṇḍyas who contributed not so much to the orthodox scheme of temple-building, as to the outer schemes, thus laying the foundation to that grandeur which became the glory of Madura, the great Gopuras and splendid Prākāras.

“Up to this point it had been the practice of the builders to apply their finest craftsmanship to the body of the temple itself, and specifically to its most sacred part, the Vimāna, which they made the most resplendent feature of the temples of the Cholas. With the advent of the Pāṇḍyas this usage ceased, and instead of the sanctuary continuing to be the central architectural production the builder’s skill was diverted in order to give prominence to some of the supplementary or outlying portions of the temple scheme”.

Jīrṇoaūdhāra [Jīrṇoddhāra?] is as good a pious act as foundation or the dedication of the temples in the tenets of Pūrta-dharma. Accordingly the scattered and distributed sacred shrines or sites of great religious antiquity attracted the notice of these Pāṇḍya rulers who instead of erecting quite a new superstructure on the original structures evolved out a grand scheme of Prākāras and Gopuras which later came to be so majestic and so grand that the later Dravidian architecture (especially at Madura) could obtain a culminating point. I have already written something on Gopuras and Prākāras—vide one of the last chapters on the subject—Part V.

Some of the notable examples of Gopuras built under the Paṇḍya regime are Sunder Pāṇḍya Gopura, one on the eastern side of the temple of Chidambaram, another, on the eastern side of the inner enclosure of the temple at Tiruvannamalai and a Gopura of the great temple at Kumbhakona [Kumbakonam/Kumbhakoṇa]. There is however one example of a complete temple of the Pāṇḍya period. This is the temple of Airāvateśvara at Darasura [Darasuram] in the Tanjore district. It is remarkable for that richness, which later became the characteristic of the Vijayanagar.