Introduction

This great temple, the grandest of the Chola monuments, was named Sri Rajarajesvaram, after its builder, Rajaraja I, as the earliest inscriptions on its srivimana testify. We do not know when exactly its construction began, but it might have been some time in or before the nineteenth regnal year of the king. (The title “Rajaraja” appears for the first time only in the records of his nineteenth regnal year.)

The temple was built of stone which might have been brought from a hillock called Mammalai, eight miles (13 kms) from Tiruchirapalli and about thirty miles (48 kms) from Tanjavur.

The first-to-be-engraved and most important inscription on the walls of the temple (SII, II, 1) consists of 107 paragraphs; the engraving was begun on an order of the king issued on the 20th day of his twenty-sixth regnal year, and the inscription continues into the twenty-ninth (the last known) regnal year of the king. The first fifty paragraphs describe—in chronological order, with the solitary exception of para 18 referring to the stupi (for the final consecration ceremony) being handed over by the king on the 275th day of his twenty-fifth regnal year—various gifts made by the king and others to the temple between his twenty-fifth and twenty-ninth regnal years, while paras 51 to 107 detail a miscellaneous collection of such gifts made between the twenty-third and twenty-ninth regnal years. It appears that in his twenty-ninth year, the king had a premonition of his approaching end, and so he was anxious to have all the gifts made so far placed on permanent record in stone on the walls of the temple itself. The first paragraph contains the customary Sanskrit historical introduction: “Etadvisva-nrpa sreni mouli malopalalitam sasanam Rajarajasya Rajakesarivarmanah” and the Tamil one beginning with “Tirumagalpola”. The initial order for the recording of the gifts was made by the king from the royal bathing hall (tiru-manjana-salai) lying to the east of the hall of Irumadi Cholan in the palace at Tanjavur, and directs that the gifts made by the king himself, his elder sister, his queens and other donors to “the sacred stone temple (tiruk-karrali) called Sri Rajarajesvaram which we have caused to be built at Tanjavur” be engraved on the srivimana. Paragraphs 3-4 refer to gifts made in the twenty-fifth year, 312th day; paras 5-9 in the twenty-sixth year, 14th day; paras 10-16 in the twenty-sixth year, 27th day; para 17 in the twenty-sixth year, 34th day; para 18 (breaking the chronological order of the list, as mentioned above) in the twenty-fifth year, 275th day; paras 19-32 in the twenty-sixth year, 104th day; para 33 in the twenty-sixth year, 318th day; paras 34-50 in the twenty-sixth year, 319th day; and finally, paras 51-107 various gifts made between the twenty-third and twenty-ninth regnal years. Here again paras 51-54 refer to gifts made by the king, partly from his treasury and partly out of the booty obtained after his victory “over the Cheras and the Pandyas of Malai nadu”; paras 55-91 list the gifts of the king after the conferment on him of the titles of ‘Sivapada-sekhara’ and ‘Sri Rajaraja’; and paras 92-107 list the gifts made after his victory over Satya-sraya of the Western Chalukyas.

As stated earlier, we do not know when exactly the construction of the temple began. It must have attracted many gifts soon after the start and during the adhivasa stage itself. It is clear from para 18 of the inscription that the final consecration should have taken place (with the installation of the stupi) on the 275th day of the twenty-fifth year.