Next, let’s look at the fifth page. There are beautiful paintings on the walls of this temple with people wearing jewels. Only the title is clearly visible in the painting of a woman whose body parts are falling off and perishing. Many other paintings on the wall are completely destroyed. It is not clear whether these paintings were painted during the Chola period or the later period.
This temple is built with red sandstone. When you look at these stones, it looks like they are painted red.Only in this Darasuram Airavadeswarar temple, a separate sanctum has been set up for the Goddess Amman near the Shiva sannithi. Prior to this no such separate shrine was erected in the temples built by Rajaraja Cholan and Rajendra Cholan.
On either side of the dilapidated Raja Gopuram of this Darasuram temple are huge Dwara Balakars and two smaller boothas guarding the tower. Trees and vines are sprouting around this crumbling tower and the encroachment of nature is taking place. It is very sad to see this artistic treasure perishing before our eyes.
Apart from that, there are many idols like Vil Veeran idol , Ganesha idol and many other idols with beautiful carvings are lying unattended in the corners of the temple. The statue of this archer may also be Kulothunga Chola. It would have been very good if a museum had been set up and preserved the idols found here and there in this temple.
Regarding this temple, the archeology department is lagging behind in explaining its history to the people. If a museum is set up here, it would be easy for all the people who come here to know its history. Archeology failed to do that.
It is necessary for every Tamilian to know about the greatness of the land where he was born and raised. But the present youth only fully knows the history of actors. We are not inclined to know what was the knowledge of our forefathers and what was their talent. This gave me a lot of heartache.
With this the research on Darasuram Iravadeswarar temple ends. I hope you will find my research paper on Cholas very useful. Now finally my journey ends with a research trip to Rajaraja Chola’s Mani Mandapam.One lifetime is not enough to write about the Cholas. Because they have given us so many historical treasures through sculptures and inscriptions. In the next post, we will find the research data about the poor condition of the Mani Mandapam of Rajaraja Cholan, who built the Tanjore Great Temple.