Tanjore travel..:)

Tanjore Palace

The Palace, on the east main street is a series of large and rambling buildings of fine masonry, built partly by the Nayakkars around 1550 AD and partly by the Marathas. The entrance is by way of a large quadrangular courtyard. The encircling walls are pierced by big gateways to the north and east. The courtyard leads to a many-pillared hall. A small inner courtyard gives access to a large one.

On the southern side of the third quadrangle is a vimana like building, 190 feet high with eight storey and it is the Goodagopuram. This was the palace watchtower and the armory of the Thanjavur Kings till 1855 A.D.

The two Durbar Halls of the Nayakkars and the Marathas and the Raja Sarafoji Saraswathi Mahal Library are the chief sights of the Palace. The Saraswathi Mahal Library has remarkable collection of about 30,433 sanskrit and other vernacular palm leaf manuscripts and 6,426 printed volumes, besides a large number of journals. The library is the effort of the three hundred years of collections by the Nayak and Mahratta kings.

Madamaligai is the tower, which rises from the palace roof beyond the Goodagopuram. It has six storeys. It is believed that this was built by Nayakkar ruler to enable him worship Sri Ranganatha of Srirangam every mid-day. This many storied tower was destroyed by lightning and was subsequently repaired and preserved.

The Sangita Mahal or the Music Hall is a miniature of the surviving court of Thirumalai Nayakkar.

Tanjore Museum

A remarkable collection of South Indian sculptures and paintings is housed in the old palace buildings at Thanjavur (Tanjore)...

Within the museum there is a gallery with a representative collection of stone sculpture from the Pallava, Chola, Pandya and Nayaka periods. Another gallery contains samples of the characteristic glass paintings of Tanjore. There are two principal traditions in this style of painting in South India, especially in Thanjavur. Every Hindu home is supposed to have a prayer room, where the family deity is installed after the house is built. These household images of gods and goddesses are in bronze, silver or clay painted pictures.

The paintings are done on wood, using a variety of colours, and to enhance the pictures, details of jewellery and clothing are added by attaching gold leaf, paper, semi-precious and precious gems.

This museum is however best known for its bronze sculpture collection, of rare artistic quality. The Kalyanasundaramurti ( Tiruvengadu district, early Chola), the images of Shiva and Parvati at the time of their marriage, is truly a masterpiece, one of India's finest bronzes of all time.

Saraswati Mahal Libraray

This library has one of the most important oriental manuscript collections, in India. Established around 1700 AD, the library contains a collection of over 44,000 palm leaf, and paper manuscripts in Indian and European languages. Over eighty percent of its manuscripts are in sanskrit, many on palm leaves and are very unique. The Tamil work includes treatises on medicine, and commentaries on works from the Sangam period, all lipis, pictorial depiction of Ramayana and Mahabharata, miniature books and lineage of the sarafoji kings.