The Palace at Tanjore

When we started off towards the palace, we imagined grand palatial buildings with gardens and huge hallways decorated with paintings and other articles used by the rajahs of the Maratha -Bhonsle dynasty. But little did we realize what a huge disappointment it was to be. The palace was anything but posh. It did not appear to be the residence of a King or a Prince. It looked too middle-class like. Cement floors, non-descript walls and the articles on display were anything but expensive. I felt that the Rajah probably lived a life poorer than we do today.

But then I cannot discount everything about the palace. There were some good spots too as can be seen in the photos here. The paintings on the walls of the Nayak's Durbar or in the courtyard were wonderful pieces of art. It is but a sad state of affairs that some of these paintings are lost or are on the verge of being destroyed due to poor maintenance.



The palace also included a museum where one could see statues made of stone and bronze dating as far back as the 6th century AD. One interesting aspect that I could notice was that most of the stone statues belonged to the period 6-9/10 century while the bronze statue works belonged to the 10-13 century AD period. The statue of the Nataraja in bronze, made in the 12th century AD looks exactly the same as it does even today and is an amazing work of art.

The statue of Ganesha (Vinayakar) in the picture here belongs to the 9 Century AD.