Tale of two Shiva temples

During my visit to the Bhojeshwar temple in Bhojpur about 40 kilometers away from Bhopal in 2001 I realized that the Shivling at this temple so resembled the one at Thanjavur’s Brihadeeswara temple, which is also is earmarked as a World Heritage site. So I met a couple of ASI officials though they were left astounded by the revelation, and later went through numerous books on these two temple to finally find out how the then Raja Bhoj, King of Dhar had hit upon the idea after finding that Raja Raja Chola had send a large number of men on elephants to get huge hillocks all the way from river Narmada, to the temple town of India to build the Shivalinga for the Brihadeeswara temple. After that the story which I wrote appeared in the all India edition of the Hindustan Times in March 2, 2002.

ANU MALIK and members of his ilk can take heart. Copying ideas from the South has its roots even in ancient history. At least since a 1,000 years, if not more. The Shiva temples of Bhojpur and Thanjavur, if not carbon copies, have many things in common. And the antiquity of the Thanjavur temples makes it a logical predecessor of its Bhojpur counterpart.
Built by Raja Raja Chola in 910 AD, the Brihadeeswara temple in Thanjavur, seems to have the natural inspiration for the Bhojeshwar temple. Built by Raja Bhoj, the legendary King of Dhar in 1010-53 AD, the outer structure of the Bhojpur Shiv-ling was never completed. The one in Thanjavur, however, stands a majestic testament to the glory of Cholan architecture. Both are single-rock structures and boast of being the tallest among Shiv-lings anywhere in India. And thus the debate as to which is the bigger one. According to master craftsman S Devasenapathy Sathpathy at Swamimalai (the seventh generation of Sathpathies employed by Raja Raja Chola to build the Big Temple), the Shiv-ling at Thanjavur is the tallest in the world. A Quick measure, however, reveals a different tale.

To begin with, the height of the Thanjavur Shiv-ling is 13 feet. Taken with its five feet base, the monolith totals 18 feet. The Bhojpur Shiv-ling stands at 20.65 feet, with a base of 12.99 feet high and thus wins hands down on the tall count. However, in width the Bhojpur icon measures 52 feet, while the Thanjavur one is 54 feet. While the Thanjavur Shiv-ling is made of black ston, the Bhojpur one is of red polished stone. Residents can treasure the association preserved by the Thanjavur Shiv-ling, the rock for which went down all the way to South from the Narmada river.
For S Devasenapathy Sathpathy a Shiv-ling at Bhojpur similar to the one in Thanjavur is a revelation. But he says the “the idea could have been taken form Raja Raja Chola, when the black stone for the Thanjavur temple was being ferried to the South from the Narmada before the year 910 AD.”
Maybe the ASIs at Bhopal and Thanjavur could clear the air by telling the real tale of the two temples, built 143 years apart and , linked by more than one common bonds.