Dr. Kudavayil Balasubramaniyan, Thanjavur and East Gaterr

Thanjavur is well known for its great history and culture. As a fledgling, I have embarked on this journey of unravelling historical facts and lesser-told stories about Thanjavur, whose legacy spans beyond the Brihadeeshwara Temple.

With Dr. Kudavayil Balasubramaniyan

When we moved back to Thanjavur in 2010 from Chennai, the seeds of intent to understand the history of Thanjavur, was in all likelihood sown by my mother. She was the person who took me to the Brihadeeshwara almost every alternate day. When I left for Delhi to pursue higher studies, my homesickness nudged me to revisit Thanjavur and its rich culture. My postgraduate course in heritage studies further helped me with the technicalities. This is an overview of my journey which took me closest to the heritage.

This is a post out of my excitement after meeting Dr. Kudavayil Balasubramaniyan, who has been an instrumental historian and researcher of the great Cholas and Thanjavur. Apart from his academic rigour, he is a kind-hearted person and an excellent human being. He welcomed me when I spoke to him for the first time.

When I wanted to learn about the history of Thanjavur, one of my mentor suggested about the works of Dr. Kudavayil Balasubramaniyan. He is the authoritative historian and epigraphist on the subject of Rajarajeshwaram, Cholas and temple inscriptions. He is a student of Padma Bhushan Dr. Ra. Nagaswamy, who is also a historian, archaeologist and an epigraphist.   

I was excited to write about Rajarajeshwaram after reading about the temple in detail from the book titled 'Rajarajecharam' by Dr. Kudavayil Balasubramaniyan. This book is treasure which has greater details of information about the temple's architecture, iconography, inscriptions through which details like the economic transactions, offerings to the temple and many such information are deciphered. Then I read his book 'Thanjavur', which has a brief history of Thanjavur from 6th Century CE to the colonial era. The information was thought provoking. Gobbling the details from these books increased my excitement to read and understand the history of my hometown. I could see Thanjavur with a whole new perspective after reading the books. Apart from the great Rajarajeshwaram, the palace, Thanjavur painting, the Saraswati Veena and few other temples, I was not aware of the historical Thanjavur that was over shadowed by the grandeur of Brihadeeswara. The lesser knwon history was intriguing and enthused me to explore the other side of Thanjavur. These books pushed me further to the author’s way of validating the history. 

His autograph in the book

After reading about Thanjavur in details through his book, I had a few important questions in my mind. Especially the question about the clashes if any between Shaivites and Vaishnavites, since Cholas were close to Srirangam. He answered that, “There were no clashes. Both the communities flourished under the Cholas rule.”

He also gifted me a book written by him about the forgotten Tamil King ‘Konerirayan’. This book has good answers for the questions about the rumors of clashes between Shaivites and Vaishnavites, as Konerirayan ruled major regions of Tamil Nadu during the 15th century only.

Overall, it was a great experience to meet such a humble historian.

Yours