What connects Raja Raja Chola, Ramana Maharshi, and Hindu temples of North America

The Print

02-08-2025

The first aspect of this connection was forged in the late 1930s. Chinnaswami, the manager of Sri Ramanasramam (Maharshi's home-turned-ashram in Tamil Nadu), had been nursing the dream of building a traditional temple on top of the samadhi of Maharshi's mother. But the ashram did not have the financial resources. On a train journey to Madurai, Chinnaswami found himself sitting opposite a temple architect-cum-builder Mahilavanam Sthapati. The meeting clearly had the hand of providence behind it, for Mahilavanam was the 35th generation in a long line of temple architects and a descendant of Kunjaramallan Rajaraja Perunthachan, the architect of 11th-century Brihadeeswara Temple in Thanjavur.
This article is, however, about Rajendra Chola's father Raja Raja Chola, sage Ramana Maharshi, and the Hindu temples of North America. What could conceivably connect these three disparate subjects?
The summer of 1025 was, in many ways, the high–water mark of the Chola Empire, when Emperor Rajendra Chola led an audacious and successful naval invasion of the Srivijaya empire in modern-day Indonesia in response to its interference in trade and customs matters. In fact, August may well have been the month when he won the war, since the expedition would have set sail from Tamil Nadu after the start of the southwest monsoon in June.
The genius of Perunthachan
The fact that Perunthachan — meaning the great craftsman — was commissioned by Raja Raja is enough to indicate his stature. However, the Brihadeeswara Temple he sculpted had several firsts to its name:
– Tamil temple towers have a stone base, but the tapering section of tall gopurams are made of stucco. The Brihadeeswara Temple is unique because the entire gopuram is made of stone, which must have been an incredible task.
– The gopuram is hollow on the inside like a cone, and was built using an interlocking system of precisely cut granite blocks, not mortar.
– The 216-feet tall gopuram has virtually no foundation. It is just a few feet deep and structured on sand, gravel, and loose stones in a manner that the entire structure can shift slightly during earthquakes.
– The gopuram's weight is supported by two angled walls that meet at a height of about 70 feet.
– The capstone on top of the gopuram famously weighs 86 tonnes. Contrary to popular belief, it is not a single piece of stone. Rather, it was ingeniously assembled, like the carpels of an orange, at the top.
– For a long time, people assumed that elephants were used to drag the capstone to the top using an inclined plane several kilometres long. But a more recent theory suggests that as the gopuram rose, it was surrounded by progressively taller (albeit tapering, like the gopuram itself) mounds of earth, with a spiral pathway. This allowed workers to climb to successively higher levels to build the gopuram and eventually place the capstone, after which the earth was removed starting from ground level.
– Finally, the entire gopuram and temple complex is designed in such a way that the shadow of the capstone never falls on the ground at noon.
Mahilavanam had a rich family history. However, he was now old, and so offered the services of his son Vaidyanatha Sthapati to build the Ramanasramam temple. Vaidyanatha was a worthy descendent of Perunthachan. He was not merely a master of silpa, sculpture, the agamas and vastu, but also adept in astronomy, Vedas, Upanishads, and mantra shastra. Vaidyanatha received the National Award for Master Craftsmen in 1963 and helped restore many temples in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka.
But back in the 1930s, the state of affairs was dire. Vaidyanatha's family was in penury. Royal patronage of the art of sculpture had ended with the fall of Maratha rule in Thanjavur, and there were hardly any temples being built. Because of his reverence for Ramana Maharshi, Vaidyanatha did not see the mother's shrine as a commercial venture but as a spiritual assignment. He was therefore willing to work with Chinnaswami despite the ashram's own precarious financial situation. There were many weeks when Chinnaswami didn't have enough money to pay the workers' weekly wages.
Also read: Do Chola kings represent a culturally united Hindu India? It's a modern fantasy
Building a revival
Belonging to the Vishwakarma community, Vaidyanatha was deeply orthodox. He would not bring his family to eat at the ashram, as accepting food from his employer violated his professional ethics. Chinnaswami would often send food to the family without the sthapati's knowledge. While the temple project sustained Vaidyanatha's family from 1939 to 1949, his son Ganapati was naturally discouraged from entering his hereditary profession, preferring instead to study engineering.
The Maharashi took a keen interest in every detail of the temple project. During one of his near-daily walks through the construction site, he asked Vaidyanatha about his son's plans. The sthapati spoke of his poverty-stricken life and the lack of a future in temple building, expressing his desire for his son to become a modern engineer. A millennium-old tradition looked set to end.
'Let him study what he wants,' said the Maharshi, 'but make sure you also teach him to be a sthapati'.
This was a critical moment in young Ganapati's life. One must know how scrupulously the Maharshi avoided telling anyone what to do in even the smallest matters of daily life, and how people hung onto every word spoken by this silent sage, to appreciate both the significance of such a comment and the impact that it would have undoubtedly had on Vaidyanatha sthapati.
The Maharshi always took a keen interest in Ganapati's education. 'Sthapati's son has passed the examination with distinction. His future is going to be very bright', he said, referring to his high school examination.
After completing his high school in 1947, Ganapati got admission into the College of Engineering in Guindy, which is now under Anna University. Founded in 1794, it's the oldest modern technical institution outside of Europe. However, Vaidyanatha could not afford the Rs 480 admission fee and Rs 300 per semester for hostel and other expenses. He also would not accept financial assistance from others. A few months later, the Maharshi called the sthapati and said, 'In your own native place, a new college has now been established and will start functioning from 15 August 1947. It feels that this college has been started late in the year only for Ganapati.'
Taking the Maharshi's words as divine direction, Ganapati joined the newly established Alagappa Chettiar Government College of Engineering and Technology in Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu, and obtained a degree in mathematics. The college also offered courses in Shilpa Shastra. With the education he received there and the guidance of his savant father, Ganapati soon matured into a worthy successor of his lineage.
'Only after I became a professional sthapati did I realise the value of the Maharshi's advice. I am happy to say that it is because of his blessings that I am what I am today,' he said in later years.
In 1957, C Rajagopalachari and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya persuaded and financially supported Vaidyanatha in establishing the Government College of Architecture and Sculpture in Mahabalipuram, near Chennai. This technical institution was, and still is, the only one of its kind in India. But Vaidyanatha served there for only three years, after which Ganapati took over in 1961 and ran the institution for 27 years. He nurtured it into a premier institution for all aspects of temple building, including painting, mural work, and the casting of Chola bronzes. The college has since graduated hundreds of sthapatis.
Ganapati went on to lead major public projects such as the Thiruvalluvar statue near the Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari, and he renovated many temples in South India. Most importantly, he is responsible for innovations in applying the Agamas, Shilpa Shastras, and Vastu Shastra to build Tamil-style temples in the US, UK, Singapore, Malaysia, Fiji, Sri Lanka, and Canada. He followed local construction codes and adapted his methods to different climates and the needs of diverse Hindu communities, many of whom wished to include worship traditions from various parts of India within a single temple.
At one point in the early 2000s, Ganapati was simultaneously involved in more than a dozen temple projects across the US. Virtually every major metropolitan area in the country with a significant Indian population has a temple designed and built by him or his students.
For someone who once wanted nothing to do with his hoary lineage, Ganapati brought about a veritable renaissance in temple architecture before his death in 2011. Beyond training sthapatis, he also published numerous books on sthapatya, Vastu Shastra, and traditional architecture. Due to the Maharshi's timely intervention, the tradition famously exemplified by Raja Raja Chola and Perunthachan continues to flourish today, and is directly responsible for the global spread of Tamil-style temples.
Rajendra Chola's naval conquest of Indonesia was an amazing achievement for the 11th century and is rightly celebrated a thousand years later. But the preservation, adaptation, and globalisation of the temple arts, a thousand years from now, prove to be an even more influential development.
Swaminathan Venkataraman is a graduate of IIT Madras and IIM Calcutta. He works as a financial analyst in New York and serves on the board of the Hindu American Foundation. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)