Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/418

3 66 DRAVIDIAN STYLE. BOOK III. and this may be assigned with confidence to the i;th century. The central pillar is alternately square and octagon, with shafts attached on the two side faces, and the whole very richly ornamented. The Tanjor temple >in 1758 was besieged in vain by Lally from 1 where now the district Court stands, and in 1771 the English be- sieged and took it. Many of the sculp- tures show traces of these sieges, and after the last the temple was turned into a camp for thirty years. In 1801 - 1802 Raja Sarfoji had it purified and re-consecrated. 1 There is another temple at the village of Gangaikonda- puram, 38 miles to the north - east of Tanjor, and 20 miles south-west from Chidambaram, that, so far as is yet known, must be at least as old as that at Tanjor, if not older, and of which it would be very desirable to have a complete survey, as it is said to retain even more of its original purity of design than the latter. 3 TlRUVALUR. The temple at Tiruvalur in Tanjor district, 4 about 1 5 miles west of Negapattam, contrasts curiously with that at Tanjor in the principles on which it was designed, and serves to exemplify the mode in which, unfortunately, most Dravidian temples were aggregated. Pier in Subrahmanya Temple, Tanjor. 2 1 Dr. A. Burnell in an article, 1 2th November 1877. 2 From 'Technical Art Series,' 1894. 3 'Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal,' vol. xlix. (1880) pp. 1-4. 4 At Tiruvallur, in Chir.galpat district, is a Vaishnava temple dedicated to Vira- raghava.