Re: Parallel History of India
there use to be one more chola dynasty before this modern one during sangam period…
this people stretched to sri lanka,maldivies,bali that’s why you see lot of hindu influence in this countries
even thailand follows ramayan even though they are a buddhist countries…
coming to temples not just madurai,sri rangam biggest/tallest gopuram (dunno whats it’s called in hindi) for a hindu temple,even early structure of tirupati had chola influence later it was remodel by krishnadevaraya
another one is nataraja temple in chimdabaram birthplace of bharathanatyam, tiruvannamalai(annamalai lord shiva ) another big one next only to madurai and sri rangam…
most of the time cholas were passionate shivates during later period they started building vishnu temples…
personally visited madurai,sri rangam,tiruvannamalai this places were simply awesome,tamil people had real talented engineers in those days . dunno how they lifted those huge stones during BC without lifts.
heard most of the temple took hundred years to complete…
small note on madurai all the four gopurams facing north/south/east/west have same length/width in measurements not even one inch lesser all four sides are exactly equal,also inside the temple there is a craving done on one big stone