'The
stone covering the top of the
vimana below the spherical-shaped stone stupa under the Kalasa is a single block of
granite weighing 80 tons. This gigantic block of stone is said to have been lifted up to a
place of such a high setting by means of an incline scaffolding built from a village,
Vayalur, four miles away from Tanjore on the road to Kumbakonam. On this stone there is a
beautiful octagon shaped stupa? The height of the Kalasa placed on this stupa is 12 1/2
feet This Kalasa is made of 3088 palams (9249 tolas).
Of copper and covered over with gold plates
weighing about 250 palams. In the third story there is a figure of a European wearing a
bowler’s hat. Some say that a pious architect hailing fromKancheepuram, who was
probably an astrologer also, had cut this model of a European there to show his prediction
that the Chola Nayak and Maharaja kings and the English would successively rule over the
land. |
