“There’s no bonding material used to build the Brihadeeswara temple,” a guide spoke in a loud voice to the elderly tourist couple from Mumbai. Their squinting eyes gaped at the 30 m towering gopuram at the entrance, as they tried to fit in the grand granite structure’s impeccably carved relief statues and motifs in their field of vision. The September heat was condensed on their foreheads, even as their determined feet walked barefoot on the baked surface of the temple area. Their awe was reflected in my dry mouth, as I too gaped, astonished at what I was witnessing.

Built by the Chola emperor, Rajaraja Chola 1, around 1010 AD, the temple is an important UNESCO World Heritage site. It’s a place where tourists, spiritual seekers, and architecture enthusiasts throng to discover the mysteries and marvels of this unqiue temple in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. An important site for Shiva worshippers, it is made entirely of granite, without any bonding material like mortar or cement, making it the first temple or structure of its kind to employ this method.

Constructed using their patent interlocking technique, the Chola era architects were visionaries, who devised a mechanism to cut the granite rocks in precise shapes, and fit them together, without using any material substance. The 1000 years old temple stands not just as an architectual feat, but a spiritual feat too, lending it a timeless quality.

This vast temple complex is a sacred ground, where, as one enters through the three gopurams at the entrance, they are instantly thrown into a field of immense energy, contained within the granite rocks, so built, to radiate waves of wisdom contained through Time. The giant Nandi, made of a single granite rock, perpetually gazing at the lingam housed inside the inner sanctum is a precise design, that’s not merely aesthetic, but a spiritual code.

The 60 mt. high vimana is the main structure, in the centre of the complex, housing the 8.7 mt high lingam, one of the tallest in the country. But, these dimensions are incomparable to the real dimensions of this temple, ones that are invisible, but more real.

The use of no bonding substance defies all logic, but sustains the ‘eternal’ connection between two objects, that couldn’t be more stronger if a substance were used. The lack of substance or material can be decoded in many ways by the seeker. Some might go back with a sense of levity granted by these otherworldly sights. Some might find their centre while doing their pradakshina around the sanctum sanctorum or garbha griha. The possibilities are truly endless, when one is in the presence of such a sublime and imposing piece of architecture as the Brihadeeswara Temple.

And perhaps, if one truly loses their ‘material substance,’ they might even pass through these walls, to a different dimension!