Thanjavur Maratha Palace: the Nayak fortress the Marathas made their own

Most visitors to Thanjavur come for the Big Temple and are surprised to find, a short walk away in the old town, a rambling second monument that is almost its equal for atmosphere: a royal palace begun by one dynasty and finished by another. The Thanjavur Maratha Palace — Aranmanai to locals — is not a single building but a warren of courtyards, halls and towers stacked up over three centuries. Behind its salmon-pink walls sit a durbar hall, a seven-storey bell tower, one of the oldest libraries in Asia and a gallery of bronze gods that made the Chola country famous.

Two dynasties, one address

The palace grew out of Thanjavur’s shifting fortunes. It was begun by the Thanjavur Nayak kings — the line that governed the delta from around 1535 — as their fortified residence in the sixteenth century. When the Nayak state collapsed, the Marathas moved in: in 1674 Venkoji, also called Ekoji, a half-brother of the great Maratha ruler Shivaji, seized Thanjavur and founded a Bhonsle dynasty that would rule here until the British annexation in 1855. The Marathas kept the Nayak core and enlarged it, so the complex you walk through today is a layered thing — Nayak audience halls beside Maratha additions, all reached through the Thanjavur Maratha Palace ticket gate and about two kilometres from the Brihadeeswarar Temple.

The Durbar Hall, the Bell Tower and the Sarjah Madi

The showpiece interiors are the durbar halls. The Maratha Durbar Hall, where the Bhonsle rajas held audience, is a pillared chamber whose arches and ceilings still carry painted plaster and gilded figures, faded but unmistakably regal. Rising over the complex are its two most photographed towers. The Bell Tower — a tall, rectangular structure said to climb seven storeys — once carried a mechanical bell at its top that, by tradition, was rung to mark the hours for the town below. Close by stands the octagonal Sarjah Madi, sometimes called the Goodagopuram, a lookout whose stacked, tapering balconies are usually credited to the scholar-king Serfoji II. Together they give the palace its unmistakable skyline of arsenal, arcade and tower.

The Saraswathi Mahal Library

Tucked inside the same walls is the palace’s quietest marvel. The Saraswathi Mahal Library was founded by the Nayak kings in the sixteenth century and is often described as one of the oldest surviving libraries in Asia. Its transformation into a scholar’s treasure-house, though, was the work of the Maratha ruler Serfoji II (r. 1798–1832), a remarkable king educated partly by European missionaries who read voraciously in several languages and sent agents across India to collect, buy and copy manuscripts. The library today holds more than 49,000 volumes, including over 4,500 manuscripts — many of them palm-leaf — in Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu and Marathi, alongside rare printed books and maps. A museum area lets visitors see a selection; the Saraswathi Mahal Library remains a working research institution.

The Art Gallery of Chola bronzes

The other reason to linger is sculpture. Housed within the palace, in the arcaded halls around a courtyard, the Thanjavur Art Gallery — opened in 1951 — gathers hundreds of stone and bronze images, most of them gifts from the temples of the surrounding delta. Its granite figures range across the Pallava, Chola and later periods, but the bronzes are the stars: lithe, lost-wax castings of Shiva, Vishnu, Parvati and the saints, made in the same medieval workshops that produced the celebrated dancing Shiva, or Nataraja. Displayed under glass with more icons receding into the background, they let you see, at close range, the metalwork that defined South Indian art. For the practical details, see the Thanjavur Art Gallery.

Visiting the palace

The palace sits in Thanjavur’s old town, easily walked or reached by auto from the Big Temple and the railway station. Give it at least a couple of hours: the museum and durbar hall, the climb up the bell tower for a rooftop view, the library’s display room and the art gallery each ask for time, and several charge small separate fees. Mornings are cooler and the light is kinder for the towers. Come between about November and February, when the delta weather is at its gentlest. To place it in context, read our guide to the palaces of Tamil Nadu and the story of Serfoji II and the Saraswathi Mahal Library.