The Grand Anicut, 40.3 km west of Thanjavur, a dam of stone laid across the Kaveri by the Chola king Karikala and dated to about 150 CE. It is the oldest water-diversion structure in India still in use and the fourth oldest anywhere; the paddy country of the delta downstream is both the reason it was built and the reason it has been kept in repair ever since.
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Sun and moon are calculated for this location and shown in IST. Photography windows are the hour around sunrise and sunset; the sunset bearing is degrees clockwise from true north. Moon phase is accurate to about half a day.
Featured: Brihadeeswarar TempleThe delta city base for the Big Temple, the Maratha palace, the art gallery and Saraswathi Mahal Library.
Featured: Airavatesvara TempleThe temple-town base east of Thanjavur for the Darasuram and wider Chola-country temple circuit.
Featured: Mahamaham TankA village 10.5 km north-west of Kumbakonam, a quarter of an hour by road, where in about 879 CE a confederacy of Pallavas, Western Gangas and Cholas met the Pandya king Varagunavarman II. The battle broke Pandya power and began the Chola rise that built Thanjavur and Gangaikonda Cholapuram, and the Shiva temple standing beside the old battlefield is sung in the seventh-century Tevaram.
Featured: Kampahareswarar TempleA silk-weaving village between Kumbakonam and Mayiladuthurai, holding the last great Chola temple and the co-operative that owns the Thirubuvanam saree's GI — and sitting inside a 15 km circle of the delta's best-known temples.
Featured: Suryanar KovilA village 15.7 km north-east of Kumbakonam, about a quarter of an hour by road, whose temple is the only one in Tamil Nadu with a separate shrine for every one of the nine planetary deities — and one of very few anywhere given to the Sun himself. The masonry temple standing today was raised under Kulottunga Chola between 1060 and 1118, with Vijayanagara-period additions and a five-tier gateway tower.
Featured: Agneeswarar TempleA village on the northern bank of the Kaveri 18.5 km north-east of Kumbakonam, one of the delta's nine planet temples, where the Agneeswarar temple holds the shrine for Shukra, Venus. Low hills of 30 to 45 m rise immediately north of the village, and magnesite has been found in them.
Featured: Chandranar TempleA village 21.3 km north of Thanjavur, twenty-five minutes by road, where the Moon — Chandra — is enshrined in the Kailasanathar temple, making it the delta's moon stop among the nine planet temples. It was the home of Apputhi Adigal, one of the sixty-three Nayanar saints, who named his sons, his cattle and everything in his house after the saint Appar, a man he had never met.
A town of some ten thousand people 22.7 km north-east of Kumbakonam, built around a Chola-period Shiva temple whose lingam stands at a tilt. The story told is that Shiva bent so a woman could garland him one-handed while she held her slipping sari with the other, and that the Nayanar Kungiliya Kalaya later tied a rope from his own neck to the shaft and pulled. The town is also the seat of a Shaiva adheenam, a monastic order with its own head.
A panchayat town 14.7 km west of Kumbakonam on the Kumbakonam–Thanjavur road, its name meaning the destruction of sins. A Nayak-period granary here measures about 26 m across and 11 m high, and 7 km further south at Thirukarukavur stands the Garbarakshambigai temple, where women come to pray through a difficult pregnancy.
Featured: Thyagaraja Aradhana SamadhiA town 17.2 km north of Thanjavur whose name means five rivers, and the road up from Thanjavur crosses all five in turn — the Vadavar, the Vettar, the Vennar, the Kudamurutti and the Kaveri. Its Shiva temple, known as the Southern Kailasam, covers some 60,000 square metres in five enclosures, and the northern half of it was built by Rajaraja Chola's chief queen Lokamahadevi in the late tenth century. The composer Thyagaraja's samadhi is here, and every year musicians gather at it to sing his five gem songs together.
Featured: Thanjavur Bronze Icon CraftA town on the Kaveri 8 km west of Kumbakonam, nine minutes by road, holding the fourth of Murugan's six houses — the shrine sits on an 18 m hillock reached by sixty steps, one named for each year of the Tamil cycle. The town also casts bronze icons by the lost-wax method, a craft given its own geographical indication in 2008-09 and traced back to the sculptors Rajaraja Chola brought in for the Thanjavur temple, who stayed on when the work was done.
Thanjavur district is known for: the UNESCO Brihadeeswarar (Big) Temple, Chola bronzes, the Maratha palace and the Tanjore painting tradition.
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List your placeThe best tourist places to visit in Kallanai — temples, viewpoints, lakes, heritage and nature, each with a full guide, how to reach it and what to see nearby.
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Written about Kallanai itself — its history, its legends and the arguments about them.
Wider reading from Thanjavur. The stories about Kallanai itself are above.
In 1010 CE, workers hauled the last stones onto a tower that had no equal in the medieval world. This is the story of Rajaraja Chola I and the temple he raised to his god.
A clay mould is broken open, and a god steps out in metal — never to be cast the same way again. This is the story of the Chola bronzes and the craft that still lives at Swamimalai.
A Maratha king schooled by a German missionary spent his reign chasing manuscripts across languages and continents. The library he built still stands in the Thanjavur palace.
Route-level itineraries and practical guides for the rest of the state.
Three days, three UNESCO Chola temples and a delta full of bronze-casters, painted palaces and living tradition.
Around Kumbakonam, nine ancient Shiva temples map the sky onto the delta. Pilgrims drive between them seeking remedy, and at the Rahu shrine, poured milk appears to turn blue.
Three temples, two emperors and one UNESCO inscription. Here is the dynastic story behind the Great Living Chola Temples, and how to see all three from Thanjavur and Kumbakonam.
Top places to visit in Kallanai include Grand Anicut — each has a full guide with how to reach it and what to see nearby on this page.
The nearest airport to Kallanai is Tiruchirappalli (TRZ), ~55–60 km. The rail gateway is Thanjavur Junction (TJ). Frequent TNSTC and private buses link Thanjavur with Tiruchirappalli, Kumbakonam, Madurai and Chennai; confirm current timings before travel.
November to February is the coolest, most comfortable season to visit Kallanai and the rest of Tamil Nadu. April to June is very hot, and the October–December north-east monsoon brings the delta its main rains.
