The Vimana Under Chola Patronage

Dravida vimanas reached their most monumental scale under the Chola dynasty of the tenth to twelfth centuries, whose rulers used temple building on an unprecedented scale as an expression of royal and religious authority across the Tamil region. The eleventh century Brihadeeswarar Temple at Thanjavur, built under Rajaraja Chola I, remains the type's benchmark achievement: its vimana rises well over sixty meters, capped by a single massive carved stone that later tradition credits to a long ramp built to raise it into place, and the temple was recognized by UNESCO as part of the Great Living Chola Temples World Heritage listing. The scale of Chola-era vimana building had lasting influence on temple architecture across South and Southeast Asia, since Chola trade and political contact extended into Sri Lanka and parts of maritime Southeast Asia, carrying elements of Dravida temple design with it.

In later centuries, particularly under Vijayanagara and Nayaka patronage from the fourteenth century onward, temple building shifted much of its ambition away from the vimana itself and toward ever taller gopurams and ever larger mandapas, so the Chola vimana tradition represents something of a historical high point for the sanctum tower specifically, even as South Indian temple architecture as a whole continued to grow in overall scale.