Tanjore City
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Tanjore City
Tanjavur
Head-quarters of the District and taluk of the same name in Madras, situated in 10" 47' N. and 79° 8' E., on the main line of the South Indian Railway, 218 miles from Madras and 226 from Tuticorin. The population in 1871 was 52,175; in 1881, 54,745; in 1891, 54,390; and in 1901, 57,870. Tanjore now ranks as the eighth largest town in the Presidency. Eighty-five per cent, of the population are Hindus, there being only 3,600 Musalmans, 4,796 Christians, and 154 Jains. Tanjore was successively the capital of the Chola, Naik, and Maratha powers. It stood a siege by Chanda Sahib and the French in 1749, and by the French under Eally in 1758, and was afterwards captured by Colonel Joseph Smith in 1773, though it was restored in 1776 to the Maratha Raja. In 1799, when Sara- bhojl, the Raja of Tanjore, ceded his territory to the British by treaty, he retained the city in his own hands. It lapsed to the British Government in 1855 on the death of his son, Sivaji, without heirs. Four surviving queens, besides other members of the family, still occupy the palace in the centre of the fort. There are two halls in this palace, known as the Maratha and Naik Darbar Halls, in the latter of which stands a statue of Sarabhoj! by Chantrey. The building also contains an armoury, and a library of 22,000 volumes in several Indian and European languages, principally Sanskrit.
Within the great fort, now dismantled, is a smaller erection called the Sivaganga fort. It encloses the sacred Sivaganga tank and the famous Brihadiswaraswami temple. The inscriptions on the walls of the latter ascribe its construction to the Chola king, Rajaraja I, in the eleventh century. It is built on a well-defined and stately plan, which was persevered with till its completion, an unusual feature in Dravidian temples. It consists of two courts, of which the first, originally devoted to minor shrines and residences, was converted into an arsenal by the French in 1772, and has not been reappropriated to sacred purposes. The temple proper stands in the second courtyard, sur- mounted by a tower 200 feet high. The carvings on this tower are all Vaishnavite, but everything in the courtyard, as well as the idol itself, is Saivite. Strangely enough, there is a figure on the northern side of the tower which appears to be that of a European, the popular expla- nation of which anachronism is that the eleventh-century architect foresaw the advent of the British. In front of the temple is a huge monolith representing Siva's bull Nandi, and behind it is a shrine dedicated to Subrahmanya, 'as exquisite a piece of decorative archi- tecture as is to be found in the South of India.' The great temple contains a very large number of ancient inscriptions of the Chola and other dynasties. Most of these have been deciphered, and many have been published in the second volume of Dr. Hultzsch's South indian Inscriptions.
Under the native dynasties, Tanjore was considered the home of the fine arts. It still produces skilful artisans. In metal-work and in the manufacture of musical instruments the place is perhaps unrivalled in the Presidency ; and its silk-weaving, lace, embroidery, jewellery, pith- work, and artificial garlands have a deservedly high reputation.
Tanjore was made the District head-quarters in 1860, five years after it came into the hands of the British, and possesses the usual staff of officials. There is a District jail which will hold 333 prisoners, with room in its hospital and observation cells, respectively, for 15 and 19 more. The present city consists of the fort and two suburbs, Karantattangudi in the north, where the Brahman quarter is situated, and Manambuchavadi in the south-east, where Europeans reside. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the Methodists, the Lutherans, and the Roman Catholics all have mission stations here. The first of these is the successor of the mission founded in 1778 by the famous Swartz, who resided chiefly in Tanjore from that date to his death in 1798, and to whose memory a marble monument by Flaxman, representing Raja Sarabhoji's last visit to the dying mission- ary, stands in the Swartz Church within the fort. St. Peter's College, founded as an English school by Swartz in the eighteenth century, rose to be a second-grade college in 1864 and a first-grade college ten years later. It was affiliated to the University of Madras in 1880, and has an average attendance of 130 in the college classes and 238 in the lower classes. It has throughout been managed by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. There are also an English high school maintained by private agency, a training school for teachers, and a technical institute.
Tanjore was constituted a municipality in 1866. The receipts and expenditure during the ten years ending 1902-3 averaged Rs. 1,33,000 and Rs. 1,34,000 respectively. In 1903-4 the income was Rs. 1,03,000, including the house and land taxes (Rs. 27,000), the vehicle and animal tax (Rs. 7,500), tolls (Rs. 17,000), water rate (Rs. 19,000), and markets and slaughter-houses (Rs. 11,500). The main heads of expenditure were water-supply (Rs. 20,000), conservancy (Rs. 21,500), roads and buildings (Rs. 10,700), and education (Rs. 11,000), out of a total of Rs. 96,000. The city is now supplied with water pumped from wells sunk in the bed of the Vennar. The works were opened in 1895 and cost about 7/2 lakhs. The expenditure on water-supply for the succeeding eight years, inclusive of extensions, averaged Rs.26,600, and the receipts Rs. 15,900. A system of drainage for the fort was carried out in 1840 during the Raja's time ; and a scheme for the disposal of the sewage on a farm at a cost of Rs. 3,34,000 has been investigated, but is in abeyance for want of funds. The principal hospital was founded and endowed by public subscription in 1880, and is under the management of the District board. It contains 144 beds, and has attached to it a medical school, the staff of which was recently reorganized and considerably strengthened.
