The renovation of the 12-feet-high 'kalasam' (pinnacle) of the 216-feet high vimanam (tower) of the 11th century Big Temple at Thanjavur commenced on Sunday.
As a prelude to the consecration of the Chola temple scheduled for February 5, the renovation of the temple has been carried out. It was decided to renovate the Kalasam also.
A team of experts including M Amirthalingam, faculty of Metallurgical and Materials department of IIT Madras inspected the condition of the Kalasam. After the inspection it was found out the Kalasam was made of copper and the inner portion of the Kalasam was filled with Kodo Millet (Varagu). The Kalasam was made of eight parts of which three were big and five were small.
Following the inspection, special poojas were held atop the Vimanam and the Kalasam was dismantled into eight parts and they were brought down by the workers through the temporary steps formed using wooden poles in the 216-feet Vimanam. These eight parts are being cleaned.
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Later these will be given a gold plating in the presence of the officials of Revenue, HR and CE department, police officials. The work will be carried out by a team led by RT Selvaraj, the HR and CE recognised Sthapathy.
Two donors Karthikeyan of Madurai and Sri Kumar of Coimbatore have come forward to take care of the expenditure for the renovation of the Kalasam including the gold plating, official sources said.