Maratha Darbar Hall in Big Temple to get facelift under Smart City scheme

The Maratha Darbar Hall, said to be constructed in the Nayaks period, was called as a Lakshmi Vilasam and played as a golu mandapam during the Nayak dynasty. It was last renovated by the Maratha King Shahaji Raje Bhosle in 1684 and was enriched with the Maratha tradition and the courtly traits of the North.

The hall in front of Sri Subramanya shrine inside the Big Temple at Thanjavur, has paintings of various Maratha rulers of Thanjavur and those associated with them.

However, gradually, several paintings in the Darbar hall were damaged due to poor maintenance and so the great Darbar hall lost tourists attention. Historians and researchers continued to demand for the renovation of the Darbar hall that would retain the grandeur of the Maratha dynasty.

In such a backdrop, the Thanjavur Civic body sent a proposal to the Tamil Nadu Archaeological Department a few months back to renovate the Darbar hall and the department sought a revised proposal for the renovation as the earlier requested fund was certainly inadequate to rework the paintings in the traditional manner.

Subsequently, a revised proposal was sent to the department and it was accepted and the archeological department would undertake the renovation of the traditional paintings by reviving the rich heritage of the Darbar under the Smart City programme.

The department would also establish a lawn in front of the Darbar hall as a part of the renovation programme. Sources from the Archeological Department said that adequate fund would be released soon after the administrative sanction and the works would commence accordingly.