The Talinatha temple at Tirupattur is among the more perfect and larger temples of Varaguna’s time. Two inscriptions (868 CE and 878 CE) refer to the regnal years of Maranjadaiyan who is Varaguna II.
According to one of the scholars, this temple is sufficiently evolved in plan and form so that the Maranjadiyan inscription on the temple could be of Parantaka Viranaryayana’s time; if so, the temple may be coeval with the earliest Cola temples of Chola Aditya I’s time. However, certain details and the wooden feeling of the low relief work on the niches (panjara-kosthas) and on the gateways (toranas), could warrant a date slightly earlier than that of the oldest Chola buildings. The temple anticipates some of the elements of Chola buildings, but is otherwise fully rendered in Pandyan idiom.
Reference: M.W. Meister and M.A. Dhaky, 1963, pp.115 – 117.
CENTER FOR ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY 
