Chettinad

The opulence of the mansions dotted in and around the seventy or so villages that make up the Chettinad region, give credence to the myth that the erstwhile owners, the Chettiars, financed the expansionary tendencies of various Chola Rajas. The Chola dynasty is but a memory and the descendants of the Chettiars are now bankrolling hi-tech industries but their mansions and temples, apogees of refined, artistic achievements, remain as testaments to an era when merchants and monarchs existed symbiotically.