15.01.2012
The whole of Chennai is gearing up for celebrating Pongal. A long-long weekend--a carnival of fun and frolic for the masses-- Nobody feels like working. Spent a relaxed day at Mahabalipuram with a group of relatives-by-marriage at the Indeco Resort.
On 15th January I took a walking tour of Mahabalipuram. The walk commenced on the sea shore at 6.00AM and we took a sweeping semi-circle across th
e bus stand near the Vishnu temple and after seeing the famous arjun’s Penance bas relief we walked along the hill face and past the two light houses (old and new). Thereafter we took a sharp left to reach the Five Raths, a group of monolithic temples in the form of chariots reputedly for the Five Pandav princes and their consort Draupadi.
Mahabalipuram is an ancient tamil port and derives its name, Mammallpuram from Narasimhavarma Pallavan, who was named Mamalla, meaning great wrestler due to his prowess in wrestling (Malyuddham). His father Mahendravarman was a patron of sculpture and under his rule Mammallpuram was a sculptor’s colony where master sculptors including Amarar Kalki’s fictional creation Aayanar Sirpi, worked and taught their disciples. A little distance south of the Arjun’s Penance freize is another which is half finished and unformed. This leads us to conclude that the sculpture work at Mahabalipuram is no more than practice work done by apprentice sculptors who, on completion of training moved on to places where temples are being conducted. Possibly a group of these settled down in Thanjavur and possinbly their descesndants were the architects and designers of the later chola masterpieces of Temple architecture.
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