Seven Pagodas
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Seven Pagodas
Village in the District and taluk of Chingleput, Madras, situated in 12 37' N. and 80 12' E. } 35 miles south of Madras city, on the Buckingham Canal, between it and the sea. Population (1901), 1,229. The vernacular name is variously spelt as Mahabalipur, Mahavellipur, Mavallipur, Mamalaipur, Mamallapur, and Mallapur. The disputations regarding its form are discussed in Major M. W. Carr's book regarding it and in Mr. Crole's Manual of the District.
The village itself is insignificant, but near it are some of the most interesting and, to archaeologists, the most important architectural remains in Southern India. These antiquities may be divided into three groups : the five so-called raths (monolithic temples) to the south of the village, belonging perhaps to the latest Buddhist period ; the cave-temples, monolithic figures, 'carvings, and sculptures, west of the village, perhaps of the sixth or seventh century, which contain some marvellous reliefs, ranking with those of Ellora and Elephanta ; the more modern temples of Vishnu and Siva, the latter being washed by the sea. To these last two, with five other pagodas buried (accord- ing to tradition) under the sea, the place owes its English name. Who were the authors of the older of these constructions is a question which cannot be considered to be definitely set at rest. Mr. Sewell, after examining the question in its different aspects, concludes by observing that exactly at the period when, according to the style of architecture, as judged by the best authorities, we find a northern race temporarily residing at or near this place, sculpturing these wonderful relics and suddenly departing, leaving them unfinished, inscriptions give us the Chalukyas from the north conquering the Pallava dynasty of Kanchi, temporarily residing there and then driven out of the country, after a struggle, permanently and for ever. Everything, therefore, would seem to point to the Chalukyas of Kalyanapura as being the sculp- tors of the Seven Pagodas. Mr. Crole describes the antiquities as follows :
- The best, and by far the most important, of its class is the pastoral
group in the Krishna mantapam, as it is called, The fact is, that it represents Indra, the god of the sky, supporting the clouds a with his left hand, to protect the cattle of Bala from the fury of the Maruts or tempest demons. Near him, the cattle are being tended and milked. To the right, a young bull is seen, with head slightly turned and fore- foot extended, as if suddenly startled. This is one of the most spirited and lifelike pieces of sculpture to be seen anywhere.
- A little to the north of this is the great bas-relief which goes by the
name of "Arjuna's Penance." It covers a mass of rock 96 feet in length and 43 feet in height, and is described by Fergusson as " the most remarkable thing of its class in India." " Now," says he, " that
1 More correctly, Krishna supporting a hill; see GiRi RAJ. it is known to be wholly devoted to serpent-worship, it acquires an interest it had not before, and opens a new chapter in Indian myth- ology. There seems nothing to enable us to fix its age with absolute certainty ; it can hardly, however, be doubted that it is anterior to the tenth century, and may be a couple of centuries earlier."
- Near the stone choultry by the side of the road, and a little to the
north of the rock last described, stands a well-executed group lately exhumed, representing a couple of monkeys catching fleas on each other after the manner of their kind, while a young one is extracting nourishment from the female.
' Near this point, a spectator, looking southwards, may see, formed by the ridges on which the caves are cut, the recumbent figure of a man with his hands in the attitude of prayer or meditation. This figure measures at least 1,500 feet long, the partly natural resemblance having been assisted by the rolling away of rocks and boulders. On the spot, this is called the " Giant Raja Bali," but it is no doubt the work of Jains.
'The whole of this ridge is pitted with caves and temples. There are fourteen or fifteen Rishi caves in it, and much carving and figuring of a later period. These are distinguished by the marked transition from the representations of scenes of peace to scenes of battle, treading down of opposition and destruction, the too truthful emblems of the dark centuries of religious strife which preceded and followed the final expulsion of the Buddhists. Their age is not more than 600 or 700 years ; and the art is poor, and shows as great a decadence in matter as in religion. The representations are too often gross and disgusting, and the carving stiff and unnatural entirely wanting in ease and grace and truth to nature.
' Behind this ridge, and near the canal, are two more of the mono- lithic rath*) and one similar in form, but built of large blocks of stone.
' The last period is represented by the Shore Temple, the Varaha- swami Temple in the village, and by some of the remains in a hamlet called Salewankuppen, 2 miles to the northward. In the two former there is little distinguishable in construction and general plan from similar buildings to be found everywhere in the South.'
Mr. Fergusson discusses the architectural aspects as follows :
'The oldest and most interesting group of monuments are the so- called five rathS) or monolithic temples, standing on the sea-shore. One of these, that with the apsidal termination, stands a little detached from the rest. The other four stand in a line north and south, and look as if they had been carved out of a single stone or rock, which originally, if that were so, must have been between 35 feet and 40 feet high at its southern end, sinking to half that height at its northern extremity, and its width diminishing in a like proportion.
4 The first on the north is a mere pansala or cell, 1 1 feet square externally and 16 feet high. It is the only one, too, that seems finished or nearly so, but it has no throne or image internally, from which we might guess its destination.
' The next is a small copy of the last to the southward, and measures ii feet by 1 6 feet in plan, and 20 feet in height. The third is very remarkable; it is an oblong building with a curvilinear-shaped roof with a straight ridge. Its dimensions are 42 feet long, 25 feet wide, and 25 feet high. Externally it seems to have been completely carved, but internally only partially excavated, the work being apparently stopped by an accident. It is cracked completely through, so that daylight can be seen through it, and several masses of the rock have fallen to the ground. This has been ascribed to an earthquake and other causes. My impression is that the explanation is not far to seek, but arose from unskilfulness on the part of workmen employed in a first attempt. Having completed the exterior, they set to work to excavate the interior, so as to make it resemble a structural building of the same class, leaving only such pillars and supports as were sufficient to support a wooden roof of the ordinary construction. In this instance, it was a mass of solid granite which, had the excavation been completed, would certainly have crushed the lower storey to powder. As it was, the builders seem to have taken the hint of the crack, and stopped the further progress of the work.
' The last, however, is the most interesting of the series. Its dimen- sions are 27 feet by 25 feet in plan, 34 feet in height. Its upper part is entirely finished with its sculptures, the lower merely blocked out. It may be that, frightened by the crack in the last-named rath^ or from some other cause, they desisted, and it still remains in an unfinished state.
' The materials for fixing the age of this rath are, first, the palaeo- graphic form of the characters used in the numerous inscriptions with which it is covered. Comparing these with Prinsep's alphabets, allowing for difference of locality, they seem certainly to be anterior to the seventh century. The language, too, is Sanskrit, while all the Chola inscriptions of the tenth and subsequent centuries are in Tamil, and in very much more modern characters. Another proof of antiquity is the character of the sculpture. We have on this rath most of the Hindu Pantheon, such as Brahma and Vishnu ; Siva, too, appears in most of his characters, but all in forms more subdued than to be found elsewhere. The one extravagance is that the gods have generally four arms never more to distinguish them from mortals; but none of the combinations or extravagances we find in the caves here, as at Ellora or Elephanta. It is the soberest and most reason- able version of the Hindu Pantheon yet discovered, and consequently one of the most interesting, as well, probably, as the earliest.
' None of the inscriptions on the raths have dates ; but from the mention of the Pallavas in connexion with this place, I see no reason for doubting the inference drawn by Sir Walter Elliot from their inscriptions "that the excavations could not well have been made later than the sixth century." Add to all this, that these raths are certainly very like Buddhist buildings, and it seems hardly to admit of doubt that we have here petrifactions of the last forms of Buddhist architecture, and the first forms of that of the Dravidian.
' The want of interiors in these raths makes it sometimes difficult to make this as clear as it might be. We cannot, for instance, tell whether the apsidal rath was meant to reproduce a chaitya hall, or a vihdra. From its being in several storeys, I would infer the latter \ but the whole is so conventionalized by transplantation to the South, and by the different uses to which they are applied for the purposes of a different religion, that we must not stretch analogies too far.
'There is one other rath, at some distance from the others, called " Arjuna's Rath," which, strange to say, is finished, or nearly so, and gives a fair idea of the form their oblong temples took before we have any structural buildings of the class. This temple, though entered in the side, was never intended to be pierced through, but always to contain a cell. The large oblong rath^ on the contrary, was intended to be open all round ; and whether, consequently, we should consider it as a choultry or a gopuram is not quite clear. One thing, at all events, seems certain and it is what interests us most here that the square raths are copies of Buddhist viharas> and are the originals from which all the vimdnas in Southern India were copied, and continued to be copied nearly unchanged to a very late period. ... On the other hand, the oblong raths were halls or porticoes with the Buddhists, and became the gopurams or gateways which are frequently, indeed generally, more important parts of Dravidian temples than the vimdnas themselves. They, too, like the vimdnas^ retain their original features very little changed to the present day.
' The other antiquities at Mahabalipur, though very interesting in themselves, are not nearly so important as the ruths just described. The caves are generally small, and fail architecturally, from the feeble- ness and tenuity of their supports. The Southern cave-diggers had evidently not been grounded in the art like their Northern compeers, the Buddhists.
The long experience of the latter in the art taught them that ponderous masses were not only necessary to support their roofs, but for architectural effect ; and neither they nor the Hindus who succeeded them in the North ever hesitated to use pillars of two or three diameters in height, or to crowd them together to any required extent. In the South, on the contrary, the cave-diggers tried to copy literally the structural pillar used to support wooden roofs.
Hence, I believe, the accident to the long rath ; and hence certainly the poor and modern look of all the Southern caves, which has hitherto proved such a stumbling-block to all who have tried to guess their age. Their sculpture is better, and some of their best designs rank with those of Ellora and Elephanta, with which they were, in all probability, con- temporary. Now, however, that we know that the sculptures in Cave No. 3 at Badami were executed in the sixth century (A.D. 579), we are enabled to approximate to the date of those in the Mahabalipur caves with very tolerable certainty. The Badami sculptures are so similar in style with the best examples there, that they cannot be far distant in date; and if placed in the following century it will not, probably, be far from the truth.'
A number of coins of all ages have been found in the neighbour- hood, among others Roman, Chinese, and Persian. A Roman coin, damaged, but believed to be of Theodosius (A.D. 393), formed part of Colonel Mackenzie's collection. Others have been found on the sand- hills along the shore south of Madras city.
