________________
APPENDIX II
503
high, of the Burgā. The Vårahae Warāha Avatāra. the former are remain.
The two cave-temples known as the Varāha Maņdapa and the Varāha Temple appear to be the only ancient Vaişņava shrines at Mahabalipuram. Carved in bas-relief in four large panels on the walls of the former are remarkable sculptures representing the Varäha Avatara, the Vāmana Avatara, Lakşmi and Durga. The Varaha Temple contains a large bas-relief, 8 feet high, of the Boar Incarnation, carved on the back wall of the shrine chamber. Vaisnavism seems to have ousted the Saiva faith from its dominant position at Māmallapuram at a much later date when the lingas were cast out of the shrines, and some of the Siva temples damaged and subjected to what has been called Vaisnava vandalism. But there is no doubt that during the Pallava period Mamallapuram was a stronghold of Saiva worship.
There must have been Saiva temples at other places besides Māmallapuram during the reigns of Narasimhavarman I and Parameśvaravarman I. The Kuram plates issued by the latter, sometime after his victory over the Chalukya Vikramaditya I in 674 A, D., record a grant to the Siva temple of Vidyāvinīta Pallaveśvara, which has been identified with the dilapidated Siva temple at Kūram, a village near Conjeeveram. At Melacheri in the South Arcot district there is a cave-temple dedicated to Siva, which contains an inscription recording the fact that it was built by the emperor Candraditya. It has been surmised by Jouveau-Dubreuil on paleographic grounds that Candrāditya was a name of Narasimhavarman I or Parameśvaravarman I."
The Pallava cave-temples are small in comparison with the stupendous excavations at Ellora, and appear to have gone out of vogue by the end of the seventh century. Parameśvaravarman I was succeeded by his son Narasimhavarman II, or Rājasimha, who distinguished himself by his piety and devotion to Siva. About the first decade of the eighth century A. D., he built the central shrine of the Kailāsanātha temple at Conjeeveram, the Shore Temple at Mahābalipuram, and the old Śiva temple at Panamalai in the South Arcot district. The temples of Rājasimha possess fluted black stone lingas,
1
Longhurst (op. cit.), Part II, pp. 5, 34, 37. "The comparatively ruined and desecrated state of the Saiva shrines, and the dispersion, overthrow and destruction of lingas, together with the unmolested state of the Vaishnava temples and symbols, suggest strongly the violent overthrow of the Saiva by the Vaishnava faith' at Mamallapuram. The interior of the so-called Rāmānuja Maņdapa was completely wrecked, and one of the pillars of the Mahişăsura Maņdapa was cut out and removed to the Varaha Temple, presumably, to be used in the construction of the modern mandapa erected in front of the old rookout shrine. The few Tamil inscriptions dating from 1073 to 1235 A. D. that have been found at Mamallapuram, indicate that the Vaişnav& sect was dominant during that period, and its followers seem to have remained in the ascendant down to the present day. They still occupy the Varäha Temple and the large modern-looking Sthalasayana Temple in the village and keep up the services of their sect therein.' Jouveau-Dubreuil: The Palladas, p. 45. Ibid.: Pallava Antiquities, Vol. I, p. 66. One of the largest, the so-called Mahişāsura Mandapa, is '32 feet long from north to gouth, 15 feet wide and 121 feet high.' See Longhurst: Pallava Architecture, Part III.
3 4
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
