Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram, Mamallapuram

History

Modern reports

European sailors and merchants who pioneered trade with Asia after the 16th century mentioned the site. Early reports, such as those by Niccolao Manucci (who never visited the site, but saw the monuments from a distance and heard about them) conflated Chinese and Burmese Buddhist pagoda designs with the Hindu temples and assumed that the temples were built by the Chinese. According to Anthony Hamilton's 1727 "New Account of the East Indies", the site was a pilgrimage center and its outside sculpture was "obscene, lewd" as performance in Drury Lane. French writer Pierre Sonnerat was critical of European racism toward Indians, and theorized that the Mahabalipuram temples were very old.William Chambers' 1788 literary survey of Mahabalipuram brought the monuments to the attention of European scholars. Chambers interviewed local residents and linked the monumental art he saw to Hindu texts, calling it remarkable and expressive in narrative detail. A series of 19th-century studies, such as those by Benjamin Babington and William Elliot, contained sketches of the monuments and impressions of the inscriptions. Some stories and speculation in Western literature, nevertheless, continued to be unusual. Francis Wilford suggested in 1809 that the monuments were built in 450 BCE, linking them to Cicero's (1st century BCE) writings about Indians who might have built three ancient Indian temple cities (including Mahabalipuram). Nineteenth-century reports note local mentions of "gilt tops of many pagodas" in the surf at sunrise, which elders talked about but could no longer be seen. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Mahabalipuram site was the focus of colonial-era tourist guides and speculation. Portions of many monuments were covered with sand, and little was done to preserve the site. After Indian independence, the Tamil Nadu government developed the Mamallapuram monuments and coastal region as an archaeological, tourism and pilgrimage site by improving the road network and town infrastructure. In 1984, the site was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.The group has been the subject of archaeological interest since 1990, and excavations have yielded unexpected discoveries. According to John Marr, the site yielded "an apsidal-shaped tank, its curved end aligned south towards the middle portion of the Shore Temple" with an anantasayana (reclining Vishnu) probably predating the temple.