Sunday, 1 January 2012

Mahabalipuram / Mamallapuram (Part 1)

We next visited Mamallapurum, most famously a temple precinct, mostly from the time of the Pallava period. The peninsula had large granite monoliths which have been painstakingly carved into temples some thousand or more years ago. It turns out it's also the site of a massive influx of locals and tourists on New Years Day, so the whole precinct was exceptionally crowded.

(Mamallapuram is the old, Tamil name, Mahabalipuram the newer one. Both are used interchangeably.)

Krishna's Butter Ball - an immovable natural rock perched on a hillside (per Wikitravel)

The game's given away a little from the side view:

Next we saw a section of rock showing how they cleaved them. A series of peg holes were made, which then had pieces of wood fitted into them. The wood was then soaked with water, causing the pieces to swell, and therefore split the rock.

The next was a series of three temples cut into the hillside, dedicated to Brahma (the creator), Shiva (the destroyer of evil) and Vishnu (the protector). Shiva has a well-polished lingam (phallus), as he is also the god of creation.



There was also a circular pool of water nearby, also carved out of granite.




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