Pallava Architecture, Part I (MASI 17) c2.114

c2.114

[Plate XV (a)]. The temples are similar in style to rock-cut monuments of the Pallava period, but most of the memorial shrines appear later and the inscriptions show that many of them were excavated long after the temples were founded. It is obvious from their architectural style that some of the temples are much older than others. The earliest are similar in style to monuments belonging to the Mahendra period and the later examples similar to those of the Māmalla period and bear a remarkable resemblance to some of the rock-cut temples at the Seven Pagodas. On purely architectural grounds, they appear to range in date from the 7th to the latter part of the 8th century, and rank among the earliest Hindu temples yet discovered in Southern India. The inscriptions range from the 7th to the 10th century and mostly refer to the memorial shrines founded by pilgrims and not to the temples: so they are not of much use in tracing the origin of the latter. Some of the older records were so fragmentary and decayed that Mr. Krishna Sastri reports that he was unable to make anything of them. In some places, usually on the surface of the rock separating two temples, the space is honeycombed with these little memorial shrines, and it is usually at such spots that the inscriptions occur—a circumstance which makes it impossible to know which shrine or temple the record refers to, as they are all so close together forming one group.