Pallava Architecture, Part I (MASI 17) c2.115.2

c2.115.2

At the Seven Pagodas a few years ago I found buried in the sand, one just outside the western shrine of the Shore temple and the other outside the small Siva temple next to the Durga temple at the Five Raths, two life-size stone heads of Siva decorated with bull's horns and carved in the round. Projecting downwards from the neck was a stone tenon indicating that these heads were once set up in shrines in place of the usual lingas. These horns and the strange manner of dressing the hair suggests that some peculiar Saiva cult flourished during the Pallava period. Another feature about the Bhairavakonda temples, which is very characteristic of Pallava monuments, is the presence of bas-relief images of Brahma and Vishnu carved in panels on each side of the shrine doorway which is guarded by the big doorkeepers mentioned above. Unlike the doorkeepers, these two figures are always four-armed. The image of Brahma appears on the proper right or south side of the shrine containing the linga and Vishnu on the north side, the three apparently representing the Hindu Trinity. But the important position given to the linga shows that Siva was the chief object of worship, Brahma and Vishnu being regarded as minor deities. These two deities occupy the same subordinate position in the bas-relief panels representing Sōmaskanda found in Pallava temples of the 8th century at the Seven Pagodas, Panamalai, Conjeeveram and elsewhere.