Pallava Architecture, Part I (MASI 17) c2.116

c2.116

Temple No. 1 is the first one the visitor sees on approaching the group from the plains and is excavated at the northern end of the granite rock in which they are all located close together. It faces the north, while all the rest face the east. The face of the rock at this point takes a turn to the north, so the stone masons had no alternative but to excavate the temple facing the same direction. It is a very small temple, plain and severe in style and appears to be one of the oldest in the group [Plate XV (b)]. It consists of a small plain shrine chamber 5½ feet square and about 6 feet in height containing a black stone linga of the kind already described. In front, hewn out of the rock, is a little open terrace 11½ feet in length and 5½ feet in width. In the centre of the terrace facing the linga is a small stone bull. On each side of the shrine doorway facing the front is a large panel containing a life-size sculptural figure of a doorkeeper leaning on a huge club guarding the entrance. They are typical Pallava figures like those already mentioned and the one on the west side of the entrance is portrayed wearing the horned headdress referred to above. On each side of the doorkeepers is a smaller niche facing the front. One contains a bas-relief figure of Brahma and the other of Vishnu. Both figures are of the four-armed type already mentioned and appear later in style than the doorkeepers, the niches too are badly cut and unsymmetrical giving the work the appearance of being a later addition. Similar figures of Brahma and Vishnu appear on the front wall of the shrine chamber of the Pallava temple known as the Orukal Mandapa at Tirukkalukkunram, and there, too, they have the appearance of having been added to the original temple at a later period. Although these two figures are always portrayed four-armed, the attributes held in the hands are shown without flames of fire, a fact which indicates their early origin. The temple has no cornice or ornamental mouldings. Two narrow flat bands run along the architrave spanning the facade and two broad vertical bands enclose the big doorkeepers in niches. Three square socket holes cut in the outer edge of the floor of the terrace in front of the shrine indicate that the open terrace was once covered with a thatched roof supported on wooden pillars. Some of the temples at the Seven Pagodas also had the same arrangement when not provided with rock-cut pillared porches or verandahs in front of the shrine cell. Cut in the base of the vertical rock forming the west enclosure wall of the roofless terrace is a little niche containing a cross-legged seated figure holding an axe, which is apparently meant to represent Śiva. On the other side of the terrace are two similar little niches—one contains an image of Gaṇēśa and the other once held a small linga. These three memorial niches and two crude outlines of worshippers carved on the inner sides of the doorjambs of the shrine entrance are evidently later additions; presumably executed by devotees to the temple to commemorate their visit. The temple contains no inscriptions. On purely architectural grounds, it appears to be an early Pallava monument of about the 7th century A. D. [Plate XVI (a)].