Pallava Architecture, Part I (MASI 17) c2.117

c2.117

Temple No. 2 is located within a few feet east of No. 1 and stands at a slightly higher level above the stream which flows past the group of temples [Plate XVI (b)]. Both on plan and in design it is similar to No. 1 and belongs to the same period. The little rock-cut shrine cell is about 4½ feet square on plan and contains a black stone linga, a trifle taller and thinner than the one enshrined in No. 1. On each side of the shrine doorway are the usual doorkeepers leaning on big clubs guarding the entrance. They are similar in style to those belonging to No. 1 but without horns to the headdress. The facade is only 8 feet in width, so there is no room for any extra panels containing images of Brahma and Vishnu as in No. 1. In front is an open terrace hewn out of the rock measuring 8 feet square, in the centre of which was once a small stone bull facing the shrine entrance. On the north side of the terrace is a little niche containing a tiny cross-legged seated figure apparently meant for Śiva and a corresponding niche cut in the opposite wall containing an image of Gaṇēśa. Just below the floor level of the terrace cut in the face of the rock and facing east is a group of little memorial shrines similar to those on the opposite bank of the stream already described. They extend northwards in a row nearly up to the temple No. 1. Cut in the face of the rock at this spot I found four inscriptions apparently relating to the memorial shrines and not to the temples. Two of these records were too fragmentary and decayed for decipherment and Mr. Krishna Sastri was unable to make anything of them. Of the other two, one gives the name of a shrine as " the prosperous Dāmodharēśvara shrine ", but it is not clear which particular memorial shrine is referred to. The other record reads as follows :—" The abode of the glorious Bramisvara (is the work of) Chāmāchari, of Dhirukanthi ". This apparently refers to the biggest memorial shrine in the group as it is the only one which is ornamented with a figure of Brahma on one side of the little entrance and Vishnu on the other. I also sent estampages of these inscriptions and photographs of the temples to Mr. G. J. Dubreuil of Pondicherry requesting him to favour me with his opinion concerning their age and origin. He states as follows :—" Between temples Nos. 1 and 2, we have a few letters engraved in the Pallava-grantha alphabet of the time of Mahendravarman I recording the name Śrī Brahmīśvaraviṣṇu, i.e., the shrine of Brahmā, Īśvara and Viṣṇu but the last syllable nu and the following letters have been erased and in their place we have another inscription of a later period recording that the temple was made by Chāmāchāri of Dhīrukamthi. The imposture is very visible and there is no doubt that this man has defaced a very beautiful Pallava inscription by appropriating to himself the merit of the work. Indeed, the name of the shrine is written in very carefully traced Pallava characters, but after the name of Viṣ(nu), the letters of the inscription are rough, badly engraved and in Chālukya style of alphabet. Moreover, according to the original Pallava inscription, the shrine was dedicated to the Hindu Trinity, Brahmā, Śiva and Viṣṇu, and we know that the Mandagappattu temple was dedicated to these three deities, but Chāmāchāri makes the new text read as if the shrine was dedicated to the dual god Brahmīśvara in place of the Trinity, which is another proof that the dedication of the shrine by Chāmāchāri is a forgery. So the inscriptions and the sculptures agree concerning the fact that the temples at Bhairavakonda were begun by the Pallavas in the reign of Mahendravarman I and finished in the time of the Chālukyas.” It is therefore clear that the earlier examples at Bhairavakonda were begun about 600 to 610 A. D. in the reign of Mahendra and the work interrupted by the Chālukya invasion.