Pallava Architecture, Part I (MASI 17) c2.127

c2.127

Temple No. 7 is the best finished and most ornamental temple in the group and appears to be a century or so later than Nos. 1 to 4 and bears a striking resemblance to some of the rock-cut monuments at the Seven Pagodas. On plan it is similar to the one just described and has a small shrine cell 5½ feet square containing a linga of the usual kind and a porch 15 feet in length and 5 feet in width, supported in front by two rock-cut pillars. On each side of the entrance is a big doorkeeper resting on a club; these figures are life size, well executed, and the one on the north side is portrayed wearing the horned headdress while the one on the south side wears a curious flat turban and short locks unlike any of the other doorkeepers here or those found in Pallava monuments elsewhere. On the south side of the facade is an image of Brahma and on the north one of Vishnu. These two figures are similar to those already described, but in this case they appear to be part of the original design as there is nothing about them to indicate that they are later additions like some of the others mentioned above. The facade is quite ornamental and in a good state of preservation. The curved projecting cornice is decorated with four little horseshoe-shaped gabled windows and a frieze of fat little dwarfs below it. The simulated roof line above the cornice is ornamented with three horizontal bands extending the entire length of the facade, a feature which we find in the facades of the Pallava temples at Dalavānūr, Pallāvaram and Mogalrājapuram. Three pairs of little lions and griffins in the act of attacking each other are portrayed along the top of the cornice which is similar in style to the one adorning temple No. 5 and is also found at Mogalrājapuram. The little window openings of the simulated gables are each filled with the head of a five-hooded nāga figure with a human face portrayed peering through the opening. Supporting the architrave and ornamental cornice of the porch are two rock-cut pillars with big lion basses, square shafts, and cushion-shaped capitals carrying brackets decorated in front with conventional lions in a squatting attitude and very ugly to look upon. The central portion of the shaft is decorated with a pretty beaded festoon design often met with in Pallava monuments. The shaft of the pillar rests on the head and neck of the big squatting lion that forms the base of the pillar. These lions are portrayed with their tails carried upwards and twisted into a spiral like the figure eight and are similar in style to the lion bases adorning the pillars of most of the monuments at the Seven Pagodas. Engraved along the front of the architrave and on the cubical portions of the shafts of the pillars are three short inscriptions. Two record merely the names of two ascetics named Srisailamuni and Anantajyōti respectively who visited the temple about the 10th century. The third record is as follows:— *Srī Karuvadi āchārla kōsina paniyu.* “This is the work cut by the famous Achārlu of Karuvadi”. No date is given, but the record seems to indicate that the sculptor claims to be the author of the entire work. In the centre of the open terrace in front of the porch is a small stone bull facing the entrance and little figures of Ganēsa and Siva carved in panels on the north and south walls respectively and which are similar to those already described. [Plate XX (b)].