Pallava Architecture, Part I (MASI 17) c2.30

c2.30

After Mahēndravarman I became converted to Saivism by the saint Appar as related above, he excavated a number of cave-temples and dedicated all of them, except one, to Siva. The one exception is the temple at Mahēndravādi which was dedicated to Vishnu. Although apparently at first a Jaina, it is stated that after he became converted to the cult of the linga, Mahēndra demolished the Jaina monastery at Pataliputtiram, a seat of Jaina learning in the South Arcot district, and built a Siva temple on the spot. As a Jaina he is also said to have persecuted the Saivas and the saint Appar in particular. However, be this as it may, he evidently did not persecute the Vaishnavas nor the Buddhists; for the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsiang who visited Kānchīpuram about the end of Mahēndra's reign, says with regard to the religious condition of the Pallava country—"There are some hundreds of Buddhist monasteries and ten thousand priests. They all study the teaching of the Sthavira School belonging to the Great Vehicle. There are some eighty Dēva temples and many heretics called Nirgranthas." Even at the present day, there are sufficient Buddhist antiquities surviving at Conjeeveram to testify to the truth of Hiuen Tsiang's statement.