History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s4.18

v1.c19.s4.18

If we do not know all we would wish about the antiquities of Mâmallapuram,¹ it is not because attempts have not been made to supply the information. (Situated on an open beach, within 32 miles of Madras, it has been more visited and oftener described than any other place in India.) The first volume of the 'Asiatic Researches' (1788) contained an exhaustive paper on them by Wm. Chambers. This was followed in the fifth (1798) by another by Mr Goldingham. In the second volume of the 'Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society' (1830) there appeared what was then considered a most successful attempt to decipher the inscriptions there, by Dr. Guy Babington, accompanied by views of most of the sculptures. Before this, however, in 1816, Colonel Colin Mackenzie had employed his staff to make detailed drawings of all the sculptures and architectural details, and he left a collection of about forty drawings, which are now, in manuscript, in the India Office. Like all such collections, without descriptive text, they are nearly useless for scientific purposes. The 'Madras Journal,' in 1844, contained a guide to the place by Lieutenant J. Braddock, with notes by the Rev. G. W. Mahon, the Rev. W. Taylor, and Sir Walter Elliot;² and almost every journal of every traveller in these parts contains some hint regarding them, or some attempt to describe and explain their peculiarities or beauties. With the exception of the Mackenzie MS.—the most of these were collected in a volume in 1869 by a Lieutenant Carr, and published at the expense of the Madras Government,¹ but, unfortunately, as too often happens, the editor selected had no general knowledge of the subject, nor had he apparently much local familiarity with the place. His work in consequence added nothing to our previous stores.²