History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.s4.39

v1.c19.s4.39

Siva, Brahma, and Vishnu in various characters as Arddhanâri Narasimha, Varâha, etc. — none of them with more than four arms.¹ Over these figures are seventeen short epigraphs containing epithets that were long misunderstood; but from a comparison of them with the very similar series round the inside of the enclosure of the Kailâsanâtha temple at Kânchîpuram, a clue is obtained that enables us to fix the date of these monuments. Stated briefly, it stands thus:—On the east side of the third storey of this rath is the epigraph—"The temple of the holy Atyantakâma-Pallavesvara: Ranajaya," and this Atyantakâma, in the other storeys is styled Narasimha Srînidhi, Srîbhara, etc. On the monolithic temple of Ganesa, to be noticed below, and in the Dharmarâja Mantapa cave are identical inscriptions of the same Atyantakâma-Srînidhi-Srîbhara; and at Sâluvankuppam cave is an inscription of King Atiranachanda with the names of Atyantakâma, Srîbhara, Ranajaya, Kâlakâla, etc.—which are also epithets of Râjasimha in the Kânchî inscriptions. Now we learn from copperplate grants that the Pallava king, Râjasimha, bore the names of Kâlakâla, Narasimhavishnu and Narasimhavarman, and must have reigned about the last quarter of the 7th century. We can hardly escape the conclusion, then, that Râjasimha, Atyantakâma, Atiranachanda, etc., are all names (or *birudas*) of one king, the son and successor of Ugradanda-Lokâditya or Paramesvaravarman.² His dedications are all Saiva, and their occurrence on so many of the Mâmallapuram shrines supports the testimony, previously founded on the style alone, that they belong to one time, and were all excavated within a short period about A.D. 670 to 700.