South-Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses c6.s2.4

c6.s2.4

The earliest Pallava monuments so far discovered are those of Mahābalipuram or the Seven Pagodas. They consist of solid *rathas* cut out of a single rock and of temples scooped out of the living boulder. The form of these *rathas* and temples served perhaps as models to the later temples in cut stone, such as those of the Shore Temple there, the Kailāsanātha and Vaikuntha-Perumāl temples at Conjeeveram, and other Pallava temples elsewhere.