In January 2010, as the first Site Seminar of the Tamil Heritage group, under the guidance of Prof Swaminathan, we spent three days in Mamallapuram. The following text is the email I sent in September 2009 out as an introduction to the preparatory meetings we held before our site seminar.
This is a link to Prof Swaminathan's Powerpoint on Mallai.
Atyantakaama Ashrama Vijaya
Maamallapuram
is today considered a tourist spot, a quick getaway, a sleepy hamlet, and a
seaside resort. In most people’s minds, its chief attraction is its proximity
to Madras, and its uniqueness seems to be that it has temples without priests
and sculptures without roofs.
There’s
an ocean of ignorance between the history and significance of Maamallapuram and
its perception in the public mind. In reality, it was a laboratory of art and
sculpture, an open air museum patronized by a dynasty of dynamic monarchs, a
granite canvas for grantha calligraphy, a field of stone planted with immortal
monuments by artists with fertile imaginations. It stands unique in its
diversity of architecture. In grace it has sometimes been equalled, but rarely
surpassed. It was the epicentre of a cultural earthquake, whose aftershocks
reverberated for a thousand years. Its impact spread across the land, and even
crossed the oceans. It was a thriving commercial port, Kadal Mallai, for the
first empire of Tamilakam, the Pallavan. But as subtle as the sculptures, are
the unsolved mysteries it poses; about authorship, inspiration, incompleteness,
paucity of literary references, even its influences and a later loss of
imagination.
To
have something so magnificent nearby and not revel in it, and share in its
marvels, is akin to visiting a restaurant to merely smell the food. Today there
are people across a wide spectrum of professions and backgrounds, with a
thirsting curiosity to imbibe deeply of the spirit and the saga of Mallai, so
that they may in turn spread such awareness among others, so history and art
appreciation may come alive once more, a thousand years after they were
created.
To
this purpose, we propose a seminar at Mallai. This shall comprise an
introduction to the history, guided visits, lectures by experts, artistic
performances, sessions for feedback and free exchange of opinions. Thematically,
there are four types of monuments at Mallai, the only such place in the world. These are cave temples, monoliths, structural temples and open bas-reliefs.
They are scattered geographically, and there is a historical evolution with
marked stylistic variations.
A
proper, patient study would take at least three days, one day each for the
caves, the monoliths and the structural temples (reliefs are a feature of all
of the above).
As
preparation for the seminar, the participants must have at least a brief
knowledge of :
- Early Tamil history
- The Pallava dynasty, especially
from Mahendra Varma to Rajasimha
- The evolution of temple
architecture
- Bilingual nature of Tamil country
- The invention and use of Pallava
grantha
- Abandonment and burial of
monuments and rediscovery by Europeans
- Some elements of archaeology
- The neighbours of Pallavas – the
Pandyas and the Chalukyas
- Influence of Pallava art and
architecture on India and South Asia
- Successors of the Pallavas –
Cholas, Pandyas, Vijayanagara and Nayaks – and their contributions.
- A brief overview of Hindu
mythology, especially of characters featured in Mallai sculpture
- Mallai as a port
 |
| Balaji Dandapani, Umapathy sthapathi, Prof Swaminathan, Gopu, Prof Baluswami, Ashok Krishnaswami, R Chandrasekhar - at Great Himalayan Panel, Mamallapuram |
PS: 1. Mr KRA Narasiah believes Mallai could not have been a port, because it is not a river mouth and it is too rocky for ships.
2. We only had lectures on five of the above topics.
3. Ajanta/Ellora was next, I will post my essay on that next.
4. Please remember, all this happened in 2009/2010. Our current plan is to visit Gujarat for a site seminar in January 2014
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