Place · Pallava rock-cut cave temple · India
Mandagapattu cave temple
Also known as Mandagapattu Tirumurti Temple, Mandagapattu Trimurti cave, Lakshitayatana
The Mandagapattu cave temple in Viluppuram district, Tamil Nadu, is a small shrine cut into a rock above a village tank by the Pallava king Mahendravarman I in the early 7th century, and the oldest dated stone shrine in Tamil Nadu. Its three cells honour Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu together, where most later caves serve one god. Its Sanskrit inscription, the earliest known in Grantha script, has the king boast of a temple made without brick, timber, metal or mortar.
- Date
- 600–630
- Function
- Archaeology & heritage
- Patron dynasty
- Pallava
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 12.108, 79.457
Worth knowing
The boast is itself evidence: scholars read it as implying that Tamil temples before the 6th century were built of exactly those materials.
About the place
Placed at the cave on the north face of the rock west of Mandagapattu village, using the coordinates on the Wikipedia article.
Connections (2)
- FoundedMahendravarman I
Mahendravarman had the Mandagapattu shrine cut from the rock and dedicated to Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu, and its Sanskrit inscription in Grantha script names its maker by his title Vichitrachitta, 'curious-minded', who brought into being a temple without brick, timber, metal or mortar. It is the first of the cave temples of his reign and the oldest dated stone shrine in Tamil Nadu, and it fixes the beginning of Pallava rock architecture in the early 7th century.
- PrecursorMahabalipuram
The Mandagapattu inscription is part of the evidence used to date the earliest Mamallapuram monuments to the early 7th century. As the first Pallava rock-built Hindu temple, it shows Mahendravarman I starting a practice that he and his descendants probably carried to Mamallapuram's cave halls and monolithic rathas. Scholars such as Mate read its boast of building without timber, lime, brick or metal as implying an older Tamil tradition of temples built in exactly those materials.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Mandagapattu Temple" and "Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram". K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, The Cōḷas (2000 ed.).
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