In the early days of this blog, I had written about Mamallapuram - popularly known as Mahabalipuram - after a visit guided by a good friend of mine. This friend was then a budding Heritage expert, now a full-blown one. Fourteen years later, I had the occasion to visit Mamallapuram as part of a College Reunion.
Another friend and I are currently on a pursuit to build a Heritage Tourism App with Mamallapuram as our first covered site. Over the last few months, the friend who is a Heritage Expert has been providing me with in-depth information about the various monuments at Mamallapuram to be included in this app.
Armed with this knowledge, I took my college-mates on a guided tour of Arjuna's Penance (or Descent of Ganges depending on which interpretation of the sculpture you go by), the Varaha Cave Temple and the Shore Temple. The gang lapped it up; it was truly gratifying to be able to share the information and see their eyes light up.
On that day, unfortunately we could not go to the Mahishasura Mardhini Cave Temple and see the famous relief panel there featuring a pivotal scene in the battle between Goddess Durga and the asura Mahisha. I have been recording some videos describing the sculptures and monuments of Mamallapuram and this post in an elaborate introduction to these two videos I just posted on Youtube:
- Anantasayana Vishnu video describing the Anantasayana Vishnu that is on the left side wall and
- Durga-Mahisha battle video describing the Mahishasura Mardhini Sculptural panel on the opposite side.
My friend revealed recently, the reason as to why these two seemingly unrelated stories, the first one, an episode on two asuras trying to attack Vishnu at his very abode in Vaikunta and the other about Goddess Durga and Mahisha in the same cave temple. It turns out that the ancient text Devi Mahatmyam, which describes the story of Durga vanquishing Mahisha also includes the story of Vishnu's encounter with Madhu and Kaitabha, the two asuras who came out of his ears and attacked him. It is uncanny - these connections - to note that the Pallava sculptors read the same texts that we now know about.
R. Balaji
P.S. Stay tuned for information on the Heritage App, coming to a Play/App Store near you.
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