I left Chennai on the 12th, after an idli breakfast served on a banana leaf in a little restaurant and then a half hour bus ride to the bus station. The bus station was the picture of confusion and I was given several conflicting directions on where to find the bus to Mamallapuram on the coast about 30 miles south of Chennai. I finally found the right bus, which left about 10:30, taking two hours to reach Mamallapuram, about half that time still is the city and suburbs of Chennai. I was amazed by the huge number of billboards and posters featuring Jayalalithaa, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. It was good finally to reach rural areas. Nearing Mamallapuram I even had a few views of the blue sea from the bus.
I found a very comfortable hotel, with a big room, a large and comfortable bed with a mosquito net, and hot water for a little less than ten dollars a night. (The rupee was at 62 to the dollar when I arrived in India, though it is now at about 61.5. It was about 44 to the dollar when I began this long series of travels in India in 2010. I think it was about 8 to the dollar when I was first in India in 1979.)
Mamallapuram, which was called Mahabalipuram when I was first here in 1979, has utterly changed from my first visit. I remember just one simple little hotel. Now there are scores, both upscale and budget, and lots of restaurants. Lots of tourists, too, some of whom apparently spend months here. In fact, I believe I may be below the median age of the western tourists here. They are generally an old bunch, with lots of groups coming through. But an older profile is true even for the tourists staying here. I remember that when I first traveled across Asia from Istanbul to India and Nepal in 1979, it was the 30 somethings who were the old guys. I remember just one guy older than that, a 60 year old guy named Bill whom I traveled with from Erzurum in eastern Turkey to the Iranian border.
Mamallapuram is just a small town, with a population of 12,000 or so, though on some days it must get at least that many tourists. I had lunch and then walked to the beach; with many colorful fishing boats at rest upon the sand. I walked back to my hotel and sat on its roof top in the shade until about 4:30, when I returned to the beach. I walked south along the beach, with lovely white sand but, as with all Indian beaches, dirty, towards the 8th century Shore Temple. Mamallapuram was one of my favorite spots when I first visited India in 1979 and the Shore Temple, sticking out into the sea at water's edge, was a particularly romantic spot. Since then, its romance has been mostly destroyed. The authorites have built a huge breakwater around it and a high green chain link fence, destroying the ambience. I suppose they did that for preservation's sake, but the temple did survive without such a monstrous breakwater for 13 centuries. Other than the Chinese, noboby is better than Indians at uglifying beautiful places. I walked to the end of the breakwater, outside the fence, and then walked back the way I had come. The cool wind off the sea was lovely and the sea very blue. A few fishing boats were out on the water and a moon a few days short of full was rising.
I had been told that there was a month long dance festival going on in town, with free performances on a stage a little west of the Shore Temple. I got there about 6:30 and stayed until the end of the excellent performances at almost 9. I missed the earlier folk dances, but saw two troupes performing the classic Tamil dance style called Bharatanatyam. This classic dance style has been revived over the past two centuries and is based on the ancient dances of temple dancers called devadasis, whose dances were derived from an treatise written more than 2000 years ago. It displays spiritual and not erotic love and emphasizes not only movement but also facial expressions. Plus the women are beautifully dressed in very colorful saris, with a sort of fan shaped or accordian style garment connecting the two pantlegs. (And apparently the dancers today wear a lot more clothes than they did in ancient times.) They are heavily made up, and adorned with jewels everwhere. They also wear a mass of little bells around each ankle and paint not only their finger nails, but the top part of their fingers bright red, with a big red spot painted on each palm. Feet, which are bare, are also largely painted red. I really enjoyed the performances and the locale was lovely under the moon with a cool breeze from the sea. Unfortunately, the backdrop displays not only the Shore Temple and an elephant bas relief, but also the pudgy faced Jayalalithaa, so you have to look at her all during the performance. I ate dinner afterwards. Restaurants are relatively expensive here, but good. I'd been in India only a few days and already was happy to forego Indian food for western fare.
The next morning I walked to the beach about 6:30, sunrise. The sun, however, was hidden by the high, dense bank of clouds over the sea. Few boats were on the beach. I walked along the beach, trying to avoid the piles of human excrement along the beach, always a feature on Indian beaches. Eventually, fishing boats began to return to the beach through the surf. Some fishermen came in paddling furiously on little rafts of perhaps six pieces of timber lashed together with rope. The bigger boats had long tailed motors. Beaching, they would drag their boats up, hall out their nets onto the sand, and begin plucking out the entangled fish as they unwound their long nets. Very small fish were thrown away and gobbled up by waiting crows. The largest fish I saw entangled in the nets was less than a foot long. I left sometime after 8 and by then the sun had just come up for good. There had been brief sightings of it between the clouds before then.
I had breakfast and then about 9:30 walked to the rocky outcrop of hills, rising to at most perhaps a hundred feet above sea level, at the town's western edge. I meant to get there earlier but was delayed by the activity on the beach. Mamallapuram was the port of the Pallava kingdom with its capital at Kanchipuram about 35 miles inland to the northwest. The Pallavas ruled northern Tamil Nadu from the 4th to the 9th centuries and reached their height in the 7th and 8th centuries, building southern India's first stone temples. The outcrop of low, rocky hills at the edge of town has several temples and rock carvings. The best date from the reign of the king called Mamalla (which means "wrestler"), who ruled from 630 to 668. Some date from the reigns of two of his successors, up to about 730.
The most impressive rock carving is located on a giant rock face about 23 feet high and about 96 feet wide. About 150 figures are carved in bas relief, including two huge elephants. The subject of the ensemble is in dispute. An emaciated figure stands on one foot with his arms raised, doing penance to the larger figure of Shiva nearby. A cleft is the rock is carved with nagas (snakes gods and goddesses with multiple hoods, symbolizing water). Apparently, at one time water did flow down this cleft from above. Some see the emaciated figure as Arjuna doing penance by the banks of the Ganges to be granted Shiva's bow, which can fire a continuous stream of arrows. Others see the figure as Bhagiratha doing penance and being granted the gift of the Ganges falling to the earth to wash away the ashes and sins of his ancestors. In any event, it is a wonderful ensemble of figures. Under the belly of the biggest elephant are several baby elephants. Nearby a cat stands on his hind legs mimicking Arjuna or Bhagiratha doing pennance, with rats kneeling before him. Lions, deer, monkeys, and birds are depicted, as is Surya the sun god, Chandra the moon god, dwarves attending Shiva, hunters, and several flying figures of men and women. Along the banks of the Ganges are a man with water pot on his shoulders and another wringing out a garment. Nearby are three sitting men with their heads chopped off. The speculation is that they depicted Mamalla and his father and grandfather, and were decapited when the Palavas' enemies, the Chalukyas of present day Karnataka, captured Mamallapuram in 674.
The rocky hills contain several mandapas, which are shallow halls cut into the rock. Nearby is one with Krishna depicted raising a mountain to protect people from a heavy rain threatening a Noah style covering of the earth. The figures are again very graceful and naturalistic. Part of the ensemble shows a man milking a cow, while the cow licks its calf. The cow's tail is raised, which is what cows do when they urinate or defecate. The sculptor was discrete enough not to depict the result of the tail raising.
After the Krishna Mandapa, I walked next to the Ganesh Ratha, a temple carved out of a single big boulder, perhaps 20 feet high. It stands all alone. Up the slope is the Varaha Mandapa, with four panels of carvings, two depicting avatars of Vishnu, Varaha the boar rescuing Prithvi (the Earth) from the sea and Vamana the dwarf expanding to colossol size to take back the earth and the cosmos from a demon. Other panels show fearsome Durga, an avatar of Shiva's consort Parvati, and Vishnu's consort Lakshmi being bathed by elephants. Above that mandapa are the remains of a temple from the much later Vijayanagar Empire, centered in Hampi in Karnataka. You can see the sea from that temple. A couple of other mandapas have no sculpture. In fact, it seems almost every temple is unfinished. Even the huge bas relief on the rock face has its lower left portion unfinished.
Further south is a modern light house on a rock and nearby an ancient structure though to be a 7th or 8th century light house. There are good views from each. Below the ancient light house is another mandapa with excellent panels on each end, one showing the battle between Durga and the buffalo demon Mahishasura while the other shows Vishnu asleep under a five hooded serpant.
I walked back the way I had come and then went further north, passing a huge boulder standing alone on a rocky ridge and known as Krishna's butterball. It does look very round from one angle, but irregular from other angles. A little further one were two other mandapas, one with three sanctuaries with carvings of Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma.
I spent about four hours wandering through this rocky outcrop of low hills. In 1979 I remember pretty much having the place to myself, but this day there were hundreds of tourists, both foreign and Indian.
I had lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon in an internet cafe. Before 5:30 I headed to the dance site and got a front row seat. The Indian guy sitting next to me proudly told me his 12 year old daughter, who has been studying dance since she was 5, would be dancing that night. But folk dances came first, and they were quite primitive compared to the Bharatanatyam. In fact, they reminded me of African tribal dance. The two hour long Bharatanatyam dances, however, were particularly elegant. First, an extremely good, but rather (how can I put this politely?) large woman danced several solo pieces. It appears Indian dancers don't aspire to the prima ballerina physique, although I have also read that the ideal Bharatanatyam dancer is youthful and beautiful with "well rounded breasts." Next a troupe of about twelve girls, tall and short, performed. They are all students of a master dancer and were very good. The music at these dance performances was sometimes taped, but more often live, with four to eight musicians and singers seated at the far left of the stage. They featured drums, a flute, a violin (which looked like a western violin and was called a "violin" while all the other insturments had Tamil names), small cymbals maybe two inches in diameter, and for one performance I remember, a veena, a traditional Indian stringed instrument that looks to me something like a sittar.
The next morning I got out about 7 to walk to the rocky outcrop before too many tourists arrived. However, this was the first day of the three day harvest festival of Pongal, and in front of many thresholds of houses in town were very colorful and elaborate Pongal rangoli. Rangoli are drawings made in the morning with some sort of chalky powder, usually white, in front of thresholds to guard against evil spirits. The ones for Pongal here in Mamallapuram, however, were particularly elaborate with many colors of powder and intricate designs. Featured prominently in almost all, however, were pots of rice boiling over and sugar cane stalks. The first thing you do early in the morning on the first day of Pongal is boil rice and milk in a new pot. I walked around town looking at all the beautiful and interesting rangoli. Some were still being made, and it was very interesting to watch the women making them by expertly dropping the colored powder into place.
I spent about an hour looking at all the rangoli and by the time I reached the rocky outcrop at the town's western end, there were many tourists. Pongal, I've been told, is Mamallapuram's busiest period, flooded with Indian tourists from nearby villages. I spent a little while enjoying looking at the huge rock face carving of the Ganges and then went to breakfast. I spent pretty much the rest of the day reading newspapers and my guidebooks and at an internet cafe, avoiding the crowds.
Before 5:30 I did make my way to the dance venue, got another front row seat, and stayed until it ended three hours later. An almost full moon rose above on a lovely evening. The first performance, by a folk troupe, was again very primitive, like the night before, with lots of drum beating and line dancing. The second performance featured several pieces performed by a woman who has been studying Bharatanatyam for 40 years. Out of breath between pieces, she nonetheless took a microphone and explained the subjects of her dances. She explained that Bharatanatyam derives its name from bhavam, meaning "expression," ragam meaning "melody," and thalam meaning "rhythm." Natyam means "dance." She was an excellent dancer. The third hour featured a group of girls, students, who were rather amateurish, though one older, taller one, was very good.
The next morning I was out about 7:30, hoping to see cows with painted horns. The second day of Pongal is devoted to caring for livestock, and cows are fed special foods and have their horns painted bright colors. However, none of the several cows I saw on my way to the rocky outcrop had painted horns. I walked through those low, rocky hills until about 10. Even early, there were lots of Indian tourists. Because of the big crowds I spent the rest of the day reading and at an internet cafe. My hotel had a very nice little courtyard shaded with cocoanut trees and nearby is a very good restaurant run by a French expatriate. There are lots of French tourists here, mostly elderly or at least middle aged.
The dance performance started earlier that evening, at 5, and I got there in time again to get a front row seat. Another rather primitive, drum banging folk troupe came first, followed by a young and very pretty Bharatanatyam soloist. A group of dancers, including her, came next, followed by a performance by about six older Bharatanatyam dancers A full moon, or nearly full, came up. A puppet show came next, but wasn't very interesting, so I left part way through even though a final Bharatanatyam performance remained. Lots of Indian kids had gathered for the puppet show, but there wasn't much laughter from the audience.
I was out the next morning about 7:30, the third and final day of Pongal. I walked to the rocky outcrop west of town. Trash, left over by all the Indian tourists from the day before, lay all around, even inside temples. And there were already lots of Indian tourists. The third day of Pongal is meant for family gatherings and outings and is supposed to be Mamallapuram's busiest day. (I later saw a photo in the newspaper of Chennai's beach with a massive crowd on the third day of Pongal. A temporary fence was erected to prevent them from going into the sea, since in the past so many have drowned.)
I visited the temples I had been to before and then searched for three rathas (temples said to be in the shape of wooden chariots) further to the west. This area was almost devoid of tourists and I finally found the three rathas, carved out of single boulders perhaps 20 feet in diameter. Neither of them seemed completely finished and one had lots of crude scrape marks on it. I wandered around the rocky outcrops in this area, lower than those to the east. A pond filled with while lotuses stood beneath some partially quarried rocks with very straight edges, some of the sharp edges with the little notches made to help break the rock.
On my way back to breakfast, I stopped and watched a bare chested man applying a sort of orange clay to a two foot or so high Ganesh (the elephant headed son of Shiva) carved onto a low rocky outcrop. He daubed the clay onto twenty or so coin sized locations and a couple of larger ones. Next he put a little dot of red powder into the middle of each orange clay circle. He drapped a garland of yellow marigolds over the bas relief and then placed some sweets and pieces of coconut meat, along with two small bananas, one of which he partially peeled, in front of the idol. He lit a handful of incense sticks and stuck them in the dirt. I was impressed when he picked up his litter, the pieces of paper and plastic that some of his offerings had come in, and placed them in a plastic bag. Then he threw the plastic bag a short distance away. Having finished his elaborate preparations, he then prayed before the idol and walked around it several times before heading off. He didn't seem to mind me, his only audience, watching and taking photos.
I made it back for a late breakfast, after 10:30, and spent the day afterward reading and at an internet cafe. Before 5 I made it to the dance venue. For the first time, it was crowded early, with Indians, and I had to settle for a third row seat. A folk troupe was already performing and they were more interesting than the previous ones. Two great big guys in dhotis blew very long horns, perhaps four feet long, and there was the obligatory drumming. A theme of this troupe was balancing acts, with girls with pots on their heads stacked high with elaborate depictions of birds trying not to lose their pots as they balanced themselves on various things placed before them. A tall man performed all sorts of balancing feats. At one point a girl stuck a cucumber into her mouth while a blindfolded guy with a large knife approached and sliced it in half without disfiguring her.
Next came a woman and man from Odisha perfornimg Oddissi dances, followed by three troupes of Bharatanatyam dancers, from Chennai, Kanchipuram, and finally Mamallapuram itself. In the first troupe danced both men and women, the first time I have seen Bharatanatyam danced by men. The last group, from Mamallapuram was the reason for the big crowds, as the town turned out to see its own. There were lots of guys taking photos up in front, unconcerned about those behind them. Some of the little girls, maybe 5 to 7 years old, were cute, but the group was pretty amateurish. The crowd was noisy and I left before the performance ended.
The next morning I walked to the rocky outcrop of hills about 8. An immense amount of trash covered the area, left by the thousands of Indians visiting on the third day of Pongal the day before. There were considerably fewer Indian tourists this morning compared to the days before. I wandered around and found a couple of sculptures I had missed before, including a carving of a free standing lion, called the Lion Throne, and a bas relief on a big rock of elephants and other animals. By the time I started back about 9:30, woman sweepers were dustily sweeping all the trash into piles.
After breakfast and reading the newspaper, I spent some time in an internet cafe, had lunch, visited a very poor sculpture museum not even worth the five rupee admission charge, and then got a haircut for 100 rupees, my first haircut in more than two months.
Before 5 I again made my way to the dance venue and got a front row seat. The crowd was much smaller than the evening before. That night's performance lasted almost four hours, with four Bharatanatyam performances. The first two were soloists, first a rather hefty woman who was nevertheless a good dancer. The second was younger, but still chubby, but also very good. She portrayed five of the incarnations of Vishnu, the fish (his first incarnation), Narashima the half man, half lion, Vamana the dwarf, and then Rama and Krishna. Next came a mediocre group of school girls, perhaps twenty of them, though one of them, the tallest and perhaps oldest, was very good. Finally, after much of the small crowd had left, performed a soloist said to be the great granddaughter and granddaughter of famous dancers. She was wonderful, the best dancer I've seen here. Both her movements and facial expressions were fascinating, and she gave very good explanations of the stories of her dances before she performed them. One long dance she performed, about a gopi (milkmaid) distraught at not gaining Krishna's love, was just mesmerizing.
The next morning I finally made my way to the southern edge of the town and to the Five Rathas, temples and animal statues hewn out of boulders. These temples were covered with sand until discovered by the British about 200 years ago. The previous temples and sculptures I had visited in Mamallapuram can be seen without charge, but getting close to the Five Rathas and the Shore Temple require a 250 rupee entrance fee, so I put them off until after the Pongal deluge. I got to the fenced enclosure with the Five Rathas about 7:30 and had the place almost to myself for the first half hour or so. These five little temples were cut from an outcrop of rocks with the workmen working from the top down. They date from the 7th century, Mamalla's reign, and are some of the first stone temples in southern India. Previously, temples had been made of wood or bricks or other material. Incomplete, they are called rathas, which means chariots, because they are said to have been designed after wooden chariots, but I don't see that. No wheels are depicted and to me they look more like temples than chariots. The five of them are of different sizes and structures and form a very nice ensemble. They range from about one story in height to three. One of them has a roof reminiscent of thatch. Three of them have large animals carved out of stone next to them, including a lion, a beautifully done elephant, and Shiva's bull mount Nandi. Some of the temples have figures carved on them, including the half Shiva, half Parvati figure. I spent about two hours there. By the time I left, the compound was filled with hundreds of tourists.
Walking back to my hotel, I passed another large bas relief on two rock faces with a cleft between them. Perhaps as many as a hundred figures are depicted, though the qualitiy is not as good as the bigger bas relief depicting the Ganges a little further north. Many of the figures appear unfinished or eroded. Elephants are again featured, along with many of the figures in the larger bas relief, including an emaciated man standing on one foot, holding his arms up to do penance to Shiva beside him.
I had a late breakfast about 11 and didn't get going again until after 4 when I walked along the beach to the Shore Temple compound and entered it. I spent almost two hours there, until about 6. The temple is thought to date from the 7th century and then have been rebuilt in the early 8th century. It is considered south India's first temple made of blocks of stone, and the culmination of Pallava temple design. It has two towers, the highest maybe 50 feet high, with a smaller one to the west. The carvings are much weathered by the sea and the wind over the centuries. It has three sanctuaries, two for Shiva at the east and west ends, with a reclining Vishnu in a sanctuary in between. There were quite a few tourists, mostly Indian, wandering around while I was there. I heard one guide say to his client, as they stood at the eastern end of the temple, that in 1974 his brother had caught a fish from there. Now the sea, behind that awful breakwater, is hundreds of feet away. In fact, you can't even see it from the temple.
I made it to the dance venue about 6 and got a second row seat. A folk troupe, which did a variety of mildly interesting dances, was just starting. Next followed a young woman soloist performing Bharatanatyam, who was very good. Finally, an ensemble of about twenty students performed Bharatanatyam dances, and they, too, were very good, especially the older dancers. They were very colorful. The performance lasted until about 9, so it was another late dinner for me.
The next morning I walked again to the rocky outcrop at the town's edge soon after 7. The sky was cloudy, and not just over the sea. As I wandered around revisiting the temples the rain started. It rained for about fifteen minutes, five of them pretty hard. I sheltered in a mandapa.
After breakfast, I rented a bike, for all of a dollar and a quarter a day, and about 10:30 started pedaling north on the coast road to the Tiger Cave, three miles from Mamallapuram. It took me about 20 minutes to get there on the flat road and was not a bad ride once I got past the heavy congestion of the town. The Tiger Cave is a mandapa cut into a long outcrop of rock maybe 20 feet high. Around the cell in the center is a ring of eleven giant heads not of tigers but of lions, or rather the mythical fanged lions called yalis. It is quite a wonderful site, with that ring of giant yali heads. To the left on the same rock face are two much smaller cells with elephant heads depicted underneath them. A bit to the north is another mandapa cut into another rock face, with a very nice bas relief on a small stone in front of Durga on her lion with her forces fighting the bull demon Mahishasura and his forces. Little dots of red powder covered the bas relief. The beach is just to the east, and as always in India was filty. Down the coast I could see the Shore Temple barely sticking out from its massive breakwater.
I got back to town about 12:30. After lunch I found the shop of a Kashmiri guy (Kashmiris can be found selling their wares at almost all the big tourist spots in India), a friend of a friend of mine. He was able to direct me to the spot where the hotel where I had stayed in 1979 (I had its name from an old aerogram) was located. I stopped by and was told it was torn down two years ago, replaced by a much larger hotel, with its name changed fro Mamalla Lodge to Mamalla Inn.
I made my way to the dance venue before 5 for my final night of dance and again got a front row seat. A folk troupe came first, again somewhat primitive with drum beating and balancing acts. This time a blindfolded guy with a knife sliced bananas (rather then cucumbers) inserted into the mouths of two other guys. A group of five young women from Hyderabad performed Bharatanatyam next and they were very good. They were followed by three women and two men dancing together and they, too, were very good. Finally came a troupe of about twelve girl students who performed a dance based on the Ramayama. Despite some of them being very young, they were good dancers and very entertaining.
I found a very comfortable hotel, with a big room, a large and comfortable bed with a mosquito net, and hot water for a little less than ten dollars a night. (The rupee was at 62 to the dollar when I arrived in India, though it is now at about 61.5. It was about 44 to the dollar when I began this long series of travels in India in 2010. I think it was about 8 to the dollar when I was first in India in 1979.)
Mamallapuram, which was called Mahabalipuram when I was first here in 1979, has utterly changed from my first visit. I remember just one simple little hotel. Now there are scores, both upscale and budget, and lots of restaurants. Lots of tourists, too, some of whom apparently spend months here. In fact, I believe I may be below the median age of the western tourists here. They are generally an old bunch, with lots of groups coming through. But an older profile is true even for the tourists staying here. I remember that when I first traveled across Asia from Istanbul to India and Nepal in 1979, it was the 30 somethings who were the old guys. I remember just one guy older than that, a 60 year old guy named Bill whom I traveled with from Erzurum in eastern Turkey to the Iranian border.
Mamallapuram is just a small town, with a population of 12,000 or so, though on some days it must get at least that many tourists. I had lunch and then walked to the beach; with many colorful fishing boats at rest upon the sand. I walked back to my hotel and sat on its roof top in the shade until about 4:30, when I returned to the beach. I walked south along the beach, with lovely white sand but, as with all Indian beaches, dirty, towards the 8th century Shore Temple. Mamallapuram was one of my favorite spots when I first visited India in 1979 and the Shore Temple, sticking out into the sea at water's edge, was a particularly romantic spot. Since then, its romance has been mostly destroyed. The authorites have built a huge breakwater around it and a high green chain link fence, destroying the ambience. I suppose they did that for preservation's sake, but the temple did survive without such a monstrous breakwater for 13 centuries. Other than the Chinese, noboby is better than Indians at uglifying beautiful places. I walked to the end of the breakwater, outside the fence, and then walked back the way I had come. The cool wind off the sea was lovely and the sea very blue. A few fishing boats were out on the water and a moon a few days short of full was rising.
I had been told that there was a month long dance festival going on in town, with free performances on a stage a little west of the Shore Temple. I got there about 6:30 and stayed until the end of the excellent performances at almost 9. I missed the earlier folk dances, but saw two troupes performing the classic Tamil dance style called Bharatanatyam. This classic dance style has been revived over the past two centuries and is based on the ancient dances of temple dancers called devadasis, whose dances were derived from an treatise written more than 2000 years ago. It displays spiritual and not erotic love and emphasizes not only movement but also facial expressions. Plus the women are beautifully dressed in very colorful saris, with a sort of fan shaped or accordian style garment connecting the two pantlegs. (And apparently the dancers today wear a lot more clothes than they did in ancient times.) They are heavily made up, and adorned with jewels everwhere. They also wear a mass of little bells around each ankle and paint not only their finger nails, but the top part of their fingers bright red, with a big red spot painted on each palm. Feet, which are bare, are also largely painted red. I really enjoyed the performances and the locale was lovely under the moon with a cool breeze from the sea. Unfortunately, the backdrop displays not only the Shore Temple and an elephant bas relief, but also the pudgy faced Jayalalithaa, so you have to look at her all during the performance. I ate dinner afterwards. Restaurants are relatively expensive here, but good. I'd been in India only a few days and already was happy to forego Indian food for western fare.
The next morning I walked to the beach about 6:30, sunrise. The sun, however, was hidden by the high, dense bank of clouds over the sea. Few boats were on the beach. I walked along the beach, trying to avoid the piles of human excrement along the beach, always a feature on Indian beaches. Eventually, fishing boats began to return to the beach through the surf. Some fishermen came in paddling furiously on little rafts of perhaps six pieces of timber lashed together with rope. The bigger boats had long tailed motors. Beaching, they would drag their boats up, hall out their nets onto the sand, and begin plucking out the entangled fish as they unwound their long nets. Very small fish were thrown away and gobbled up by waiting crows. The largest fish I saw entangled in the nets was less than a foot long. I left sometime after 8 and by then the sun had just come up for good. There had been brief sightings of it between the clouds before then.
I had breakfast and then about 9:30 walked to the rocky outcrop of hills, rising to at most perhaps a hundred feet above sea level, at the town's western edge. I meant to get there earlier but was delayed by the activity on the beach. Mamallapuram was the port of the Pallava kingdom with its capital at Kanchipuram about 35 miles inland to the northwest. The Pallavas ruled northern Tamil Nadu from the 4th to the 9th centuries and reached their height in the 7th and 8th centuries, building southern India's first stone temples. The outcrop of low, rocky hills at the edge of town has several temples and rock carvings. The best date from the reign of the king called Mamalla (which means "wrestler"), who ruled from 630 to 668. Some date from the reigns of two of his successors, up to about 730.
The most impressive rock carving is located on a giant rock face about 23 feet high and about 96 feet wide. About 150 figures are carved in bas relief, including two huge elephants. The subject of the ensemble is in dispute. An emaciated figure stands on one foot with his arms raised, doing penance to the larger figure of Shiva nearby. A cleft is the rock is carved with nagas (snakes gods and goddesses with multiple hoods, symbolizing water). Apparently, at one time water did flow down this cleft from above. Some see the emaciated figure as Arjuna doing penance by the banks of the Ganges to be granted Shiva's bow, which can fire a continuous stream of arrows. Others see the figure as Bhagiratha doing penance and being granted the gift of the Ganges falling to the earth to wash away the ashes and sins of his ancestors. In any event, it is a wonderful ensemble of figures. Under the belly of the biggest elephant are several baby elephants. Nearby a cat stands on his hind legs mimicking Arjuna or Bhagiratha doing pennance, with rats kneeling before him. Lions, deer, monkeys, and birds are depicted, as is Surya the sun god, Chandra the moon god, dwarves attending Shiva, hunters, and several flying figures of men and women. Along the banks of the Ganges are a man with water pot on his shoulders and another wringing out a garment. Nearby are three sitting men with their heads chopped off. The speculation is that they depicted Mamalla and his father and grandfather, and were decapited when the Palavas' enemies, the Chalukyas of present day Karnataka, captured Mamallapuram in 674.
The rocky hills contain several mandapas, which are shallow halls cut into the rock. Nearby is one with Krishna depicted raising a mountain to protect people from a heavy rain threatening a Noah style covering of the earth. The figures are again very graceful and naturalistic. Part of the ensemble shows a man milking a cow, while the cow licks its calf. The cow's tail is raised, which is what cows do when they urinate or defecate. The sculptor was discrete enough not to depict the result of the tail raising.
After the Krishna Mandapa, I walked next to the Ganesh Ratha, a temple carved out of a single big boulder, perhaps 20 feet high. It stands all alone. Up the slope is the Varaha Mandapa, with four panels of carvings, two depicting avatars of Vishnu, Varaha the boar rescuing Prithvi (the Earth) from the sea and Vamana the dwarf expanding to colossol size to take back the earth and the cosmos from a demon. Other panels show fearsome Durga, an avatar of Shiva's consort Parvati, and Vishnu's consort Lakshmi being bathed by elephants. Above that mandapa are the remains of a temple from the much later Vijayanagar Empire, centered in Hampi in Karnataka. You can see the sea from that temple. A couple of other mandapas have no sculpture. In fact, it seems almost every temple is unfinished. Even the huge bas relief on the rock face has its lower left portion unfinished.
Further south is a modern light house on a rock and nearby an ancient structure though to be a 7th or 8th century light house. There are good views from each. Below the ancient light house is another mandapa with excellent panels on each end, one showing the battle between Durga and the buffalo demon Mahishasura while the other shows Vishnu asleep under a five hooded serpant.
I walked back the way I had come and then went further north, passing a huge boulder standing alone on a rocky ridge and known as Krishna's butterball. It does look very round from one angle, but irregular from other angles. A little further one were two other mandapas, one with three sanctuaries with carvings of Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma.
I spent about four hours wandering through this rocky outcrop of low hills. In 1979 I remember pretty much having the place to myself, but this day there were hundreds of tourists, both foreign and Indian.
I had lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon in an internet cafe. Before 5:30 I headed to the dance site and got a front row seat. The Indian guy sitting next to me proudly told me his 12 year old daughter, who has been studying dance since she was 5, would be dancing that night. But folk dances came first, and they were quite primitive compared to the Bharatanatyam. In fact, they reminded me of African tribal dance. The two hour long Bharatanatyam dances, however, were particularly elegant. First, an extremely good, but rather (how can I put this politely?) large woman danced several solo pieces. It appears Indian dancers don't aspire to the prima ballerina physique, although I have also read that the ideal Bharatanatyam dancer is youthful and beautiful with "well rounded breasts." Next a troupe of about twelve girls, tall and short, performed. They are all students of a master dancer and were very good. The music at these dance performances was sometimes taped, but more often live, with four to eight musicians and singers seated at the far left of the stage. They featured drums, a flute, a violin (which looked like a western violin and was called a "violin" while all the other insturments had Tamil names), small cymbals maybe two inches in diameter, and for one performance I remember, a veena, a traditional Indian stringed instrument that looks to me something like a sittar.
The next morning I got out about 7 to walk to the rocky outcrop before too many tourists arrived. However, this was the first day of the three day harvest festival of Pongal, and in front of many thresholds of houses in town were very colorful and elaborate Pongal rangoli. Rangoli are drawings made in the morning with some sort of chalky powder, usually white, in front of thresholds to guard against evil spirits. The ones for Pongal here in Mamallapuram, however, were particularly elaborate with many colors of powder and intricate designs. Featured prominently in almost all, however, were pots of rice boiling over and sugar cane stalks. The first thing you do early in the morning on the first day of Pongal is boil rice and milk in a new pot. I walked around town looking at all the beautiful and interesting rangoli. Some were still being made, and it was very interesting to watch the women making them by expertly dropping the colored powder into place.
I spent about an hour looking at all the rangoli and by the time I reached the rocky outcrop at the town's western end, there were many tourists. Pongal, I've been told, is Mamallapuram's busiest period, flooded with Indian tourists from nearby villages. I spent a little while enjoying looking at the huge rock face carving of the Ganges and then went to breakfast. I spent pretty much the rest of the day reading newspapers and my guidebooks and at an internet cafe, avoiding the crowds.
Before 5:30 I did make my way to the dance venue, got another front row seat, and stayed until it ended three hours later. An almost full moon rose above on a lovely evening. The first performance, by a folk troupe, was again very primitive, like the night before, with lots of drum beating and line dancing. The second performance featured several pieces performed by a woman who has been studying Bharatanatyam for 40 years. Out of breath between pieces, she nonetheless took a microphone and explained the subjects of her dances. She explained that Bharatanatyam derives its name from bhavam, meaning "expression," ragam meaning "melody," and thalam meaning "rhythm." Natyam means "dance." She was an excellent dancer. The third hour featured a group of girls, students, who were rather amateurish, though one older, taller one, was very good.
The next morning I was out about 7:30, hoping to see cows with painted horns. The second day of Pongal is devoted to caring for livestock, and cows are fed special foods and have their horns painted bright colors. However, none of the several cows I saw on my way to the rocky outcrop had painted horns. I walked through those low, rocky hills until about 10. Even early, there were lots of Indian tourists. Because of the big crowds I spent the rest of the day reading and at an internet cafe. My hotel had a very nice little courtyard shaded with cocoanut trees and nearby is a very good restaurant run by a French expatriate. There are lots of French tourists here, mostly elderly or at least middle aged.
The dance performance started earlier that evening, at 5, and I got there in time again to get a front row seat. Another rather primitive, drum banging folk troupe came first, followed by a young and very pretty Bharatanatyam soloist. A group of dancers, including her, came next, followed by a performance by about six older Bharatanatyam dancers A full moon, or nearly full, came up. A puppet show came next, but wasn't very interesting, so I left part way through even though a final Bharatanatyam performance remained. Lots of Indian kids had gathered for the puppet show, but there wasn't much laughter from the audience.
I was out the next morning about 7:30, the third and final day of Pongal. I walked to the rocky outcrop west of town. Trash, left over by all the Indian tourists from the day before, lay all around, even inside temples. And there were already lots of Indian tourists. The third day of Pongal is meant for family gatherings and outings and is supposed to be Mamallapuram's busiest day. (I later saw a photo in the newspaper of Chennai's beach with a massive crowd on the third day of Pongal. A temporary fence was erected to prevent them from going into the sea, since in the past so many have drowned.)
I visited the temples I had been to before and then searched for three rathas (temples said to be in the shape of wooden chariots) further to the west. This area was almost devoid of tourists and I finally found the three rathas, carved out of single boulders perhaps 20 feet in diameter. Neither of them seemed completely finished and one had lots of crude scrape marks on it. I wandered around the rocky outcrops in this area, lower than those to the east. A pond filled with while lotuses stood beneath some partially quarried rocks with very straight edges, some of the sharp edges with the little notches made to help break the rock.
On my way back to breakfast, I stopped and watched a bare chested man applying a sort of orange clay to a two foot or so high Ganesh (the elephant headed son of Shiva) carved onto a low rocky outcrop. He daubed the clay onto twenty or so coin sized locations and a couple of larger ones. Next he put a little dot of red powder into the middle of each orange clay circle. He drapped a garland of yellow marigolds over the bas relief and then placed some sweets and pieces of coconut meat, along with two small bananas, one of which he partially peeled, in front of the idol. He lit a handful of incense sticks and stuck them in the dirt. I was impressed when he picked up his litter, the pieces of paper and plastic that some of his offerings had come in, and placed them in a plastic bag. Then he threw the plastic bag a short distance away. Having finished his elaborate preparations, he then prayed before the idol and walked around it several times before heading off. He didn't seem to mind me, his only audience, watching and taking photos.
I made it back for a late breakfast, after 10:30, and spent the day afterward reading and at an internet cafe. Before 5 I made it to the dance venue. For the first time, it was crowded early, with Indians, and I had to settle for a third row seat. A folk troupe was already performing and they were more interesting than the previous ones. Two great big guys in dhotis blew very long horns, perhaps four feet long, and there was the obligatory drumming. A theme of this troupe was balancing acts, with girls with pots on their heads stacked high with elaborate depictions of birds trying not to lose their pots as they balanced themselves on various things placed before them. A tall man performed all sorts of balancing feats. At one point a girl stuck a cucumber into her mouth while a blindfolded guy with a large knife approached and sliced it in half without disfiguring her.
Next came a woman and man from Odisha perfornimg Oddissi dances, followed by three troupes of Bharatanatyam dancers, from Chennai, Kanchipuram, and finally Mamallapuram itself. In the first troupe danced both men and women, the first time I have seen Bharatanatyam danced by men. The last group, from Mamallapuram was the reason for the big crowds, as the town turned out to see its own. There were lots of guys taking photos up in front, unconcerned about those behind them. Some of the little girls, maybe 5 to 7 years old, were cute, but the group was pretty amateurish. The crowd was noisy and I left before the performance ended.
The next morning I walked to the rocky outcrop of hills about 8. An immense amount of trash covered the area, left by the thousands of Indians visiting on the third day of Pongal the day before. There were considerably fewer Indian tourists this morning compared to the days before. I wandered around and found a couple of sculptures I had missed before, including a carving of a free standing lion, called the Lion Throne, and a bas relief on a big rock of elephants and other animals. By the time I started back about 9:30, woman sweepers were dustily sweeping all the trash into piles.
After breakfast and reading the newspaper, I spent some time in an internet cafe, had lunch, visited a very poor sculpture museum not even worth the five rupee admission charge, and then got a haircut for 100 rupees, my first haircut in more than two months.
Before 5 I again made my way to the dance venue and got a front row seat. The crowd was much smaller than the evening before. That night's performance lasted almost four hours, with four Bharatanatyam performances. The first two were soloists, first a rather hefty woman who was nevertheless a good dancer. The second was younger, but still chubby, but also very good. She portrayed five of the incarnations of Vishnu, the fish (his first incarnation), Narashima the half man, half lion, Vamana the dwarf, and then Rama and Krishna. Next came a mediocre group of school girls, perhaps twenty of them, though one of them, the tallest and perhaps oldest, was very good. Finally, after much of the small crowd had left, performed a soloist said to be the great granddaughter and granddaughter of famous dancers. She was wonderful, the best dancer I've seen here. Both her movements and facial expressions were fascinating, and she gave very good explanations of the stories of her dances before she performed them. One long dance she performed, about a gopi (milkmaid) distraught at not gaining Krishna's love, was just mesmerizing.
The next morning I finally made my way to the southern edge of the town and to the Five Rathas, temples and animal statues hewn out of boulders. These temples were covered with sand until discovered by the British about 200 years ago. The previous temples and sculptures I had visited in Mamallapuram can be seen without charge, but getting close to the Five Rathas and the Shore Temple require a 250 rupee entrance fee, so I put them off until after the Pongal deluge. I got to the fenced enclosure with the Five Rathas about 7:30 and had the place almost to myself for the first half hour or so. These five little temples were cut from an outcrop of rocks with the workmen working from the top down. They date from the 7th century, Mamalla's reign, and are some of the first stone temples in southern India. Previously, temples had been made of wood or bricks or other material. Incomplete, they are called rathas, which means chariots, because they are said to have been designed after wooden chariots, but I don't see that. No wheels are depicted and to me they look more like temples than chariots. The five of them are of different sizes and structures and form a very nice ensemble. They range from about one story in height to three. One of them has a roof reminiscent of thatch. Three of them have large animals carved out of stone next to them, including a lion, a beautifully done elephant, and Shiva's bull mount Nandi. Some of the temples have figures carved on them, including the half Shiva, half Parvati figure. I spent about two hours there. By the time I left, the compound was filled with hundreds of tourists.
Walking back to my hotel, I passed another large bas relief on two rock faces with a cleft between them. Perhaps as many as a hundred figures are depicted, though the qualitiy is not as good as the bigger bas relief depicting the Ganges a little further north. Many of the figures appear unfinished or eroded. Elephants are again featured, along with many of the figures in the larger bas relief, including an emaciated man standing on one foot, holding his arms up to do penance to Shiva beside him.
I had a late breakfast about 11 and didn't get going again until after 4 when I walked along the beach to the Shore Temple compound and entered it. I spent almost two hours there, until about 6. The temple is thought to date from the 7th century and then have been rebuilt in the early 8th century. It is considered south India's first temple made of blocks of stone, and the culmination of Pallava temple design. It has two towers, the highest maybe 50 feet high, with a smaller one to the west. The carvings are much weathered by the sea and the wind over the centuries. It has three sanctuaries, two for Shiva at the east and west ends, with a reclining Vishnu in a sanctuary in between. There were quite a few tourists, mostly Indian, wandering around while I was there. I heard one guide say to his client, as they stood at the eastern end of the temple, that in 1974 his brother had caught a fish from there. Now the sea, behind that awful breakwater, is hundreds of feet away. In fact, you can't even see it from the temple.
I made it to the dance venue about 6 and got a second row seat. A folk troupe, which did a variety of mildly interesting dances, was just starting. Next followed a young woman soloist performing Bharatanatyam, who was very good. Finally, an ensemble of about twenty students performed Bharatanatyam dances, and they, too, were very good, especially the older dancers. They were very colorful. The performance lasted until about 9, so it was another late dinner for me.
The next morning I walked again to the rocky outcrop at the town's edge soon after 7. The sky was cloudy, and not just over the sea. As I wandered around revisiting the temples the rain started. It rained for about fifteen minutes, five of them pretty hard. I sheltered in a mandapa.
After breakfast, I rented a bike, for all of a dollar and a quarter a day, and about 10:30 started pedaling north on the coast road to the Tiger Cave, three miles from Mamallapuram. It took me about 20 minutes to get there on the flat road and was not a bad ride once I got past the heavy congestion of the town. The Tiger Cave is a mandapa cut into a long outcrop of rock maybe 20 feet high. Around the cell in the center is a ring of eleven giant heads not of tigers but of lions, or rather the mythical fanged lions called yalis. It is quite a wonderful site, with that ring of giant yali heads. To the left on the same rock face are two much smaller cells with elephant heads depicted underneath them. A bit to the north is another mandapa cut into another rock face, with a very nice bas relief on a small stone in front of Durga on her lion with her forces fighting the bull demon Mahishasura and his forces. Little dots of red powder covered the bas relief. The beach is just to the east, and as always in India was filty. Down the coast I could see the Shore Temple barely sticking out from its massive breakwater.
I got back to town about 12:30. After lunch I found the shop of a Kashmiri guy (Kashmiris can be found selling their wares at almost all the big tourist spots in India), a friend of a friend of mine. He was able to direct me to the spot where the hotel where I had stayed in 1979 (I had its name from an old aerogram) was located. I stopped by and was told it was torn down two years ago, replaced by a much larger hotel, with its name changed fro Mamalla Lodge to Mamalla Inn.
I made my way to the dance venue before 5 for my final night of dance and again got a front row seat. A folk troupe came first, again somewhat primitive with drum beating and balancing acts. This time a blindfolded guy with a knife sliced bananas (rather then cucumbers) inserted into the mouths of two other guys. A group of five young women from Hyderabad performed Bharatanatyam next and they were very good. They were followed by three women and two men dancing together and they, too, were very good. Finally came a troupe of about twelve girl students who performed a dance based on the Ramayama. Despite some of them being very young, they were good dancers and very entertaining.
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