Mahabalipuram Temples – Rock cut cave temples of mahabalipuram – UNSECO world heritage site!

Mahabalipuram Temples – Rock cut cave temples of mahabalipuram – UNSECO world heritage site.

Famous for its beautifull carved temples and rock-cut caves, Mamallapuram or Mahabalipuram as it is popularly called, is a historically important and well-known tourist location situated on the Coromandel Coast along the Bay of Bengal, which is in Tamil Nadu.

Once the abode of the famous demon king Mahabali, Mamallapuram is famous across the world as UNESCO world heritage site ..

In our previous post we talked about shore temple. One of the most famous temples in Mahabalipuram.

You can check this post here – click here.

But shore temple is once of the many amazing monuments we have in Mahabalipuram

All these monuments are UNSECO world heritage site And all these are maintained by ASI.

So in this post we will tell you about all those moments which make Mahabalipuram special and make it a world famous tourist destination..

In a hurry – Watch the video here :

As mentined before, shore temple is one of the oldest temple is South india built by poallava kings during 7th century AD and is a living example of one of the greatest temple architecture of that time .

All these monuments are nearby. You can consider the Mahabalipuram bus stand as the center point.

In front of the bust stand yo will see a road going perpendicular to the bus stand . When you walk 500 meters on that you will see shore temple and the beach

Just behind the bus stand, after walking around 100 meters, you will start seeing the rest of the monuments.

Krishna Mandappa

So the first thing we will talk about is Krishna Madpa. This is a rock cut structure with excellent carving. .. these carvings depict the story of Lord Krishna lifting the govardhan parvat.

Arjunas penance

if you go a bit further you will find another amazing structure called as Arjunas penance

This is quite a famous stucture and amazig.

It is a 27m x 9m World’s largest. It has over 100 sculptures of Gods, Birds and Beasts and Saints.

It is Popularly called as “Arjunan Penance” as this relief is believed to illustrate an instance from Mahabharata when Arjuna, performed rigorous penance with a prayer to Lord Shiva’s to obtain the Powerful and Divine Bow.

The other name for this Bas- relief is the “Descent of the Ganges” referring to the legend of king “Bhagiratha” performing penance and praying to the Lord Shiva to bring the River Ganges to earth so as to gain salvation for his ancestors .

the you go a bit further you will see an enclosed area which has all other monuments
You will see a gate .

You need to take entry ticket. You can take ticket there or you can also book it online.

The road inside is well marked and well laid. every monument has informaiton baord next to it, all maintied by ASI

Krishna Butter ball

As soon as you enter you see Krishna Butter ball. A very giganti boulde. It is a ball shaped boulder.

This is just a amazing structure , becuase it is naturally balanced on a incline and is there like that for more than 1200 years So this is definitely a amazing thing to see.

Ganesh Rath

Then on the left hand side you will see a structure ,called as Ganesh Rath. It is called as Ratha as the temple is in shape of a chariot.

This is one of the five rathas, which are monolithic temples.

Varah Caves

A little bit further you will get Varah cave . This is also a rock cut cave temple .

Just after front mandapa, you will a room gauderd by 2 dwarpals and the walls of the room has carvings which tells the story of lord vishnus varah avtaar.

If you knoiw the story in Varaj avtar loird vishnu lifts earth from the ocean.

Raya Gopuram

Then you will see some stairs going up .. so once you go up further you wull find another beautiful rock cut temple called as roya gopuram .

This is a very beautioful structure ..it is a very photogenic palce ..you will see many people taking selfie there .

Other structures

Afyter spending some time there you can come down from back side and foillow the foot path.

So you come down and go up by following the foortpath there you will find some structures said to be associated with pandavaas and queen drapuadi.

The view from the top is amazing, you get the complete view of Mahabalipuram .

So you can then come down and then go to the right hand side of Krishnas butter ball.

Here you will find trimiurtu cave temple which is dedicated to the supreme trinity Lord Brahama, vishnu and Mahesh..

There is one more beautiful cave temple called as Mahisamardini cave temple.
In the center is lord Shiva, while one side is Lord Vishnu and on the other side is goddess mahisamardini..


So frieds as you see .. all these are amazing structures and living example example hw developed and fine art was during the times of pallava dyansity..
That’s why it is now a world heritage site
Hopefully u liked this video
In next video we will discuss what all you can cover in Mahablipuram in 2 days apart from these monuments ..
so see you in next video.. till then by by

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