CHENNAI: Even decades ago, Mahabalipuram stood undiscovered, unknown. It was Pallava history buried in sand. But after it was discovered, it led to a lot of speculations: “Is the city just 1,300 years old as suggested or was it built way back in the seventh century?” R Gopu, a history enthusiast, conducted an hour long session on the detective work of historians ‘2000 years of Mamallapuram — Sangam to 1960s’ at the recently held Pallava Mallai Pechchu Kutcheri 2016, organised by Tamil Heritage Trust and Tamil Virtual Academy.
“There are records of people travelling to Mahabalipuram by boats and walk too. But one of the most common ways was through the Buckingham Canal,” said Gopu, who shared points from journals, paintings, photographs, travelogues, and books about how Mahabalipuram was rediscovered. “The British were the first to write about it. William Chambers wrote an essay called ‘The Seven pagodas’ for the Asiatic Society. In the essay, it was called ‘a lost Brahmin city’ and that it was ruled by kings from Thailand.”
From then on, there have been many historians who drew different inferences. While some called it a Buddhist city, others named it a foreign city. “Though the sculptures and inscriptions were dug out, it was only in 1812 that Benjamin Guy Babington mentioned that a particular rock cut temple was Arjuna’s Penance. In 1872, Lord Napier excavated six feet of the temple,” he shared.
After that many historians attributed Mahabalipuram to the Cholas and the Vijayanagar Empire too. “In 1915, Jouveau Dubreuil clarified that it was indeed built by the Pallavas and the rock cut sculptures were made by Mahendra Varman.”
In 2015, Gopu also unearthed a new inscription that had been missing for a long time. “I saw a book at Madras Literary Society and while I was going through it, I realised that the missing inscription was right under our noses all along,” he told CE. “There are accounts written extensively about the history of the city. It is sad that this has not reached the masses. I want to bring about a change,” said the computer science graduate turned history enthusiast.
He shared that at some point or the other, we lose many things in history and there comes a time when they get rediscovered. “Thevaram and Divyapraandham were also lost but were rediscovered. The same thing is happening to Mahabalipuram. Even the Tsunami revealed something new at the shore temple (that of an image of Varaha on a pillar),” he explained.
Ask him why this topic is relevant today and he says that till the mid 1990s, the British wrote accounts of this city, which is a temple of stories of Pallava dynasty. “In physics, gravity is associated with Newton. Nothing like that is associated with Indian scholars. Unfortunately, people don’t care about it either. In the past 20-25 years many new things have been noticed in Mahabalipuram. I believe that if we dig more, literally and figuratively, we will find more history about the city,” he added.