High-tech buildings of antiquity in Mahabalipuram

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The Indian city of Mahabalipuram, notable in the West primarily as a great swimming place, is located 58 km south of Madras, on the almost deserted coast of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, famous for its white sands.

In addition to the quiet joys of swimming in the sea, in this place, with no more than 12 thousand inhabitants today, countless archaeological rarities await us, which are of great interest primarily from the point of view of the paleocontact hypothesis.

More than two millennia ago, Mahabalipuram was well known to Phoenician, Greek and Arab merchants and sailors. In the VII century. AD its port was expanded and rebuilt, and the city itself became the capital of the kingdom of Pavall. In the VII-X centuries. AD the city literally flourished under the rule of the kings of the Pavalla dynasty.

The glory of this dynasty was brought primarily by its patronage of all kinds of arts, as well as the monuments of sacred and cult architecture erected under it. In addition, today Mahabalipuram is considered the cradle of Dravidic temple architecture on the south coast of India.

This fruitful period, which lasted almost three centuries, ended in a very unexpected and mysterious way. In the X century. residents suddenly left Mahabalipuram. The treasures of ancient architecture were abandoned and remained in oblivion until the 17th century.

One of the possible (but, in my opinion, not completely clarifying the essence of the matter) reasons for such an exodus of residents from a rich and habitable coastal strip, according to archaeologists, could be a rise in sea level and the associated flooding of a part of the city. The locals, on the other hand, said that Mahabalipuram was abandoned at the behest of the "gods", and above all, the god Shiva.

The many connections to Indian mythology and the pantheon of Hindu deities are manifested in and around Mahabalipuram in a variety of ways. The most famous of these are the temple buildings and reliefs created during the reign of Narasimhavarman I (630-668 AD). From the nickname of this ruler - "Mamalla" (which means "great warrior"), the city got its original name: Mamallapuram.

Not far from the town center is one of the most famous bas-reliefs of that era: life-size depictions of various mythical figures, plants, birds and animals, including elephants. Archaeologists and historians have long argued about whether this huge (27 m long and 9 m high) frieze is an image of Arjuna's repentance, or whether it is a picture of a mythical phenomenon on the land of the sacred river Ganges described in the epic Mahabharata.

According to this image, as well as a theory that has been safely preserved to this day, the Ganges arose from a natural cleft in the rocks. To the right of her, Shiva is depicted, letting the tide through his own hair and thereby saving the world from destruction as a result of the rampant water element. But whichever theory prevails over time, it will in no way affect the captivating appeal of these masterfully executed stone statues.

Use of highly developed technical means

Eight mandapams are located on the nearest slope of the mountain. Mandapam is an ancient cave temple, carved directly into the mass of solid rocks. Inside are elaborate wall reliefs depicting scenes from Hindu mythology.

The most beautiful of these cave temples is Krishna's mandapam. Its reliefs show how Krishna, using Govardhama Mountain as a kind of protective shield, saved his shepherds and flocks of sheep from Indra, the fierce god of rain and thunderstorm.

Mandapam Mahabalipuram

Two of these mandapams were left unfinished. It has been suggested that in this case we are talking about models and attempts to create temples of a different type, characteristic of southern India. It has been established that modern statistical calculations in the field of architecture, in principle, differ little from ancient practice.

An example of this is the so-called school of sculpture in Mahabalipuram. This place served as a kind of ancient experimental field - at least that's what historians come to. However, outside the field of their research, there is an obvious relationship between these structures and local legends, which contain references to the technical means and technologies used in the construction of these amazing objects.

If we consider the complex in Mahabalipuram as a whole, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that the temples of the era of the Pavallian dynasty were undoubtedly erected on foundations dating back to much earlier structures. If we assume that sacred buildings are sometimes calculated using an experimental field, then all the more this applies to the original complex.

So, to this day, numerous rocks of many meters in height have survived, as if cut off in the middle by some giant knife. The solution of such technical problems is extremely difficult even with the use of the latest construction equipment. Moreover, it seems that the most modern technical means were really used on the rocks, since the contacting surfaces of the monoliths are perfectly flat.

On other rocks, where, apparently, the same mysterious construction technique was used, terraces of the correct shape are arranged. Steps, carved into solid rock and surprisingly smoothly polished, lead nowhere. Here and there rectangular and square holes of very impressive depth have been cut in the rocks, and on the ground below, under them lie fragments of huge stone slabs, smoothly polished and having many holes of unknown purpose.

These objects, as if covered with glaze, pale in front of a strange granite boulder weighing many tens of tons, which bears a strange name - "Krishna's oil head" and for many millennia, contrary to all the laws of gravity, maintains balance on a strongly inclined ledge located not far from the mandapam …

According to legend, God Krishna created this lump from … butter. When he got bored of playing with her, he moved the head to the very ledge and turned it into stone. This strange monolith really gives the impression of a toy forgotten by someone, although on its surface it is impossible to find any traces of processing or "glaze" with which it is supposedly covered.

Likewise, there is no indication that this rocky monolith was created artificially, although the theoretical possibility of this is not excluded.

A completely different matter is the vessel in which Krishna churned butter for his head. By this "oil barrel" is meant an almost circular depression with a diameter of 2.5 m and a depth of 2 m, which is literally carved into the rock. However, even upon close examination, it is not possible to find any traces of mechanical interference (cutter, etc.), which would indicate the usual methods of processing.

At the same time, the inner walls of the recess shone like polished.

Another example. Not far from the ancient lighthouse, a rectangular bathtub measuring 2.3 x 3.0 m and a depth of about 2.0 m, made of granite, was found. Throughout this rock mass, grooves and canals have been preserved, which in ancient times served to collect some kind of liquid. The length of this strange system of channels, which are clearly artificial in origin, according to the most conservative estimates, is many kilometers.

We must also mention the six so-called rata. These are special chariot-shaped temples, carved from a solid block of stone, which are located about a kilometer from the lighthouse. They are considered the most ancient sacred structures in the entire region and served as a model for the vast majority of items of late Dravidian architecture.

I would like to emphasize that during the construction of these ancient buildings, a very complex and laborious construction method was used (creating the entire building from a solid rock monolith), while a much later, so-called Coastal Temple dedicated to Shiva and Vishnu, was erected by the usual method, and not was carved into the rocks.

Another unusual structure - "Tiger's Cave"

In this case, it is also quite obvious that prehistoric knowledge and construction methods, which made it possible to carry out an almost imperceptible stone processing when extruding objects from monolithic rock blocks, were lost over time and disappeared into the past.

In Mahabalipuram, literally at every step, there are perfectly crafted elements carved into solid granite.

To this day, only the pitiful remnants of the once majestic complex have survived, the role and purpose of which today can only be guessed at. Nevertheless, it seems that the temple during the reign of the Pavallian dynasty was erected on an ancient "sacred place", where the gods Shiva, Vishnu and Krishna worked gloriously.

It is quite possible that in relation to these "gods" we are talking about some superhuman, extraterrestrial beings who appeared from the depths of the Universe. However, this is just one of the hypotheses.

As arguments in its favor, it can be recalled that during the construction of structures in Mahabalipuram, highly developed technologies were used that open up possibilities of stone processing incomprehensible even for us and, to put it mildly, do not agree with the classical ideas about construction methods used in ancient times.

Be that as it may, Mahabalipuram can be considered as one of the evidences of the existence of highly developed building technologies in prehistoric times.