Facts about Mahabalipuram

UNESCO designated Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram a World Heritage Site.

Mahabalipuram’s Shore Temple, built in the eighth century C.E., stands at the shore of the Bay of Bengal.

Twenty-first century probes of the coast off Mahabalipuram have yet to conclusively prove the truth of the Seven Pagodas myth.

The Sthalasayana Perumal Temple, located at Mahabalipuram, stands as the first and foremost of Mahabalipuram sculptures, one of the 108 Divya desam.

Descent of the Ganges at Mahabalipuram, in the Tamil Nadu state India, has been designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site among the group of Mahabalipuram monuments in 1984.

Construction of both types of temples in Mahabalipuram appears to have ended around 640 C.E.

Immediately before the 2004 tsunami struck the Indian Ocean, including the Bay of Bengal, the ocean water off Mahabalipuram’s coast pulled back approximately 500 meters.

Fyson states that archaeological evidence supports the claim that a monastery, or vihara in Tamil, existed in ancient Mahabalipuram.

British traveler John Goldingham, who provided the first written accounts of Mahabalipuram, told of the "Seven Pagodas" when he visited in 1798.

In April 2005, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the Indian Navy began searching the waters off the coast of Mahabalipuram by boat, using sonar technology (Das).

Mahabalipuram (Tamil: ???????????) (also known as Mamallapuram), a town in Kancheepuram district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, stands at an average elevation of 12 meters (39 feet).

The name “Seven Pagodas” has served as a nickname for the south Indian city of Mahabalipuram, also called Mamallapuram, since the first European explorers reached the city.

located in the town of Mahabalipuram in Southern India extolling an episode from the Hindu epic, The Mahabharata.

According to descriptions by early travel writers from Britain, the area near Mahabalipuram had seven pagodas by the sea.

A large stone lion, which the changing shoreline left sitting uncovered on Mahabalipuram’s beach, may be the most famous archaeological finding after the tsunami.

N. S. Ramaswami names Marco Polo as one of the earliest European visitors to Mahabalipuram.