Pallava Architecture

Kanchipuram, the ancient capital of the Pallava kingdom, is situated about 30 miles south-west of Madras. It has from a very early day been noted for the number and beauty of temples. At the present day it is chiefly remarkable for its larger Dravidian temples, which, however, compared with the earlier examples, are of comparatively recent date, but before 1883, no one imagined that buildings still exist here, which are cotemporary with, or earlier than some of the oldest examples of South Indian Hindu architecture hitherto unknown. The history of the people to whom we ascribe these monuments is to a great degree very fragmentary, but so far as it bears on the architecture and shows the early extent and power of the Pallava kingdom, it will be desirable to incorporate it in the following sketch. In treating of their architecture, it is almost unnecessary to remark that the people, who excavated the work at Mammalapuram, whose date has been assigned to about the sixth century A.D., had evidently –even at that early date –a very complete knowledge of the art. The book is the product of extensive study of these exhaustive work of Pallava kingdom, contains about 34 volumes. It contains also 74 good illustrations to delineate the things vividly.