Western tourists are increasingly coming to the Indian city of Mahabalipuram, which is located in the state of Tamil Nadu, to swim on the coast with white sands and warm ocean. But along with pleasant beach procedures, guests of the city discover a real miracle of ancient architecture - rock monuments of monumental sculpture with Buddhist motives.
Mahabalipuram is located sixty kilometers from Chennai, a large city in southern India. The local population is just over ten thousand people. The city arose in the 7th century AD as the main port of the ancient Pallavian kingdom. Before that, there was a small village inhabited by fishermen. During the reign of the Pallavian dynasty, various types of arts, including the architectural direction, actively developed and improved here. Many monuments erected in those days have survived in the city to this day.
In the tenth century, the inhabitants of Mahabalipuram suddenly left their hometown. And the monuments remained abandoned until the 17th century. Scientists suggest that people could leave the city due to a sharp rise in sea level, as a result of which part of the city could be under water. The two-meter figures and other ruins of the temple complex unknown to science, which were discovered during the outgoing wave after the tsunami in 2004, are proof of this. However, the locals are sure that they left the city solely at the behest of the gods, first of all - Shiva.
Among the ancient buildings, one of the most significant is the Mahabalipuram temple complex. It consists of two temples dedicated to the god Shiva and the Vishnu sanctuary. On the perimeter of the temple wall, stone figures of bulls stand one after another. Not far from the central part of the city, you can see another famous bas-relief, which depicts mythical figures, plants, birds and animals. All of them are made in their own size, including the elephants.
There are many temples in Mahabalipuram, but each one surprises with its forms, beauty and craftsmanship. And given the fact that all these objects were cut in the rock, the diligence and technologies of the ancient builders, to put it mildly, are surprising. After all, all surfaces of monoliths in contact with each other are perfectly smoothly processed. There is an assumption that all local buildings were erected on previously existing other equally impressive architectural structures.
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One of the strangest objects of Mahabalipuram is the "oil head of Krishna" - a huge block of stone that sits on an inclined ledge, but nevertheless does not fall. Local legends tell how once Krishna made this whole boulder of butter and played with it for some time. When he got tired of the fun, God put the head on this ledge and made it stone.
The second no less mysterious object is a vessel in which Krishna knocked down the very butter, from which he later created the head. This vessel - or, as it is called here, the "oil barrel" - is a circular depression 2.5 meters in diameter and 2 meters deep. A depression was dug in the rock, but as scientists did not try to find at least some traces of mechanical impact on the stone, they did not succeed.
Therefore, it is still impossible to draw a conclusion about the technologies that were used to create this amazing vessel, like many other objects of Mahabalipuram.
