#MahendravarmanI

Mahendravarman I · r. c. 600–630 CE

In the books · 1 chapter

Who this is

Kingship — Pallava dynasty; and, on the side, playwright, pioneer of rock-cut temple architecture, musician, painter, tank-builder.

“Every South Indian stone temple you have ever seen — Mamallapuram on its beach, the giant of Thanjavur, the gopurams of Madurai — stands downstream of a curious-minded king who decided, around the year 610, that the gods deserved a house that could not burn, rot or fall down.”

— The Great Indians, Ch. 69

The big idea, in the book's words:

“Temples of brick and timber rot; a temple cut out of living rock is forever. He inaugurated stone architecture in the Tamil country — "without brick, without timber, without metal, without mortar" — and wrote a farce funny enough to still be staged fourteen centuries later.”

— The Great Indians, Ch. 69