662 Notes on the JRuins at Mahabdlipuram. [No. 7. 



stances,* combined with its perfectly recent form and appearance, 

 are conclusive in my mind against any claims to great antiquity that 

 may be advanced on its behalf. 



The last remaining is that which has attracted most attention 

 from travellers : it is built of large masses of hewn granite, on one 

 of the granite rocks already mentioned, as protruding at intervals 

 along the sea shore. It is nearly opposite the highest part of the 

 ridge, and has apparently been built en rapport with some part of 

 the excavated hill, from which it is a mile distant in an easterly 

 direction. Its dimensions are small : speaking from memory, I 

 should say, under thirty feet square : but its curiously ornamented 

 conical roof rises to an elevation of nearly fifty feet : It is sur- 

 rounded on three sides, by a granite screen of ten or twelve feet 

 high, and about five feet distant from the body of the temple : on 

 the fourth side (the West,) stands a miniature of the temple, open- 

 ing towards the West, and bearing every appearance of having 

 originally been its principal! entrance. The walls and roof of a 

 connecting passage still exist, but all access by this route is now 

 barred, by a slab of black basaltic rock, fixed in the eastern wall of 

 the portico, opposite its entrance. A similar, rather larger slab 

 occupies a corresponding place on the inner surface of the western 

 wall of J the temple ; and on both are images of Siva, Parvatee and 

 their child. I was unable to discover whether the space intervening 

 between these two slabs is vacant, or has been filled up with ma- 

 sonry: but it is my very strong impression, that they and their 

 immediately surrounding blocks of stone are long subsequent in 

 date to the rest of the building, and have been inserted in order to 

 mark the ancient entry. As matters at present stand, it is impos- 

 sible to assign any reason for the existence of a blind chamber, or 



* It will generally be found that religious edifices, still possessing endowments, 

 belong to the later phases of Hinduism : the more ancient having been lost, in the 

 various political and religious contests. 



t As is constantly seen at present to the East of Hindu temples. 



X The centre is occupied by a large lingum which, from its dark colour, I con- 

 clude to be of this basaltic rock, which must have been brought from a considerable 

 distance. The chaityas terminating the roofs of both temples and prophyllum are 

 the same. Every other part is granite. 



