1853.] Notes on the Ruins at Malidbalipuram. G69 



instead of four, we shall certainly be able to satisfy both conditions 

 pretty well in Combacorum, the Benares of the south, or in the an- 

 cient capital of the Pandyan kingdom, but either explanation is equal- 

 ly fatal to the claims of Mavellipuram. 



It is true that it has been generally believed that the sea had 

 encroached on this shore, and that many pagodas and buildings of 

 this ancient city had been submerged even since the English settle- 

 ments took place ; and it may therefore be said that in all probabi- 

 lity the site of this city was actually twenty miles from the sea in 

 the days when the Mahabharata was written. This idea is founded 

 partly on the mariner's name of the Seven Pagodas, said to indicate 

 the existence (in the early days of English intercourse with India) 

 of seven Pagodas on the shore where now only one remains. But 

 personal inspection at once shows the fallacy of this derivation of the 

 name : the shore temples being far too low to be perceived at the 

 distance that ships usually pass ; more especially as they are backed 

 by the cave-hewn ridge ; and it is infinitely more probable that Mr. 

 Chambers was correct in referring the appellation to the peculiar 

 appearance presented by the rounded peaks of this ridge itself, espe- 

 cially as temples were vaguely known to exist in that neighbourhood 

 without their situation being very accurately settled. He says, 

 " The rock or rather hill of stone on which great part of these works 

 are executed, is one of the principal marks for mariners as they ap- 

 proach the coast, and to them the place is known by the name of 

 the Seven Pagodas : possibly because the summits of the rocks have 

 presented them with that idea as they passed." 



A far stronger evidence, however in the general opinion, was the 

 tradition imparted by the Brahmins, and perhaps other inhabitants, 

 to the earlier European visitors of the place. Mr. Chambers relates : 

 " The natives of the place declared to the writer of this account, 

 that the more aged people among them remembered to have seen 

 the tops of several pagodas far out at sea ; which being covered with 

 copper (probably gilt) were particularly visible at sun rise, as their 

 shining surface used then to reflect the sun's rays : but that now 

 that effect was no longer produced, as the copper had become en- 

 crusted with mould and verdigris." Passing over as a minor 

 objection that " at sun rise" the dark sides of the pagoda tops would 



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