146 



DESCRIPTIVE REMARKS ON 



tion belongs " (about 700 A. D.) : .... ''according to the C. 

 Basava Purana the first linga was found in Kerikala Cola's time 

 or c. 950 A.D." .... " and it is now certain that the linga 

 worship is an importation from the North into South India in 

 comparatively recent times." — Note 2, p. 37. 



Mr. C. S. CROLE. 

 Mr. C. S. Crole, of the Madras Civil Service, in the Chinglepat 

 District Manual (1879) lias collected the available information 

 about the Seven Pagodas, the true name of which he gives as 

 Mamallapuram or Mallapuri (p. 92). In a short resume at pp. 

 102. 103 he divides the antiquities into three periods. 



1st — The Baths and the bas-relief in the Krishna Mandapa, 

 " of a date somewhere about the fifth or sixth 

 century." 



2nd. — The Aticandesvara Mandapa, and some of the fine 

 Siva carvings, such as the very spirited represent- 

 ation of Durga on the lion vanquishing Makisha- 

 sura. which " may be safely placed between the 

 seventh and tenth centuries." 



3/-^. — " The period of the rise and ascendancy of the Vishnu 

 faith, represented at its best by the Boar incarna- 

 tion, and dating from the latter part of the eleventh 

 century up to Simhama Nayudu's time, or the 

 beginning of the seventeenth century." 

 " The Shore temple was doubtless a creation of the 

 second of these epochs " (seventh to tenth cen- 

 turies). 



At pp. 24, 25, and 26 he states that the worship of the lingam 

 w had spread over all India by the beginning of the third cen- 

 tury A.D. as a representation of Siva." " The first evidence of 

 communication with the north is contained in the gigantic bas- 

 relief at the Seven Pagodas, which appears to be an illustrated 

 tract in stone on the merits of Buddhism. This may belong to 

 a period anterior to the Christian era." 



"TVe know that during the fifth century Conjeveram was 

 sacked by one of the Calukyan dynasty, whose continued hold 



