Estimate the contribution of Pallavas of Kanchi for the development of Art and literature of South India.

Stone: cave, ratha, structural temple

Mahendravarman I cut early rock-cut mandapas. The Mandagapattu inscription names him as a king who built a shrine without brick, timber, metal or mortar. Narasimhavarman I (Mamalla) developed Mahabalipuram. There he left the Pancha Rathas, the open-air relief of Arjuna’s Penance (also called the Descent of the Ganga), and a port that faced the sea. Narasimhavarman II (Rajasimha) built structural stone temples. The Shore Temple at Mamallapuram and the Kailasanatha at Kanchipuram belong to his reign. The sequence is clear: first the cave, then the monolith, then the dressed-stone vimana. Later Chola and Rashtrakuta builders used this sequence as a model.

Pallava sculpture tells stories. It does not only show a single god in a still pose. Gods, animals and ordinary people share the same cliff face. The Dravida vimana with storeys became a standard South Indian form. The habit of placing a royal temple in the capital also became a lasting practice.

• Experiment: Mandagapattu and other mahendra-style caves show a new way of cutting a shrine from living rock.
• Open-air composition: Mamallapuram’s rathas and reliefs taught later sthapatis how to arrange figures in stone.
• Capital temple: Kailasanatha shows the move from experiment to a finished royal style.

Letters: Sanskrit court and Tamil devotion

Pallava kings were literate patrons. Mahendravarman wrote the satiric play Mattavilasa Prahasana. Dandin wrote Kavyadarsha and Dashakumaracharita. Memory of Bharavi also belongs to this Kanchi Sanskrit setting. The Grantha script wrote Sanskrit in the Tamil country. At the same time the Alvars and Nayanmars sang in Tamil. The Tevaram and Vaishnava hymns used Pallava-period temples as places of worship and song. Art and bhakti supported each other. A stone scene of the Ganga’s descent and a Tamil hymn both pointed worshippers to the same sacred landscape.

• Sanskrit drama and poetics: The court made Kanchi a southern centre of classical letters.
• Tamil Bhakti: Temple and hymn grew together. The Pallava shrine became a hall for Tamil devotion.
• Script: Grantha and Tamil inscriptions carried both languages into the Chola age.

The estimate of Pallava contribution is high, but it is not exclusive. Chalukya and later Chola work surpassed the Pallavas in scale. The Pallavas still remain the first dynasty to fix the coastal Dravida temple kit in stone and to keep a bilingual literary court.