CDS (I) 2024 General Knowledge · Question 94 of 120

Correct — C, Adivaraha Cave. Among the rock-cut cave temples at Mamallapuram, it is the Adivaraha cave, the shrine still in worship, that carries the two sculpted royal panels — Simhavishnu shown with his consorts, and Mahendravarman shown with his — each identified by a label inscription beside it. That makes them among the earliest surviving royal portraits in South Indian art and the reason art historians return to this cave. The Varaha cave in option (a) is a different monument, whose four famous panels are mythological rather than dynastic: Vishnu as Varaha lifting the earth, Vishnu as Trivikrama, Gajalakshmi and Durga. The Ramanuja and Trimurti caves carry no royal portraits either.

• (a)Varaha Cave — The Varaha mandapa is celebrated for four legend panels — Varaha, Trivikrama, Gajalakshmi and Durga — not for portraits of Pallava kings.
• (b)Ramanuja Cave — The Ramanuja mandapa is a small, much-altered excavation whose original sculpture was largely cut away; it carries no royal portrait panels.
• (d)Trimurti Cave — The Trimurti cave has three cells dedicated to Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu. Its subject is the three deities, not the ruling house.

Mamallapuram, on the Coromandel coast south of Chennai, holds a Pallava monument group of rock-cut cave temples, monolithic rathas, open-air reliefs and the structural Shore Temple, together inscribed as a World Heritage site. The cave temples were excavated in the seventh and eighth centuries, mainly under Mahendravarman I and Narasimhavarman I, and their sculpture ranges from narrative panels of Hindu legend to, rarely, portraits of the ruling family.

Two of the four options are built from the same word, and that is the whole difficulty of the item. Varaha and Adivaraha look interchangeable, and some accounts even use the names loosely for one another, so it is worth fixing them by their contents rather than by their names. Remember the Varaha mandapa by its four mythological panels, and the Adivaraha cave by the royal portraits with their identifying inscriptions. That the portraits name Simhavishnu, a ruler of the generation before the great building phase, is itself a clue that the Pallavas were consciously recording their own dynasty in stone.

• The Adivaraha cave temple at Mamallapuram carries sculpted royal panels of Simhavishnu and of Mahendravarman with their consorts, each with a label inscription.
• The Varaha cave temple is known instead for four panels — Varaha, Trivikrama, Gajalakshmi and Durga.
• Mahendravarman I, who reigned in the early seventh century, was a patron of the arts and himself the author of a Sanskrit play.
• The monuments at Mamallapuram are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list as the Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram.

• Reading Varaha and Adivaraha as the same monument; the question treats them as distinct and keys the Adivaraha cave.
• Assuming the Trimurti cave, which sounds like it depicts three figures, must be the one with the royal group.
• Placing Mamallapuram under the Cholas; the site is Pallava, several centuries earlier.

Asked as a monument-identification item where two of the four options share a name and only the sculptural content separates them.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The monuments at Mamallapuram were built chiefly under which dynasty?

  • (a)Chola
  • (b)Pallava
  • (c)Chalukya of Badami
  • (d)Pandya

  Answer(b) Pallava — mainly in the seventh and eighth centuries, under rulers such as Mahendravarman I and Narasimhavarman I.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Varaha cave temple at Mamallapuram is best known for panels depicting

  • (a)portraits of the Pallava royal family
  • (b)Varaha, Trivikrama, Gajalakshmi and Durga
  • (c)scenes from the life of the Buddha
  • (d)the twenty-four Jain tirthankaras

  Answer(b) Varaha, Trivikrama, Gajalakshmi and Durga — four legend panels, not dynastic portraits.