Mahabalipuram emerged as an important centre of temple architecture under which of the following kingdoms of south India?

Correct — A. Mahabalipuram, also written Mamallapuram, is a Pallava port town on the Tamil coast, and its monuments were cut and built by Pallava kings in the seventh and eighth centuries.

The name carries the answer. Mamalla was the title of Narasimhavarman I, the Pallava ruler under whom the rock-cut work expanded. The Shore Temple, built up from dressed stone rather than carved out of rock, came later under Narasimhavarman II.

Why the others are wrong

• (b)
  Chera — The Cheras ruled the Kerala country in the far south-west. Mahabalipuram sits on the opposite coast, in the Tamil country.
• (c)
  Chola — The Cholas are the trap: Tamil, coastal and great temple builders. But their signature is the Brihadisvara Temple at Thanjavur under Rajaraja I, some three centuries later.
• (d)
  Chalukya — The Chalukyas built at Badami, Aihole and Pattadakal in present-day Karnataka. They were the Pallavas' rivals, not the builders of their port.

Mahabalipuram is a textbook of early Dravidian architecture, with four kinds of work in one place.

Rathas — monolithic shrines carved whole out of standing boulders, named after the Pandavas.
Mandapas — pillared halls cut back into the rock face.
Open-air relief — the vast panel usually called Arjuna's Penance or the Descent of the Ganga.
Structural temple — the Shore Temple, assembled from cut stone.

The site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1984 as the Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram.

Key facts

• Mahabalipuram was developed under the Pallavas, whose capital was Kanchipuram.
• Narasimhavarman I bore the title Mamalla, from which Mamallapuram takes its name.
• The Shore Temple is a structural temple, built under Narasimhavarman II.
• The Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984.

Common traps

• Answering Chola because the site is a Tamil coastal temple complex
• Treating the rathas and the Shore Temple as one building campaign under one king

No directly related past PYQ was found.