UNESCO Listed 7th Century Mahabalipuram Trip

Tiger Cave

1 hour

Tiger Cave: Our trip starts with the visit to Tiger Cave, a fine rock-cut monument complex. It gets its name from the carvings of the tiger heads on the mouth of a cave which forms a part of the complex. Curator may pose a question and answer. Is it a sculpture of Tigers or something else? Why was ‘so called’ ‘tiger cave’ built? Is it incomplete? Do you see two elephant heads and what could they have been? Do you see one Lingam with three different design it is and what do they mean? Do you a nice storyboard sculpture where ‘Asura’ is indicating to stop the attack while the Goddess is chasing him and what’s the story?

Shore Temple

1 hour

Shore temple
Do you know that Shore Temple complex was named as ‘Seven Pagodas’? What does it mean and where are the rest of the temples? Who build the Shore temple? What’s the significance of the architecture? Is it unique?

Arjuna's Penance

1 hour

Arjuna’s Penance is one of the magnificent monuments of Mahabalipuram. This wonderful bas air relief dates back to the mid-seventh century. Standing tall at a height of 43 feet, the monolith was carved on the face of two huge adjoining boulders, making its length around 96 feet. The majestic structure cannot be made out in photographs, it deserves to be praised by one’s own eyes. Now, you see a stunning sculpture of a depiction of an instance in the Indian epic ‘Mahabharata’.

Pancha Rathas

1 hour

Pancha Rathas.
Pancha Rathas is a monument complex at Mahabalipuram. Pancha Rathas is an example of monolithic Indian rock-cut architecture.The ‘Ratha’ temples are the cave temple made of rocks. The rathas are regarded as the five rathas of Pandavas, the eminent characters of the Mahabharata.

Mahabalipuram Lighthouse

30 min

Lighthouse
Next in the plan is to climb up new and old Lighthouses. They are stunning for photography and marvellous to see around from the top of them. The new lighthouse with a circular masonry tower made of natural stone was constructed in 19th Century. Do you know that Mamallapuram was one of the oldest trading ports with foreigners and a 7th Century built old lighthouse is an evidence?

Krishna's Butter Ball

30 min

Krishna Butter Ball – natural or god’s creation or human made or alien made:
We will visit this amazing wonder. This monolithic granite rock found in Mahabalipuram India, is over 20 feet in height. With its width almost equal to its height, it is looks spherical in some angles but not a perfect sphere. It weighs over 250 tons and miraculously stands on an extremely small, slippery area of a hill. What’s the other name for this rock ball?