To really see the Shore temple of Mahabalipuram, you need to approach it from the sea, sailing along the Bay of Bengal. For more than a thousand years, legends of a temple of “Seven Pagodas” have been circulated – one whose tops gleam with golden light. It’s a part of the unimaginatively-named “Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram” – a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984.
The actual sight reveals only a single temple – the Shore temple. And if you wonder where the other six might have gone, you’ll be joining a line of questioning that is over 500 years ago.
The first to reference the temple was by Marco Polo in the 1290s. The next century, in 1375, a Catalan geographer includes it as “Setemelti” on his world atlas. In 1582, a Venetian noted, “eight pleasant hillocks not very high.”
The problem with these sources is they don’t seem to have put much rigour into their observation. The Venetian was making his observation at three in the morning – and was unlikely to have been able to ascertain the number of monuments.
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