Addition, Erasure, and Adaptation: Interventions in the Rock-Cut Monuments of Māmallapuram

The magnificent set of excavated caves, rock-cut monoliths, sculpted stone tableaux, and structural temples at the Pallava-period (ca. 575–728) port town of Māmallapuram (in present-day Tamil Nadu) has attracted the attention of a wide range of scholars. The fascination exerted by this unique site is demonstrated by the existence of two annotated bibliographies, one published in 1966 and a second barely fifteen years later in order to bring the scholarship into the year 1980. Although scholars agree that the monuments at Māmallapuram date between the late sixth and early eighth centuries, during the reign of the Pallava rulers of the Siṁhavis ̇ n ̇ u line, unresolved questions proliferate regarding their precise authorship, exact date, and intent; the incompleteness of many of the monuments adds complexity to the conundrum they pose. Most studies of Māmallapuram have focused on the dominant monuments of the Pallava period, and for good reason. But the structures commissioned by the Pallava patrons continued in existence, and through the following centuries they attracted later visitors who sometimes imposed themselves upon the site through their own material practices. These might include anything from the addition of small graffiti-like markings onto existing monuments to the creation of larger new structures that overshadowed the previous ones. Things might be added, or sometimes subtracted, as in the deliberate erasure of the identifying features of sculpted images. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the matter of physical change at Māmallapuram. Numerous clear signs of adaptation and elimination of imagery appear upon and within the rock-cut structures at the site, but with the sole exception of Michael Lockwood’s studies, art historians have shown a sort of benign neglect toward these changes. In this essay we propose to attend more closely to the structures that show signs of alteration, erasure, and adaptation, as a preliminary inquiry into change at this important site. Material Changes and Religious Competition