Shore Temple and Mahabalipuram, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India cover photo - 157250110

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Cover photo description:
The Shore Temple overlooks the shore of the Bay of Bengal. It is a structural temple, built with blocks of granite, dating from the 8th century AD. At the time of its creation, the site was a busy port during the reign of Narasimhavarman II of the Pallava dynasty. It is one of the oldest structural versus rock-cut stone temples of South India. The group of monuments at Mahabalipuram is a collection of 7th- and 8th-century CE religious monuments in the coastal resort town of Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu, India and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The site has 400 ancient monuments and tamil religious temples including one of the largest open-air rock reliefs in the world: the Descent of the Ganges or Arjuna`s Penance. The group contains several categories of monuments: ratha temples with monolithic processional chariots, built between 630 and 668; mandapa viharas cave temples with narratives from the Mahabharata and Shaivic, Shakti and Vaishna inscriptions in a number of Indian languages and scripts; rock reliefs particularly bas-reliefs; stone-cut temples built between 695 and 722, and archaeological excavations dated to the 6th century and earlier.