Thread by @DalrympleWill

India's Oldest Surviving Portraits?

So this is very exciting. I just managed to get in to see what appears to have been the closed off Royal chapel of the Pallava kings, the Adi Varaha cave temple.

It's still in use, so not ASI, and usually locked; it took a bit of fixing in advance with the Pundit who had the key. Moreover its frustratingly badly lit. But it's still breathtaking- arguably the most interesting of all the Mamallapuram caves.

It contains taller than life size portrait sculptures of Mahendra and Mamalla Pallava, and the in many ways the closest we will ever get to the physicality of early India.

Here is a piece I wrote a couple of years back on Mahendra Pallava who is one of the most fascinating figures in early Indian history:

openthemagazine.com/art-culture/ma…

For more on early portraiture, I recommend Padma Kaimal's brilliant essay, The Problem of Portraiture in South India, circa 870-970 (Artibus Asiae, Vol. 59, No. 1/2 (1999), pp. 59-133)

The Adi Varaha cave also contains a spectacular Gajalakshmi

And a superb Durga standing on the decapitated buffalo head of Mahishasura