Photo 212/5(23)

Genre: Architectural Photography

General view of the Ganesha Ratha at Mamallapuram. Lyon's 'Notes to accompany a series of photographs prepared to illustrate the ancient architecture of Southern India' (Marion and Co., London, 1870), edited by James Fergusson, gives the following description of this photograph: '429 - Returning, after leaving this portico, along the temple wall, past the basso-relievo on the face of the rocks (Nos. 422 & 423), the small monolith shown in this view stands a little in the rear of the modern temple. It evidently originally formed part of the same granite range as the other rocks, but has become detached, and is every day becoming more so, owing to the quantity of stone-cutters here employed in cutting the stone into large blocks to be sent by the canal into Madras for building purposes. One of their thatched huts may be seen on the right of the view. The temple is very similar to several we will have to describe further on, and as will easily be perceived, is a simpler and less ornamental form of the great gateway and towers described above. In early times, before the end of the thirteenth century, this oblong form was frequently used for a temple, instead of the square pyramid, but never apparently afterwards.'