We now wish to take our readers, who are already well acquainted with Mamallapuram, once more to that place.

It has been more than three hundred years since the time when Mahendra Pallava and Mamalla Narasimha transformed this port city into a dreamland through their wondrous works of sculpture.

The city’s appearance has somewhat faded. The change does not bring joy to our hearts. Tall mansions have crumbled and lie in ruins. There is no longer the bustling crowd in the streets and at the harbor as there once was. The thriving trade has diminished. There are no longer great warehouses. The streets are not piled high with mountains of goods for export and import.

Once, we saw how the sea had entered the land, forming a deep canal, creating a natural harbor where ships could safely anchor. Now, that canal has silted up with sand, its depth greatly reduced. Only small boats and canoes can now enter that shallow backwater. The larger ships and wooden vessels must anchor farther out at sea. Goods must be loaded onto boats and ferried out to those ships.

Yet, during the intervening years, Mamallapuram has acquired some new distinctions as well. Most notably, the beautiful stone temple shining on the seashore captivates both our eyes and our minds. It is not like the cave temples hewn into the hills during the time of Mahendra and Mamalla. This temple was built by bringing stones from the hills and assembling them. It gleams like a splendid jeweled crown placed upon the head of the King of the Ocean. Ah! How can one describe the beauty of that temple’s structure?

Besides this, in the center of the city stands the Vishnu temple of Vinnagara, where the Lord who measured the three worlds reclines. This Vinnagara was constructed by Parameswara Pallava, who cherished both Shaivism and Vaishnavism as the two eyes of his realm. Thirumangai Azhwar came to this temple, worshipped the reclining Perumal, and sang Tamil hymns that overflowed with waves of devotion. From his verses, we learn that even in his time, the Pallava empire flourished in glory, and Mamallapuram was a prosperous port city:

“With heaps of precious gems, With mighty tusked elephants, With piles of splendid navaratna stones, I have wandered everywhere, bearing these treasures, In ships that sail the Mallai sea, To the sacred reclining place at Mallai, To those whose minds are full of virtue, Go around them in worship, O my gentle heart!”

A hundred years after the time of Thirumangai Azhwar, the sun of the Pallava Empire had set. The glory of the great city of Kanchi, famed as ‘unmatched in learning’, had diminished. The commercial prosperity of ‘Mallai, where ships sail the sea’, had waned.

Yet, the wondrous sculptural arts of that immortal city, which bestowed everlasting fame upon the Tamil land, suffered no decline. The intricate and marvelous sculptures carved into the rocky walls, the temple towers and chariots hewn from the hills—these, even after three centuries, shone as fresh and resplendent as they did when first created. The crowds who came to marvel at these treasures of sculpture were greater than the throngs of merchants who arrived to trade their wares.

Along the streets of Mamallapuram, a beautiful chariot drawn by a pair of horses made its way. The horses’ ornaments, the exquisite craftsmanship of the chariot, the golden plates that adorned it, and the canopy that gleamed in the afternoon sun like a second sun—all these proclaimed that those within belonged to royal blood.

Yes; within the spacious interior of that golden chariot sat three members of the royal family. One among them was himself, the bravest of the brave, the eldest son of Sundara Chola—Aditya Karikalan. From a very young age, he had entered the battlefield and performed heroic deeds of valor. He slew the mighty Veerapandiyan in the final battle, earning the title “Kopperakesari who took the head of Veerapandiyan.”

No sooner had Veerapandiyan attained the warrior’s heaven and the Pandya country come under the Chola Empire than Sundara Chola fell ill. Aditya Karikalan was the next... To establish without a shadow of doubt that he was the rightful heir to the throne, Aditya Karikalan was invested with the title of Crown Prince. From that moment, he gained the privilege of inscribing his name on the royal edicts and issuing decrees in his own right, as recorded in the earliest inscriptions.

Subsequently, in order to liberate the Thondai Mandalam entirely from the dominance of Kannara Devan of the twin kingdoms, Aditya Karikalan set out on a northern campaign. There, too, he performed many valiant deeds on the battlefield. He drove the armies of the twin kingdoms north of the Vadapennai river. To continue his northern campaign, it became necessary to augment his military strength. Therefore, he came to Kanchipuram, where he began to assemble his forces and gather the weapons and equipment needed for the campaign.

At this juncture, the Pazhuvettarayar chieftains began to obstruct his efforts. They insisted that the northern campaign could only commence after the war in Lanka was concluded. Various other rumors began to drift through the air. It was said that the army sent to wage war in Lanka was not receiving the necessary food supplies from Chola Nadu. All these matters caused the valiant heart of Aditya Karikalan to burn with restlessness and agitation.

For about three hundred years before and after the time in which our story unfolds, the sacred womb of Mother Tamil gave birth to heroic sons who rivaled the great warriors of the epics. Heroes who matched Bhima, Arjuna, Bhishma, Drona, Ghatotkacha, and Abhimanyu were born in Tamilakam. They performed feats of valor that astonished the world. Every victory they achieved in battle added further strength to their shoulders. The elders, even in their advanced age, possessed the might to move mountains. The young men, though not yet of age, had the power to soar through the air, touch the vault of the