SEEYAMANGALAM, TAMIL NADU, INDIA, January 27, 2012 (The Hindu): “It is rare to find people from the city interested in a small village like ours,” she says, as I explain that I am in Seeyamangalam, 80 km from Chennai, with friends to visit some of the ancient cave temples, built by the Pallava king Mahendravarman I in the 7th century, long before the dynasty’s Mahabalipuram monuments were built.
The originally built temple was extended by the Cholas and Vijayanagar kings, who also added the gopurams. Called Avanibhajana Pallaveshwaram, Avani being a title of Mahendravarman I, the temple has one of the earliest interpretations of the Ananda Thandava, or Nataraja, posture of Shiva carved on one of the pilasters. Balaji points out that the sculpture’s expression is unlike any seen in the Nataraja sculptures of the 10th-century Chola period; there are two shiva ganas (attendants) — one playing a mrindangam and the other praying with folded hands. “Technically, this is not yet a Nataraja,” says Arvind.
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