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Cave stuccoes
Sir, — This has reference to the article, "Stuccoes stand apart", in The Hindu (April 12, 2002). The author has written that the Vishnu cave temple at Malayadipatti should have been carved before the Ramayana and the Mahabharatha and that the paintings inside are 2,000 years old. But it is erroneous in toto.
Archaeological evidences show that cave art was introduced in Tamil Nadu, by Pallava king Mahendravarman (600-630 A.D.) Malayadipatti (Pudukkottai District) has two cave temples, cut from the same rock, side by side, one for Vishnu and another for Siva. The Vishnu cave temple has 10 inscriptions and none of them is a foundation inscription, the earliest being in the seventh year of Sundara Chola corresponding to 960 A.D. However the nearby Siva cave temple was excavated in the 16th year of Pallava king Duntivarman corresponding to 804 A.D (Inscription No.18, in the list in Inscriptions of Pudukottai State). It can be safely assumed that the Vishnu cave also must have been excavated more or less during the same period. Hence dating the bas-relief sculptures and the stucco-paintings over them to 2,000 is untenable.
Covering the granite surface in the temples is not rare. Even the early Pallava monuments were covered with stucco and painted. Long Hurst would observe (Pallava Architecture pt II pp.7-8) that all the rock-cut and structural monuments at Mahabalipuram were originally covered with plaster and painted. It is interesting to note that the walls and bas-relief sculpture inside the Jain cave temple at Sittannavasal (now lost), were also covered with stucco and painted.
There is no doubt that the walls and bas-relief sculptures in the Vishnu cave temple at Malayadipatti were covered with stucco with well known indigenous fresco process and painted. Now most of them have fallen apart and have been lost. Surviving patches of paintings show the style akin to the paintings at Lepakshi (in Andhra Pradesh) of the Vijayanagar period and hence the paintings at the Malayadipatti Vishnu cave temple can be dated to the 16-17th century A.D. and the cave itself to the 9th century A.D.
J. Raja Mohammad
Pudukkottai
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