Mahabalipuram

Mamallapuram was the port of the Pallavas of Kanchipuram, and between roughly 630 and 728, under Narasimhavarman I Mamalla and his successors, its sculptors experimented on living rock in ways that fixed the vocabulary of South Indian temple architecture. Nothing here was assembled: the Pancha Rathas are five shrines each cut from a single boulder, copying in stone the timber and thatch forms of the day, and the Varaha and Mahishasuramardini caves hold panels of Vishnu lifting the earth and Durga riding into battle against the buffalo demon. The centrepiece is Arjuna's Penance, a relief some 29 metres long and 13 high across two whale-backed boulders, where elephants, ascetics, gods and a comically cat-like figure crowd around a natural cleft down which water once poured as the Ganga.

The Shore Temple, built around 700 under Rajasimha, is the exception: dressed blocks, two towers, and salt wind that has softened its carving to the texture of soap. Come at opening, before the tour buses, when the light is low and the compound is quiet. Afterwards walk the village lanes where sculptors still chip granite by hand, climb to the Olakkanesvara temple beside the lighthouse for the coastline view, and eat grilled fish by the sea.

Each December and January the dance festival stages Bharatanatyam against the Arjuna's Penance rock.