The Shore Temple at Mahabalipuram is one of the oldest structural temples of South India and changed into a pioneer of this style of architecture which finally replaced the other bureaucracy familiar then. nowadays the Shore Temple is a #UNESCO international background website as part of the Mahabalipuram group of temples and visited through lots of travelers each year.

Shore Temple at Mahabalipuram

But what precisely is a structural temple?

Properly, to recognize this higher, we want to do a brief assessment of evolution of the temple architecture patterns over the ages.

The oldest such temples have been the cave temples in which easy temples have been constructed through excavating the rock and had been more or less just like the Buddhist cave temples common at some point of that generation. An evolution of this fashion turned into a rock reduce temple in a cave, however chiseled right into a unfastened standing structure. The Panch Ratha at Mahabalipuram is a good example of this.

However, making temples requires a ton of money offcourse more when we are talking about architectural design - Structural Temples. those temples have been built with precisely cut stones, frequently interlocked for structural strength. using this technique, plenty taller temples could be constructed and this turned into the beginning of the everyday South Indian temples as we recognize of now.

Why it is known as Shore Temple?

Usually, Shore Temple is known as so definitely because it faces the east which takes place to be the direction of the shore, Bay of Bengal.

The light just before the sun rose!

My travel to the Shore Temple

Well, my visit to Mahabalipuram was absolutely unplanned and passed off due to surprising change of plans as i was on my way to Pondicherry in a bus from Chennai.

I took a guest residence proper subsequent to the beach and started my explorations at the beach at 5 thirty in the morning. I desired to look the dawn on the temple and turned into pleasantly amazed that the temple opens to visitors at 6am! This allowed me to start my day early and also to seize some adorable moments there. I didn’t have my DSLR in this journey but the iPhone X became a great partner and never dissatisfied me.

The temple is quite simple and peaceful, and in case you don’t understand about the history of this place you might even come back a little disenchanted. however if you do understand more approximately it, you'll only surprise at its beauty and ingenuity.

The temple is without a doubt constructed right on the coast and a, first the ocean waves could certainly be felt while one stood at its front. however, this also caused the sluggish demise of the stunning temple and nowadays maximum of it's far ruined with the aid of the extraordinarily salted sea water. but, as a part of efforts to gradual down the decay method, a part of the sea in front of the temple was reclaimed and bushes planted to prevent the tough winds from direct contact with the temple. The placing of the temple nowadays is sincerely not as dramatic, but it's going to luckily stay longer with this.

The carvings must've been beautiful at some point in time

Remaining carvings at the temple

First-rate time for a go to the Shore Temple

The nice time for a visit could I simply be morning when the sun rises and the front of the temple glows in the golden light. you could effortlessly spend some hours on the temple, particularly if you love old temples as much as I do. otherwise, you'll be able to see and respect maximum of it inside an hour.

Sunrise at the Shore Temple

I might suggest going to attempt bottom of the temple (there is lane on the right of the doorway) for some first-class chai/ breakfast in addition to a stroll at the beach. The seaside isn’t exceedingly smooth, however the morning breeze is right.

In phrases of the season, the nice time for a visit would be November to February.

Location :- Mahabalipuram , town between the Bay of Bengal and the Great Salt Lake , Tamil Nadu (INDIA)