Pallava Art
About this book
The kings of the Pallava dynasty were the paramuont rulers of south India, holding sway over the area of the present states of Taml nadu and Kerala, from the fourth to the end of the ninth century, A.D. A times, during the fouth to seventh centuries, their rule extended further to the north over the suothern part of Andhra Prdsh and Karnataka. The collected studies n this book seek to establish answers to some fo the long-standing questions concerning their art and their monuments, especially at Mamallapuram. Brought to ligh are such interesting things as the world's oldest children's slide and the very earliest extant Pallava free standing image of a deity carved in the round. The royal inscriptins of the Pallavas at Mamallapuram and elsewhere in South India are translated and analyzed, and photographs and exquisite delineations of many of their important inscriptions are given. The facsimiles of some of these iscriptions have never been published before. A seventh century, A.D. "musical inscription", perhaps the world's earliest record of sophisticaed and lengthy musical notation , is included in the inscriptions studied. In this book, the term "art" is taken in it's broadest sense to include, besides the usual topic, such things as literature, music, epigraphy and palaeography. This is an authoritative and original treatment of many of the enduring mysteries and problems of Pallava art.