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328 DRAVIDIAN STYLE. BOOK III. possess the curious peculiarity of being unfinished, whether standing free, as the raths, or cut in the rock, as caves, or on its face, as the great bas-relief; they are all left with one-third or one-fourth merely blocked out, and in some instances with the intention merely indicated. It looks as if the workmen had been suddenly called off while the whole was in progress, and native traditions, which always are framed to account for what is otherwise most unintelligible, have seized on this peculiarity, and make it the prominent feature in their myths. Add to this that it is only of late we have acquired that knowledge of the subject and familiarity with its details, which enable us to check the vagaries of Indian speculation. From all these causes it is not difficult to understand how easily mistakes may be made in treating of such mysterious objects. If we do not know all we would wish about the antiquities of Mamallapuram, 1 it is not because attempts have not been made to supply the information. Situated on an open beach, within 32 miles of Madras, it has been more visited and oftener described than any other place in India. The first volume of the 'Asiatic Researches' (1788) contained an exhaustive paper on them by Wm. Chambers. This was followed in the fifth (1798) by another by Mr Goldingham. In the second volume of the ' Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society ' (1830) there appeared what was then considered a most successful attempt to decipher the inscriptions there, by Dr. Guy Babington, accompanied by views of most of the sculptures. Before this, however, in 1816, Colonel Colin Mackenzie had employed his staff to make detailed drawings of all the sculptures and architectural details, and he left a collection of about forty drawings, which are now, in manuscript, in the India Office. Like all such collections, without descriptive text, they are nearly useless for scientific purposes. The 'Madras Journal,' in 1844, contained a guide to the place by Lieutenant J. Braddock, with notes by the Rev. G. W. Mahon, the Rev. W. Taylor, and Sir Walter Elliot; 2 and almost every journal of every traveller in these parts contains some hint regarding them, or some attempt to describe and explain their peculiarities or beauties. With the exception of the Mackenzie MS. the 1 The name of this place, among English writers, has been subject to various changes ; a century ago it usually figured as Maha Balipuram, as in Southey's ' Curse of Kehama ' ; Dr. Babington stated that in the inscrip- tions it was called Mahimallaipur ; the Rev. W. Taylor made it Mamallapuram, which is now accepted ; other forms were Mavalivaram, Mahavallipur, etc. 2 ' A Guide to the Sculptures, Excava- tions and other remarkable subjects at Mamallaipur, generally known to Europeans as "the Seven Pagodas" by the late Lieut. John Braddock, etc.' in ' Madras Journal of Literature and Science,' vol. xiii. (June, 1844) pp. 1-56.