Historic sites

Mahabalipuram Shore Temple

India Tamil Nadu Chengalpattu

Mahabalipuram Shore Temple
Photo: Swarna1311, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A group of 7th and 8th-century Pallava monuments by the sea south of Chennai, a UNESCO World Heritage Site: the granite Shore Temple, the Five Rathas carved from single rocks, and Arjuna's Penance, one of the world's largest bas-reliefs. Krishna's Butterball is a giant boulder balancing on a slope.


It's about 1.5 hours from Chennai. Pondicherry, with its French quarter, is further south.

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