•   Mahabalipuram (or Mamallapuram) is a town in Chengalpattu district in the state of Tamil Nadu.

•   It is best known for Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

•   Mahabalipuram was one of the major port cities in the Pallava kingdom.

•   The town was named after Pallava king Narasimhavarman I, who was also known as Mamalla.

•   The site has 40 ancient monuments and Hindu temples of 7^th and 8^th century A.D.

Major features:

•   It contains one of the largest open-air rock reliefs in the world called, the Descent of the Ganges or Arjuna's Penance.

•   Ratha temples with monolithic processional chariots, the best-known are the five monolithic structures, known as the Five Rathas (Pancha ratha temples).

•   Mandapa viharas (cave temples).

•   Narratives from the Mahabharata and Shaivic, Shakti and Vaishnav inscriptions in a number of Indian languages and scripts.

•   Stone-cut temples (e.g., Shore temple).

Famous temples of other dynasties

•   Chola: Brihadisvara Temple at Thanjavur, The Temple of Gangaikonda Cholapuram, Airavatesvara Temple at Darasuram etc.

•   Chera: Thiruvanchikulam Shiva Temple, Bhagavathi Amman Temple, Mahavishnu Temple.

•   Pandya: Meenakshi temple at Madurai, Aranganathar temple at Srirangam.

•   The Chola dynasty was a Tamil thalassocratic empire of southern India and one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history of the world.

•   The earliest datable references to the Chola are from inscriptions dated to the 3rd century BCE during the reign of Ashoka of the Maurya Empire.

•   The Chola Empire was at its peak under the Medieval Cholas in the mid-9th century CE.

•   They unified peninsular India south of the Tungabhadra River, and held the territory as one state for three centuries between 907 and 1215 CE.

•   Under Rajaraja I and his successors Rajendra I, Rajadhiraja I, Rajendra II, Virarajendra, and Kulothunga Chola I, the dynasty became a military, economic and cultural powerhouse in South Asia and Southeast Asia.

•   The Brihadisvara Temple, Shiva temple of Thanjavur, the Airavatesvara Temple at Darasuram etc are some of the example of Chola temple architecture.