As Mahabalipuram consists of about forty temples scattered over several square miles, the first visit is often bewildering. This need not be true if one identifies three main groups -- the southern shrines, the hill area and the Shore Temple. Mahabalipuram, although no longer a place of worship, is a considerable work of art. It is an outdoor museum, combining attractions of a national park that has not been nationalized with animals which are all the more approachable because they are made of stone.

They are all interspersed with shrines of such solid construction that -- after 1200 years -- they do not yet qualify as ruins. Our first course (if you follow me) is south, to the Five Rathas - so called from their resemblance to temple carts or chariots. These are the best example of early Pallava style. The approach, with groves of casuarina seedlings, is pleasant. It leads to a depression in the sand, perhaps a half acre large, in which the monuments are set.

The dunes rise on the seaward side and, crested with a fuchsia-colored sand flower, offer a point of vantage from which to survey the amphitheater below. There was originally one huge rock, a continuation of the central ridge behind us, and this was cut away in the eighth century to form the five separate temples which we now find standing in the sand.

They have in the course of history, become associated with the five Pandava princes who figure so largely in the action of the Hindu epic, the Mahabarata. In actual fact, however, they are orthodox Siva shrines which, in construction, owe much to Buddhist influence.