Mandagapattu Cave Temple

The Mandagapattu Tirumurti Temple is a rock-cut cave shrine at Mandagapattu village in Viluppuram district, carved into the northern face of a large rock above an irrigation tank west of the village. The Pallava king Mahendravarman I, who reigned from 600 to 630 CE, had it cut in honour of the trinity of Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu, and no older dated stone shrine has been found in Tamil Nadu; most other caves of its kind honour only Vishnu or Shiva.

Its Sanskrit inscription in Grantha script, the earliest known of its kind cut in rock, states that the king, calling himself Vichitrachitta, 'the curious-minded', made this shrine for Brahma, Ishvara and Vishnu with no brick, timber, metal or mortar. The deeply cut facade has two pillars and two pilasters, with recesses for door guardians at either side. Behind lies a front hall, a little lower than the inner hall beyond it, separated by a row of square pillars with octagonal middle sections, all supporting beams carved from the living rock.