It stands on the edge of the Bay of Bengal. At high tide, the waves sweep into its compounds. The walls and their sculptures have been battered and eroded by the winds and waves for thirteen hundred years. Yet they stand intact.
Mahabalipuram was a flourishing sea port in the times of Periplus and Ptolemy (140 AD). There is an old legend here that originally there were seven temples; of these, six have been swallowed by the sea and only one temple -the Shore Temple- remained. There are evidences of submerged structures under the waves and sporadic excavations are going on, but it is too early to say whether there really was a glorious city and six more temples which now lie submerged under the waves off the coast off Mahabalipuram.
