Land of seven pagodas
According to the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, written by an unknown Greek traveller in the first century AD, Mahabalipuram was a flourishing seaport. Ptolemy, another Greek traveller who visited India a few years after the writer of the Periplus, also notes the city's prosperity. During the Pallava period, many Indian colonists travelled to southeast Asia from this port town. The Italian traveller Gasparo Balbi, who sailed to south India in late sixteenth century wrote, "About three of the clocke the next morning, wee came to a place which is called the Seven Pagods.' The origin of this appellation is disputed, though one school of thought holds that the term from the seven temples, which one stood on the shore and were visible from the sea.
The Carta Catalana, a world map prepared in Catalonia, Spain, in 1375 mentions " Setemelti', a place on the east coast of India. Scholars identify this place with Mahabalipuram, presumably derived from Sette Templi or seven temples.
In 1778, English historian William Chambers wrote an article on the monuments at Mahabalipuram in the first volume of the Asiatic Researches published from Calcutta (now Kolkata). He visited the site in 1772 and 1776. He wrote: "The name of Seven Pagoda