It was a warm noon in December 1886 when Dr Eugen Hultzsch, the acclaimed German Indologist and later epigraphist to the Madras government, decided to visit the Mamallapuram group of monuments. Fascinated by the rich edifices that the chisels and sharp eyes of the Pallava craftsman had created, Hultzsch was walking around the five rathas campus. Little did he realise that destiny was waiting to introduce him to a person who would eventually turn out to be his intellectual companion.
On the same day, Valaiyathur S Venkayya, a sharp 22-year-old gentleman well versed in many languages, had travelled to Mamallapuram to feed his appetite for Indian history. Venkayya, a graduate in physics who was then teaching in a school in Kanchipuram, was obviously interested when he saw Hultzsch copying the inscriptions. It would have been wonderful to watch the two bright minds with mutual appreciation for their scholarship and interests getting together. Venkayya, a scholar in his attitude and ap