Mamallapuram is located a 60 km away from Chennai.  It was founded in the Pallava Era and the name from Narasimha Pallavan (AD 638 – 688), who was popularly known as Mamallan (Wrestler). The place is very popular for its board of artists who are talented artisans. Mamallapuram is well known for its sculptures with intricate designs which has recently got the Geographical Identification tag for the work on creating a magic out of stones.

Swaminathan, heritage enthusiast and author of a book on Mamallapuram states that, it was Mamallan who created the town. Now it is a place with temples, caves and bas – reliefs in diverse styles.

They have around 1100 artisans working and stay nearby with their families who take up the job of sculpturing as their profession. A wide variety of stones priced of minimum 200 to maximum 10 crore is available here. Identifying the quality of a stone becomes tricky as even today the stains that metal coaxes out a stone is felt.

As the demand for the artefacts has recently gone high, identifying the quality of stones gets difficult. Only a few artisans can find the life hidden inside the sculptures and idols.

The lack of blue metal stones that can be extracted from the quarry has been limited. So quality blue metal stones are used which give a beautiful sound when a metal is dropped on it instead of granite that has a high density which is expensive too. The blue metal stones are cost efficient that can be afforded for both customers and sculptures .