Posts Tagged ‘Hanuman’

Apr

Hanuman escapes from a Crocodile - Perur

Pillar sculptures are a treat and when they are in the hands of a master story teller - then its double the entertainment. Sadly, most of these tales have been lost on us, and so we cannot appreciate what is said by the sculptor. We take one such sculpture today from Perur.

Bordering the side of the shops, most visitors would miss this interesting tell tale or tale telling sculpture. We need to did back into the British Univ archives to dig out this frame.

Can’t find him, here you go.

To give you an orientation, the steps you see are the steps to the Kanagasabhai. so you can visualise where this pillar is. Present day, rope included he is like this.

But what intrigued us was this cast away broken pillar with the same motif.

A closeup of him again.

While talking with Artist Padmavasan, he mentioned that he had sketched this pillar as well and shared his with us.

So what is the story depicted in this panel - well, we saw the entire episode carved in the Sesharaya Mandaba in Srirangam in a previous post. Here you go..

Great Escape from a croc’s belly

But how did the pillars break - and is it a replica that we see today ?

Part 2 of - An interesting Sculpture chat on some confusing sculptures

What an interesting exchange on the previous post ! forced me to put this part 2 of that debate.

Lets take a look at the sculpture under question again

Hanuman somnathpur with vishnu attributes and bana lingam

Is the sculpture indeed that of Hanuman holding the Bana l

Arguments for:

The Bana lingam legend, the facial features.

Arguments against

No tail, presence of two ladies on both sides, presence of Vishnu’s attributes ( but this is not a clear case as Cheenu’s rightly pointed out there are instances !)

What other sculptures could it represent

Macha Avatar

But there is a matcha ( fish) avatar sculpture right next to this sculpture.

We had arguments for this image as well, but the depiction of the eyes and the typical mouth kind of settled the issue.

Lets see them in closeup again ( thanks Arvind once again)

Compare this macha avatar with the earlier sculpture, both can’t be the same for sure.

Varaha Avatar - Vishnu

A Definite possibility. Lets take a front depiction of Varaha from Ahobilam to compare.

The depiction of a spherical ( ok egg shaped) earth is not found in sculptures even upto 200 years after this representation. Take a look again, its too defined a sculpture for an artist to err in the shape ( for the finesse in carving the conch and the discus).

While, its definitely a case in point to the two ladies. We see all the avatars and even Brahma sporting such attendants or consorts.

Now, we come to this interesting sculpture. its Kurma ( Turtle) Avatar

Lets study its features more closely

There are some legends related with Vishnu seeking Shiva’s help ( Kachbeshwarar form). But is this and the original sculpture similar. Lets study the face features once more side by side.