Monthly Archives: September 2008

A thousand year struggle to survive

I visited Chennai last June and immediately my good friend Mr. Chandra invited me for sunday trip to Uthiramerur. I jumped at this lucky chance little knowing what was in store.

We merrily got off early by 8 and reached this historic town by 10. After a hot breakfast of delicious pongal and dosas, we went to visit the Perumal temple ( with some lovely sculptures and edicts – will most later)

We then adjourned for the main event, visit to mark the opening ceremony for renovation of the Kailasanatha Temple. As i turned left into the road, i was hit by a thunderbolt. Nothing had prepared me or this sight, ok we have seen quite a few dilapidated temples, but something of this scale.
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The temple was obviously a pallava build, a brick structure on a granite foundation. The overgrowth gave it a kind of Angkorian look, complete with huge overhanging rooted plants. We went round inspecting the amazing struggle of this edifice – as we entered the main shrine – something remarkable happened. I couldnt take pictures ( as this was the Garba graha) but let me try n bring you the sight in words. We were expecting the worst, the panel behind the main shrine was empty ( could have held a wooden somaskanda panel in days of yore), the main ceiling slab had cracked, was expecting the worst seeing the collateral damage outside, but the ingenuity and engineering of the ancients was there for everyone to see – there stood the most perfect jet black shiva linga – shining in all his glory, not a scratch on him. With watery eyes and flesh tingling with goose pimples, we went around the gopuram ( tower) – the granite foundation has inscriptions all over, covered in dust, filth, dirt, name it.
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As we cleaned it, we had a trained epigraphist who read out the old tamil…the inscriptions were those of Rajendra Chola ruled 1014 AD ( the son of Raja Raja Chola who built the great temple in tanjore and who himself built the temple in Gangaikonda cholapuram)
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Some more and we fond inscriptions of Danti Varma Pallava ( 830 AD approx)
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But due to the sterling efforts of REACH foundation and a generous donation from this noble soul, ( who sold his land to fund the initial renovation ) work has started to restore this great temple to its former glory. We seek the support of like minded souls to contribute generously.
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http://www.conserveheritage.org/

A little known bas relief from Saluvankuppam

When we talked of the tiger caves in saluvankuppam, had mentioned that there are two more beauties in that cluster. They are the amazing bas relief sculpture of mahishasuramardhini and the Atiranachanda mandabam ( rock cut cave of Rajasimha having his lovely inscription) – we will visit the bas relief first.
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Even seasoned visitors to Mahabalipuram would mostly miss the attractions of saluvankuppam. Even those that do venture, would miss this seemingly innocuous looking stone. Just in front of the rock cut madabam is this piece of living rock.
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You got to go around to see the handiwork of the pallava sculpture, who has transformed this insignificant piece of rock outcrop into a work of art. These pictures would give you an idea to its location and ensure you don’t miss this pint size masterpiece on future visits.
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The large mahisha panel in mallai serves as a nice comparison for us to view this piece. Lets look at the main characters side by side in order to infer more. In the mallai panel the devi is in all her glory on her lion vehicle engaged in battle with her 8 hands.
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The demon too is standing up and giving fight with his massive mace. Whereas in the saluvankuppam panel – he is down on his knees, the devi too is in the process of dismounting from her vehicle, with one leg gracefully off the saddle. The demon looks wasted, with nostrils flayed and hands raised in a kind of let me go pose.
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Thus this is the sequel to the mallai panel.

Art inspired by Sculpture

Hope you have all seen the posts on the amazing pillars of Srirangam.

Recently two new friends of mine, not related in any manner, from different corners of the globe – have amazingly sketched the same pillars.

That’s the universal appeal of sculpture, that it touches similar chords among disconnected individuals, hits a soft spot, a past memory, a vestigial umbilical chord that revitalizes a sleeping nerve and suddenly opens your eyes,fills a deeply vacant spot inside you, a longing is fulfilled, leaving you with a sense of pure joy. That my friends, is the essence of art.

Check out these sketches.

Mr Raghavendra Prasad’s
http://raga-artblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/srirangam.html
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Mr. Shriram Rajaram’s
http://album-photo.geo.fr/ap/album/6945/?pos=1&order=InsertDate
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I wish both my young friends a great future in art, and hope they come up with many more such masterpieces.

Divinely inspired

Sculpture is divinely inspired. How better to explain these two sculptures in the Arjuna ratha ( one of the five rathas in the Mahabalipuram cluster).
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Look at how an elephant rider ( is it Indra the lord of the devas or it is Muruga) – but to just see the skill of artist to have been able to conceptualize this composition, an elephant rider in front profile and to execute it to such perfection, is incredible. Such is the wisdom the ancients that they could bring such finesse into their art.
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The ladies standing next to them, simply blow you away. How else to describe, that classical lines, divine proportions, that slightly angled profile, bent waist, flexed knee, hand gently caressing her locks, the other one enchantingly resting on her waist, the youthful exuberance of her face and lastly the sensuous smile. Is this a figment of the sculptors imagination or did the divine apsaras themselves come down to earth to witness this spectacle and stopped to strike a pose for this sculptor.
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( the last image is from varalaaru.com. Would request serious tamil enthusiasts to please visit their site. its an open university on sculpture)

Ravana Humbled yet again – by who?

Thiruvizhaloor temple miniature sculptures are a treat to watch. We saw in earlier posts how Ravana the King of Lanka is humbled by Shiva. Well this is a continuation of the learning process..
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Lets see the pictures first. Just to give you an idea of the scale/size of these excellent miniatures ( there are tons more to come – from darasuram, etc etc) see the Narasimha sculpture and the ball pen in front.
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Now we see a very special one – lets analyse the characters in the frame…a Shiva Linga, a monkey praying with folded hands and then a man on his knees – looks bound by some rope…lots of hands and multiple heads. Hey, this is our old friend Ravana, oK – now the story is clear.

Vaali is one of the most powerful men in the universe – its is said that along with his immense personal power, whoever confronts him in a head on battle, he would get one half of their strength as well due to a boon. Hence he was killed from the back – but that becomes a subject for a different post..

Lets come back to this one – Vaali and Ravana are both devot Shiva worshipers – maybe Vaali a bit more than Ravana – every morning he would go to the four sides of the world to offer his prayers and he would be so immersed in his prayers that he would not even think of anything else.

One fine morning, our friend Ravana is on one of his flying chariots roaming around, when he sees a curious site. A monkey offering prayers to a Shiva linga…he is amused, so he gets down quitely and walks up to the monkey, intending to pick it up by its tail and fling it. Just as he catches the tail, its grows and binds him – all the while Vaali is even unaware of this.. he finishes his prayers for that direction and then jumps to the other corner of the world – tagging our hapless ravana around, till he finishes all four sides.

Then as he resumes his normal senses, he realises that someone is wimpering behind him – and finds ravana – he immdly frees him and tenders his apology. While Ravana comes to know of the greatness of Vaali and asks his forgiveness and they become great friends.

The beauty of the sculptor is that he did not depict ravana and vaali facing each other – meaning, even without aid of boon, vaali as stronger than ravana or rather his tail was stronger than ravana.

Poor guys both of them found their ends in the hands oops arrows of Rama.

thanks ( check out many more such images)
http://www.kumbakonam.info/kumbakonam/tiviyalur/info/phogal.htm

When the buying stops the killing will stop as well

We read often in newspapers about idol theft, but nothing prepared me for this.
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Kbal Spean is a an amazing treasure trove of Hindu Art deep into the jungles of Cambodia. We see an entire river bed carved into a thousand stone lingas ( will feature in a separate post). across the small water fall we see a lovely bas relief of Vishnu in his characteristic sleeping pose, with Brahma the creator emerging from his naval via a lotus flower, Lakshmi his consort by his feet…three shrines are depicted to the right and a separate depiction of Brahma to the left…
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Now come the looters – art thieves -who first took away the face of Lakshmi. The local papers published these pictures….but guess no action taken, at least on the positive side when the looters struck again. This time taking away the face of Vishnu.
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What a sad sight. Anyway some good soul has restored the monument through in a crude manner.. the loss is indeed too great to even comprehend. Guess until the buying stops the killing wont stop for these as well.951

Pra(e)ying Cat

We say the main actors in the mallai penance panel. Now for a couple of light hearted posts.
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Towards the bottom of the panel, just in front of the majestic tusker, we see a very curious scene being enacted.
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You saw earlier the boon seeker ( arjuna / bagiratha) engaged in severe penance – standing up on one leg. Now you see a cat mimicking this and to add to the humor there are a couple of mice who seem to be in the act of worshiping the praying cat. What would be act 2 of this scene once the cat breaks his fast …breakfast.
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Maybe we could still draw some lessons from this story

If pride goes before the Fall – this is the lowest it can fall

We saw the Cambodian version of the humbling of Ravana by Shiva when he tried to uproot Mount Kailash in an earlier post. This is another interesting depiction from Ellora.
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This verse has been sung often in Shivite saint Appar’s works, but those have been discussed in depth in the tamil version of this post. However, crux of the story is Ravana is stuck and humbled. To what extent. Have a look at the sculpture.
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You can see the massive twenty armed, ten headed asura stretched underneath the mount, on top the sublime divine calmness in the faces ( though heavily damaged) of Shiva and Parvati are still evident.
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If you notice carefully, Shiva Bootha Gana – demon assistants are making fun of ravana. As you face the image to the left, you can see a Gana making obscene gestures by bending down and showing his back to ravana, while the other one has taken a stick and is hitting his knuckles. On to the right the little gana pulls out his tongue and is making faces at him. What an insult to the King of Lanka.
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To get to truly appreciate the composition i kept this picture ( of a friend) to the last – now you get a fair idea of the size and scale of this sculpture.
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Btw, how did Ravana get out of this predicament, and how he was humbled many more times we will see in coming posts, along with some more beautiful depictions of the above story in various places.

The Majestic Elephants of Mallai

A full grown tusker marching majestically is a sight that will always inspire you. No doubt it inspired the Pallava artist as well. But then the greatness in him that he breathed life into the hardest of stone and left us this superlative herd of elephants. They have been exposed to the elements for a 1000 years ( ok 1300 years), yet they still retain their essence inside this maze of characters in the great penance panel.
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Inorder to truly appreciate this, we need a series of pictures. How much the pallava artist observed the elephant, to not just depict it in stone – meaning like a fixed sculpture, but to show it with grace, elegance, the majestic walk, the slight twist of the trunk, the fullness of the tusk, the delicate flap of the ear….the bump of the forehead.
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Well, a friend did me a favor by framing these goats, to give new viewers an idea of space and dimension of the panel.
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Compare this with a live elephant picture may assist in appreciating his craft more
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Throw in the cute babies of the family happily sporting under the protective masses of their parents…not a full body, just a profile, a head here, a small cute trunk there. enough to bring you cheer. Its fills your heart with joy, love. truly a moving composition, a timeless beauty.
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A testing Penance – opps a test penance Panel

The Mahabalipuram penance panel which we saw in the last post is the largest open air bas relief sculpture. Just prior to embarking on such a massive sculpt, the sculptors seem to have tested the concept nearby…the little known test panel – but does it give any clues to the mystery of whether the Penace panel depicts – Arjuna’s penance ( to get the pasupatha astra from shiva) or Bagiratha’s penance to bring the ganges down to resurrect his ancestors!!

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Lets analyse the test panel – the depiction of the lighthouse will give you a rough idea on its location. Similar to the Main penance panel, the artist chose a cleft in a boulder to depict his theme – but here the two boulders are split into two.

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Why we call it  a test panel is the story is carved in low relief.

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The majestic elephants have not yet been obviously brought into the theme, though a few heads do appear.
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The flying celestials are all these, but seem to be moving away form the boon giving area towards the descending ganges – to witness this great spectacle. So its a definite give away as to the main story of the test panel – thankfully the boon giver and seeker are much farther away from the cleft ( infact their positions are transposed – left to right)

The most important clue is the absence of the weapon in Shiva’s hands!

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So if this were to be seen in isolation, its a pure story of the descending ganges and thus bagiratha’s penance. This story has been delightfully mixed with Arjuna’s penance in the main panel to come up with a puzzling combo…or is it just two in one or is there another twist to the plot….is it three in one..!!777806