Author Archives: Vijay

The three headed Elephant, Airavatham

The proverbial white elephant is an actual reality in Indian literature. This noble creature is the vehicle of the King of the Devas ( celestials)…Indra …. a la Zeus with his Thunderbolt. Not only is he white but has 33 heads.

Here is a depiction from a mural painting …

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Though there are other white elephants.. the Airawatam ( Erawan in thai/cambodian culture )is said to be the most powerful of all. Described as a huge elephant with silvery white body of 33 heads, each head has 7long ivory tusks. Each of his tusk is 16 million meters long, so huge that it can house 7 large lotus ponds, within each tusk also live thousands of angels and their servants.

This massive modern sculpture greets visitors at the entrance of the Erwan Museum in Thailand.

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Without doubt its almost impossible depict this creature in stone…and hence quite rare to see the full version of Erawan elephant with 33 heads, instead, many artists prefer to draw Erawan as a 3 headed elephant instead.

The Irrawaddy River in thailand is also named after Erawan …

We find the workship of indra and airavatam among the temples of ankor,
prasat preau, siam reap …

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In india some wonderful depictions exist…. in a cave at Bhaja not far from Mumbai that was the site of a Buddhist monastery – there is a stone relief carving showing Indra, king of the gods.

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He is seated upon Airavata with his thunderbolt in hand …in somnathpur.

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In The famous chola murals of tanjore big temple…there is airavatham…oh thats the subject of an entire new post….

Whats amazing is that the indian sculptor restricted to just one head while his cambodian couterpart depicts him with three heads.

How can this be a work of man ?

Painting and sculpture are divine arts. When both of them combine their confluence creates splendor. Rabindranath Tagore on seeing the sculptures of the Konark temple had said ” Here the language of stone surpasses the language of man”.

525 Not sure if he had seen this sculptor /art combo… from Ellora Those mesmerising eyes sorry an eye, maybe they felt two eyes would have killed you. Through centuries, nature has taken its toll but what little is left is enough to enthrall you…looking deep into you, churning your insides. How can this be a work of man..?

Please don’t go my dearest, says Shiva!

Looks like even Gods have domestic quarrels….spotted this superb composition in a temple renovation group recently 633 http://picasaweb.google.com/reach.foundation.india/BairaveswaraTempleSholapuram/photo#5151797745278369842 This form is called Shiva Gangadhara….when the divine ganges is ordered to flow to the earth ( Bagiratha’s penance…Oh thats another thread by itself) she is filled with anger…her ego…she is filled with rage that she has to leave her divine abode and gushes with all her might to wash away the earth……well she didnt contend with the power of shiva….he handles or rather humbles her… you can see shiva holding up just two strands of his hair…for her to descend into….caught in his locks…breaking her fall and then he lets her fall gently to the ground…. 635 This interesting episode forms the plot of Pallava Mahendra’s amazing cave in trichy rock fort ….he called it lalithangura pallava griham…thats another post as well. 629 Ok but how does our sculptor see this episode…the divine river is a ravishing beauty…and she has taken temporary refuge in the Lord’s locks….this causes his consort Parvathi to take offense…afterall its competition and she begings to walk away…and then our poor man is trying to cajole and console her to stay… see the mastery in stone here in solapuram and also in gangai konda cholapuram GKC images tks to http://www.kumbakonam.info/kumbakonam/gkchopu/images/vimsta/viar16.jpg

Spontaneous Joy, Divine Bliss

There are many different dance poses and forms of shiva and predominantly people associate his dance with destruction. Its very wrong for his dance is the dance of creation. I present to you this truly amazing confluence of man’ art and divine grace…a dancing shiva from Ellora

Amidst all the destruction around it, you can still see the amazing poise, grace …of an exuberance of life, of spontaneous joy…divine bliss. This is the essence of this sculpture…where the pinnacle of human art is towering, almost reaching the borders of divine creation. The sculptor couldn’t maybe infuse live into the creation, but we can surely say that he stopped just short of that…..truly beauty beyond compare ….

Ravana Shakes Mount Kailash

Ravana is well known as the villain of the epic Ramayana …his depiction as the demon king of Lanka who abducts Rama’s wife is well known….however this is an interesting episode which is a prequel to the events of the Ramayana…Ravana as the great shiva devotee and excellent Veena player….. Ravana is humbled four times…once by Vaali, then by KaarthaVeera Arjuna ( not the Arjuna from Mahabharat), then by Rama….and prior to all that by Shiva. This sculpture is called Ravana anugrahamurthy – was sung to great glory by the Saint Appar and finds depiction in many places. But this interesting work is from Cambodia… you can see ravana in all his glory…ten heads, twenty hands 645651653 As Ravana was passing around in his flying chariot..he comes across the abode of shiva and the chariot refuses to go over the mount out of respect for shiva. Ravana is furious and drunk on his ego tries to uproot the entire mountain and hurl it out of his path….as he does so…the lions and other animals run helter skelter….Parvati is scared and leaps on to the lap of shiva…you can see Ganesha in one of the rows along with other ganas ( assistants of shiva) 659655657649 when shiva calmly presses down the mountain with his big toe….and ravana is trapped…what happened next…well thats the plot for a new post by itself… So we see how an interesting lesson in being humble was taught to Ravana …and the greatness of the cambodian sculptor who brought this into stone in such a lively manner

Tiger Caves

Lot of locals miss an important site just off mahabalipuram…so spare the tourist…..its another great treat left behind by the illustrious Rajasimha Pallava…its just about a km before you enter mallai town to your left….you can see the ASI board…yes there are still excavations going on……..

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seemingly simple…but deceptive..calmly nestled between gently swaying palm fronds and the beach sand….lulled by the sound of the waves….you are at saluvankuppam. There are 3 important sites for us to see here…We will visit all three in separate posts…

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The tiger caves is an impressive structure….from the back its a simple boulder..live rock…but that was not how the pallava sculptor visualised it…..walk around and you are stuck for words…a lovely grandstand…capped by 11 massive yaazhi’s ( yes the tiger or more closely lion is also a misnomer..if you watch carefully you will see the delightfully carved horns of these magnificent beasts)….

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To truely appreciate this you got to get an idea of the gross dimensions…ok, time for me to peep in…now the ugly looking person is me…all 100 kgs….now does that give you an indication of the massiveness of this entire composition…

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The stage is slightly offcentre as you see two mounted elephants to one side…in straight profile. the stage iself is capped by a set of prancing lions … a rajasimha trade mark

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the identity of the riders is a not known as nature has taken its toll…you can vaguely make out just the outlines….yes we did manage to climb upto to the elephants and take a couple of shots of the rider housed inside the howdah…quite dangerous as there are no proper footholds….

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ok, you are hiking up a 1300 year old pallava sculpture….where else in the world can you touch and feel such a artifact..the danger is multiplied by the fact that the audience section of the stage is set into the floor like a pond and collects rain water….so you are risking a bath in a muddled pool as well.

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what a magnificent spectacle…such massive work on hard granite…and 1300 years of wind, sea …man…yet these have retained their beauty…magnificent proportions..a living tribute to the mastery of the sculptor..

What a Mace ! What a Mace ( Mangadapattu) !

What started off a small discussion became the seed for this post.. interestingly which should have been the first post…for what you see below is acclaimed by its creator to be the first ever such work in stone…. 706 Well most Indian mythological heroes are assigned some divine weapon….the bow, sword etc have their parallels across the globe, but one thing unique has been the mace…when i mean unique, not that other cultures did not have the mace, but then the depictions in ours were huge. They would give today’s Olympic weight lifting champions a complex….for their sheer size is mind boggling. Is this the imagination of later day artists…we explored and for the parallels in sculpture we go to where it all started…the mother of all caves….the foremost amoung sculptures of south India. Mahendra pallava …the self titled vichitra citha ( the many talented or weird talented)…he claims that he built a temple for the trinity without using brick, wood, metal or mortar…. 703 Just look at the door guardians….they seem to have that classic vivian richards swagger about them, almost mocking at us puny mortals…. 712 lugging aroung those monstrous maces….( watch closely you can see a cobra circling the mace) 709 One bash with that is sure to knock the living daylights out of you and send you cranium into a mars orbit… for the serious enthusiast, this beauty is the Mangadapattu cave – on the vilupuram sengi main road…about 20kms from vilupuram….take a side road ( mud road) from there…you can see boards ( thank god) and its a km down the road ( if you can call it that….)

The delicate coils of snake, in stone

We had earlier seen the dance of shiva in many forms and how the cobra is unsettled by the speed of his twirling dance…here you see a different pose… 719 Elephanta Nataraja…the snake has thrown in coils around shiva’s spear and is trying to cross over to his neck…what a wonderful depiction ….mimicking how a snake would swing from one branch to another…( you can see the Lord of creation …the four headed Brahma…just above the snake seated on a lotus pedestal) 722729 What graceful postures of shiva…despite all the ruins and amputation…the grace and calmness in his face is radiant…his many arms kind of portray his fast dance moves….his body twisted in the classic tribanga ….three flexions across the axis so masterly used by the sculptor… 727 sadly these amazing sculptures were not understood or seen in the right perspective and used for target practise by invading Portuguese… 725731

Reward for chopping off his Dad’s legs

Well i am sure you have heard of many weird stories about India and its legends. One of them is Parasurama who raised his hand against his mother…the other is little known but most worshipped chandesa….he occupies a very important place in shiva temples…and is the only credited with almost seperate shrine ( as you circambulate …he is to the main deities left….most of you would see people going and clapping in front of him) It all started with my delightful ( and knowledgeable) American friend Ms. kathie, sending me this picture from the tanjore big temple and asking what it depicted…was it krishna leela (krishna killed kamsa…) ..nope kamsa was torn into two halves…well we will see that too shortly in another post.. 739

Well the story goes like this… Chandesa was a young boy, initiated into shiva worship at a very young age… as a young boy he witnesses a cow herd hitting the cows left with him to fend….so he offers to tend to them…he loves them so much and takes care of them so well, that they produce more than double the normal quantity of produce….so that after giving to the owners ( cow owners buy cows in india and leave them with boys to take out to pasture and bring back for a monthly fee….its even now less than a dollar for a month…can’t image how much it was those days)…incidentally one such famous cowherd was kalidasa…. ok, we come back to subject what to do with the excess milk…the young boy went to the river bed, created an icon of shiva in sand and used the milk to anoint it. Some jealous person went and complained that the kid had gone nuts and that he was stealing milk or wasting it to chandesa’s father…the father decided to spy on the son the next day…deep in devotion when candesa was offering the milk to the lord, the father tried to stop him by beating him with a stick on his back…which had no effect on the boy who was immersed in his faith…the infuriated father kicked the pot of milk in disgust….and chandesa in his anger, took his shepherds staff and threw it at his dad…magically it turned into an ax and chopped of his father’s legs…..shiva appeared then and pleased with his devotion threw his own flower garland on his head and took him into his fold….

Just as i posted this, i got one of our viewers Mr. Srivatsan contributing with the entire panel. He was kind enough to allow me to publish his picture her as well ( which is one of our key visions for this site – to have lot of people contributing from their collections, so that we can collectively build and share a virtual database of images).

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The panel has to be read bottom up- you can see the cows tended by chandesa, and then chandesa has hit his father, who is on the ground, and then chandesa standing in front of shiva. Sadly the images are worn out.

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This scene is beautifully depicted in Rajendra Cholas Gangai Konda cholapuram….such aesthetic beauty…such obedience of chandesa, benevolence radiating in the face of shiva and such motherly affection in the face of parvathi…one of the very best and my fav sculptures….Chandesa anugraha murthy. 735

Just hair

Well after all those serious posts…time to take a break… In todays fast world, fashions keep changing by the minute. Women’s fashion and hair styles have spawned many an industry….a professor of mine would jokingly remark that todays indian women have very long hair that reaches to their SHOULDERS…( ok traditional indian women are known for their bewitchingly long dark raven black hair neatly plaited…reaching down atleast till their waists) 743 Gone are those days….yet captured for eternity in this pillar from a temple in thirumullaivoil….a dancer strikes a pose….flaunting her toe length hair….what grace. would styles like these go retro and we get to see such again…not sure if they will… with dresses not going below waistlines…its hard to imagine this….