Pallava

Muruga or Skanda or Karthikeya or Subramaniya, who is known in various names, is said be a war god and the youngest son of Lord Shiva in the Hindu pantheon. Though, we find numerous historical references & poetic notations of him in the Sangam literatures, the first iconographical evidence in the Dravidian art, come from our World Heritage site “Mahabalipuram”. Murugan sculpture has undergone wide changes over the past thousands of years in Dravidian Art. The earliest known Murugan at Mahabalipuram is seen with different iconographical attributes, which is known as “Brahmasasta”. This article would bring out some interesting discovery and occurrences of this earliest form of Murugan sculptures in and around Chennai and also its special iconographical aspects.

Thiruvottiyur temple also famously known as Thyagarajar -­‐ Vadivudai Amman Temple is situated on the Northern part of Chennai, quite close to the sea shore (Bay of Bengal). The temple is a vast historical and archaeological trove and attracts not only devotees, but also scholars and researchers from all over the country. The Main deity of this temple is Aadhipureeswarar, is said to be suyambu (mud mound) in form, like a protective layer is covering him and he is not allowed to be touched by both mortals and immortals. His consort Vadivudai Amman alias Tripurasundari is a widely revered deity among the locals.
This temple has accumulated its religious richness of over several centuries and enriched by the architectural styles of various dynasties. Numerous saints and Saivite devotees are closely associated with this temple, such as Gnanasambandar, Appar, Sundarar, Adi shankarar, Pattinathar and many more. The earliest evidence of this temple appears in the Tevaram hymns sung by Gnanasambandar and Appar during the Pallava period and also we find few epigraphical records commemorating the same. At present Pallava Structures are completely missing, only few lion pillars are found inside the temple premises.
This temple has been under the patronage and extended chronologically over a vast period of time by the South Indian rulers. Recent discovery of the Parantaka Chola inscription proves the continuation from Pallava to Chola. The present temple is a complete contribution of Cholas, Vijayanagara and Nayaka rulers. We also find interesting ancient sculptures and architectural features which are still alive, inside the temple.

Published : International Journal of Law and Social Sciences (March 2016)

This is the first of three parts of a study of the particular interest shown by Sri Lankan Esoteric Buddhists, including the 8th century royalty, in Buddhist relics, especially those stupas enclosed in a pillared rotunda ('vatadage').  I note that these interests convene with a vein of 8th century Esoteric Buddhist textual material which also appreciates relic- and stupa- worship, and propose that the Sri Lankan vatadages may have served Sri Lankan Esoteric Buddhists in a legitimating role parallel to that of the 'Iron Stupa' legend employed by Esoteric Buddhists in contemporary East Asia.

The essay offers a lengthy examination of the Esoteric Buddhist activities and proclivities of King Manavarman (r. 684-718) and his descendants, and their very close relationship to the monastic ministers and advisers in the Abhayagirivihara.

The Pallava dynasty was an Indian dynasty that existed from 275 CE to 897 CE, ruling a portion of southern India. They gained prominence after the eclipse of the Satavahana dynasty, in which the Pallavas served as feudatories. Pallavas became a major power during the reign of Mahendravarman I (571 – 630 CE) and Narasimhavarman I (630 – 668 CE) and dominated the Telugu and northern parts of the Tamil region for about 600 years until the end of the 9th century. Pallavas are well known for their architectural patronage and for the introduction of the new Dravidian style of Indian architecture, with the finest example being the Shore Temple in Mahabalipuram, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Pallavas were the ones who had laid the foundations of medieval South Indian architecture by constructing impressive temples and sculptures.

The present paper gives a glimpse into the various inscriptions and sculptures which throws light on the status of the two major heterodox sects of India viz., Jainism and Buddhism in Pallava period (circa 295 C.E. - 913 C.E.), whose territory spread variously in the modern states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. From their inscriptions it can be adjudged that the rulers of this dynasty also patronized these two religious beliefs, though with some disruptions and distractions in between.

The Early Pāṇḍyas and the Pallavas were contemporaries, dated c. 550–850 ce. South Indian art of this period falls under the dynastic lineages of Western Cālukyas, Eastern Cālukyas, Pallavas, Early Pāṇḍyas and Rāṣṭrakūṭas. The iconographical idioms familiar in their arts are Siṃhavāhinī and Sapta Mātṛkās. Siṃhavāhinī to an extent was popularized by the Western Cālukyas, as shown in the rock-cut temples of Ellora. The Pallava structural temples of Kāñcīpuram include a number of images. An analogous iconographic theme is Kalaiamarcelvi/ Mṛgavāhinī. Sapta Mātṛkās was a theme popularized by the Guptas. As far as our present knowledge goes, the geographical range of Siṃhavāhinī extends southwards as far as Kāñcīpuram, and the Mātṛkās go further southward, as far as Paraṅkuṉṟam. However, as a breakthrough we discovered images of Siṃhavāhinī and the Mātṛkās in a small hamlet at Vēppaṅkuḷam in the Śrīvilliputtūr circle, Tamilnāḍu. Kalaiamarcelvi had so far come to light only in northern Tamilnāḍu. The discovery of Siṃhavāhinī and the Mātṛkās in the far south is crucial because it expands the map of these divinities from Udayagiri in the north to Śrīvilliputtūr in the far south. Another important discovery is that the Siṃhavāhinī of the present study combines features typical of the Deccan (e.g. the lion vehicle) and the far south (e.g. standing on the head of a buffalo). Such images are found rarely in the north, and seem to be rooted in Tamil cultural traditions.

The present article brings to light two unnoticed later Pallava images and architectural fragments from the Toṇṭīśvaram or Rājādittīśvaram at Nāvalūr. This region, called Naṭunāṭu, does not fig-ure prominently in the archaeological map of the Pallavas. A number of sthalas are notified in the Tamil bhakti hymns. Few of these sthalas retain vestiges of Pallava art. The question is: why such temples are not brought under Pallava art? It involves a methodological approach to Pallava studies. The later Pallava images reported are Kalaiamarcelvi/Mṛgavāhinī, a new entrant in the field of early medieval iconography and sthānaka-Viṣṇu that includes new idioms for examina-tion. Other fragments are an inscribed slab and pillars.

This research analyses the images from Mogao and Yulin caves, which have been traditionally ascribed to Tibetan influence and believed to represent the early Tibetan style. Contrary to this common opinion, the author shows that these images are in fact influenced by Southern Indian art and in particular by the art of the Pallava kingdom in Tamil Nadu and closely affiliated with teachings introduced to China by Vajrabodhi (金刚智, 671-741), a renowned Buddhist master from the Pallava Kingdom, in the first half of the 8th century and specifically propagated in Hexi by Amoghavajra (不空 Bukong, 705-774) in the mid 8th century. He argues that these images belong to a distinctive artistic tradition, which was established by Vajrabodhi who was also known in China as a great painter. The presence of these images in artwork from the Tibetan period merely signifies the continuation of the artistic and religious trends that existed in Hexi before the Tibetan conquest. Furthermore, the article argues that the Tibetan conquest of the Hexi corridor enabled the Tibetan appropriation of Chinese religious and artistic trends, which were popular in the region. This conclusion well supports Christopher Beckwith's theory according to which the Tibetan adoption of Buddhism as a state religion was inspired by the Chinese model of state-protective Buddhism established by Amoghavajra.

The present paper is mainly concerned in pinpointing certain socio-religious, cultural and political aspects that can be discernible in the Govardhanadhari panel in the Krishna mandapa. The scope and theme of this panel is limited as it depicts an event.  Yet it seems that the artist or the patron through this panel wants to bring to life the contemporary village life in this panel and seems to convey some meaning to the viewer.

In the process of my search for an image of an architect among the hundreds of sculptures in Mamallapuram which I visited so many times I found one, finally, on the prominently sculpted panel, Arjuna’s penance, a massive open-air sculpture on the faces of two great masses of rock. It has the image of the chief architect of Mahabalipuram.

This volume—the outcome of a workshop-cum-conference that took place from 1st to 12th August 2011 in the Pondicherry Centre of the École française d’Extrême-Orient,—is an invitation to practise the “archaeology of Bhakti” with the help of both textual and non-textual sources.
Bhakti, broadly defined as an attitude, a strategy or a style of devotion—one that may be intellectual, emotional or rooted in acts of worship—towards God or the Divine, manifests itself through the personal voices of devotees as well as through the collective effort that constitutes the building of a temple. The “archaeology of Bhakti” aims at correlating different realms of representation, such as texts and images, in order to illuminate the elusive, pan-Indian phenomenon of Bhakti. The focus is on sources, agencies and layers. A special attention is given to inscriptions, which belong both to the realm of artefacts and to that of texts, and which help to distinguish royal demonstrations of Bhakti from local manifestations. In the realm of textual sources, “archaeology” is put to work to identify how literary conventions and concepts have formed and been incorporated, layer upon layer, into a given composition.
After an introduction by the editors about the complexities of the concept and practices of Bhakti in the Indian world, essays by nine scholars explore the phenomena of Bhakti and their chronology from different perspectives (textual, epigraphical, archaeological, iconographical). In the course of these explorations, the reader is transported from the North to the South of the subcontinent, back and forth between Mathurā and Maturai.

Aṟavaṇa-aṭikaḷ and Bodhi-dharma are Buddhist monks of Kāñcīpuram that are supposed to have flourished in the city by about the 4th-5th century CE. Bodhidharma’s career is chequered who a prince of the Pallava family is said to have migrated to China and considered the founder of Ch’an and Zen Mahāyāna-Buddhism. Both are legendary figures (for Bodhidharma see Faure 1986) as they appear prominently literatures of the Tamils, the Chinese and the Japanese. Portraiture of Bodhidharma is abundant in the arts of China and Japan (Chapin 1945-46, Lachman 1993, Faure 2011). It is a matter for speculation whether we obtain any portraiture of Aṟavaṇa-aṭikaḷ in the art of Tamilnadu. The present author (Rajarajan 2015: chap. V, pls. 136-139) has reported few images of Aṟavaṇa-aṭikaḷ from the Great Stūpa of Borobudūr in central Jāva, Indonesia.
The aim of the present study is to examine the parallels in the personalities of Aṟavaṇa-aṭikaḷ (Tamil literature, particularly the ‘Twin Epics’) and Bodhidharma (Chinese and Japanese portraiture obtained through the Internet and secondary sources). Aṟavaṇa-aṭikaḷ appears in the Cilappatikāram and Maṇimēkalai. He was an advisor of Mātavi, Maṇimēkalai and Cutamati. He was chiefly instrumental in Maṇimēkalai undertaking an aerial adventure to Cavakam/Jāva. Here the question is did Aṟavaṇa-aṭikaḷ and Maṇimēkalai undertake a voyage to Jāva by the oceanic route? In those times it may not have taken more than a week to reach Jāva from Māmallapuram or Nākapaṭṭiṉam. Did Maṇimēkalai return to Vañci from Jāva and Aṟavaṇa-aṭikaḷ proceed to China? Is there any evidence to prove Aṟavaṇa-atikaḷ and Bodhidharma are the same personalities? These are hazy historical speculations that could not be answered in the absence of any written document. Anyhow, the questions are relevant in studies pertaining to Bodhidharma.
The second part of the article examines the personalities of Aṟavaṇa-aṭikaḷ and Bodhidharma from the evidences available in Boroburdūr, China and Japan. What was the make-up of a monk in Indian art and its reflection in Chinese or Japanese art? Iconographically do the Indian types agree with the Chinese or the Japanese? The faces in Chinese and Japanese art are broad with tiny eyes hidden in the face and blunt noses as they belong to the Mongolian breed. Faces in Indian art or as for the matter Indonesian are with broad eyes and with prominent noses. Early portraiture of Bodhidharma (Chaplin 1945-46) appears in Chinese a millennium later that he migrated from India to China. By this time the original face was forgotten and Bodhidharma is likely to have been fitted with Chinese-Mongolian face. I have taken few sculptural evidences of monks from India, Indonesia and compare these with the facial make-up of Bodhidharma. I may be wrong. In the absence of any imagery of either Aṟavaṇa-aṭikaḷ or Bodhidharma datable to the 5th-6th century CE the generalizations on Bodhidharma studies could only be hypothetical.

This volume is the fruit of the second workshop-cum-conference on the “Archaeology of Bhakti”, which took place from 31st July to 13th August 2013 in the Pondicherry Centre of the École française d’Extrême-Orient. “Royal Bhakti, Local Bhakti” was the topic of this scholarly encounter and is the central theme of the present volume, which attempts to clarify the roles of kings, local elites and devotional communities in the development of Bhakti.
When we look at the monuments that are the material traces of Bhakti, we expect kings and their immediate relatives to have played a key role in producing them. But temples commissioned by ruling kings are in fact relatively rare: most sacred sites resonate with the voices of many different patrons responsible for commissioning the buildings or supporting the worship conducted there. Queens, princes, palace women, courtiers, local elites, Brahmin assemblies, merchant communities, and local individuals all contributed to the dynamism of Bhakti.
Far from downplaying the importance of kings as patrons, this volume explores the interactions between these different agents. Do they represent independent and separate streams of Bhakti? Or is there a continuum from large-scale royal temples to locally designed ones? What is the royal share in the development of a Bhakti deeply rooted in a specific place? And what is the local one? How did each respond to the other? Was the patronage by members of royal courts, especially women, of the same nature as that of ruling kings?
After an introduction by the editors, fifteen scholars address such issues by examining the textual foundations of Bhakti, the use of Bhakti by royal figures, the roles of artists and performers, the mediation of queens between the royal and local spheres, and the power of sacred places. The volume concludes with an afterword by Richard H. Davis.

Mots clés : Mahabalipuram, Mamallapuram, Pallavas, Inde, grottes, caves, mandapa, ratha, temples, Temple du Rivage, Shore Temple, Durga, Lakshmi, Vishnou, Varaha, Saluvankuppam, Grotte du Tigre, Shiva, Mahisha, Seven Pagodas, tsunami, cité engloutie.

Résumé :  Cet étude a pour objectif de fournir une datation précise et complète de toutes les structures considérées comme d’origine Pallava sur les sites de Mahabalipuram et de Saluvankuppam. L’auteur a également cherché à  éclaircir les deux grands mystères qui entourent Mahabalipuram : celui des « Seven Pagodas » et celui des temples engloutis à 600m du rivage et signalés par des pêcheurs.
Cette étude révèle aussi les secrets du Temple du Rivage avec son mystérieux Vishnou couché, ceux de la Grotte du Tigre et elle met fin au mythe du soi-disant « port Pallava » de Mahabalipuram en indiquant, précisément, où se situait ce port et même quand et pourquoi il a été construit.
Tous ceux qui s’intéressent aux relations entre les Pallavas et les royaumes de l’Insulinde, dès les premiers siècles de notre ère trouveront ici des révélations exclusives qui bouleversent les connaissances actuelles, avec des informations clés sur les routes maritimes de l’extrême orient et sur la mystérieuse ville de Palembang, à l’aube de Srivijaya.

Abstracks: This study is consecrated to the temples of deux ancient Pallava cities: Mahabalipuram or Mamallapuram and Saluvankuppam, about 50km to the south of Chennai on the Coromandel coast. The study of datations of these temples brings many revelations that shed light on the story of the Javanese history of the first millenium and even before, including the precise building dates of more than 50 Pallava structures.
You are looking for exclusive information’s about the secret of the Shore Temple, the Tiger Cave, the temples revealed by the tsunami of Decembre 2004 and the temples hidden under the sand or in the water at 600m of the shore, or you want to know the truth about the mythical harbour of the Pallava, where it was, when it was built, which kind of boats arrived here.
Or maybe, you want to know unique information’s concerning the relations between the Pallavas and Palembang at the South of the Sumatra Island in the first centuries EC. All that and much more are here, in these 80 explosive pages.

This is the first article I made about the javanese temples (candi). A new study and new datations of these mysterious constructions.
In this vol. 1, I speak about the western javanese temples I had visited. At Batujaya, Cibuaya and also candi Cangkuang, near Bandung.
It seems that the Batujaya and Cibuaya temple sites are the oldest in Java. The first brahmins arrived from India so, I take the timeless to reveal some exclusive informations about India, about the Pallava and also about Palembang and Srivijaya.

Engraved in no less than four places at Mahābalipuram, a Śaiva curse shows that sectarian rivalries between Vaiṣṇavas and Śaivas animated this royal centre in the 7th century. After presenting a sketch of the “religious policy” of the Pallavas from the 4th to 9th century, the author puts this curse in context. He argues that in the middle of the 7th century, the Pallava kings shifted from being religiously open-minded to being oriented towards Śaivism.
He further speculates that, in one of its appearances, the curse responded directly to an act of vandalism by Vaiṣṇavas: the desecration—generally dated to a much later period—of the Rāmānujamaṇḍapa.

This book is an in-depth study of the royal ideology of the Pallava dynasty (South India, 4th-9th c. CE). These Hindu kings have left numerous and diverse sources evincing their conception of the world and the society, and particularly their self-representation of kingship. Through the examination of epigraphical and iconographical panegyrics as well as of coinage and Tamil court poetry (Nantikkalampakam), the argument is that, beside the brahmanical model of subordination of king to brahmin, there existed a specific royal discourse, at times contentious. The crucial point of divergence is the Pallavas' claim to the double status of kings and brahmins. In this respect, kingship asserts its independence vis-à-vis the brahmanical class by incorporating it in its lineage, thus achieving the union of "temporal" and "spiritual" powers. The first volume contains the introduction and the presentation of the sources. The first part is a general presentation of Hindu kingship and the Pallava dynasty (origin, history, art). The second part presents the sources considered as testimonies of the royal discourse, contrasting them with other Pallava-period sources of "local" nature. It concludes with considerations about the royal panegyric and the nature of royal sources (issuers, functions, addressees).

The main aim of this research article is to know about the various occupations people of the Pallava period professed as known through the sculptural art of Pallava period. Feasible data from epigraphical and literary sources are also taken into consideration for better interpretation of the sculptural art. The study revealed about the existence of various occupations such as rulers, royal courtiers, royal servants like door-guards, fly-whisk bearers, umbrella-bearers, military personnel, royal musicians and dancers, priests, temple servants, dancing girls, sages, martial artists, wrestlers, musicians, dancers, theatre artists, cowherds, hunters, wood-cutters, etc.

In their epigraphical genealogies the Pallavas of South India (fourth to ninth centuries ce) claim to belong to a brahmin lineage that gradually embraced the duty of kings. As such, these genealogies present a definition of kingship that differs from its Brahmanical conceptualization. I show how the Pallavas accounted in their 'mythical genealogies' for their royal occupation through a transformation in two steps: from pure brahmins to brahmin-warriors, and from brahmin-warriors to kings. I explain how the birth of the eponymous hero Pallava, from Aśvatthāman and a mother who has a strong link with royalty, marks the shift towards kingship. I describe how this royal status of the dynasty is confirmed by the integration of royal figures from other dynasties into the 'pseudo-historical genealogies' that link the eponym to the historical kings. I then explore the mythical patrimony of the Pallavas, discussing how we might understand in a broader context the ideological purport of this royal claim to both brahmin and kṣatriya descent.

In Tondaimandalam region, sculptural art has witnessed a tremendous growth in Pallava period (circa 610 C.E. - 913 C.E.) involving innovative ideas, reflective of the then socio-cultural, religious and economic factors. Study on Pallava sculptures fascinated art connoisseurs and historians since the last few decades of the 18th century C.E., when for the first time William Chambers has made an attempt to describe the monuments of Mamallapuram. However, most of the works dealt with iconographical and architectural features, giving very little importance to the cultural factors hidden in the sculptures. Among the various objects depicted in the sculptural art which reflects the material culture of those times, the study of thrones, which symbolizes status, dignity and identification of the person occupying it, forms an interesting subject. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the various types of thrones depicted in the sculptural art of Pallava period, which might have been actually in usage in those times. The present study helped in identifying ten types of thrones, on the basis of its shape, dimension and other aesthetic features. As foot-rest is also part of a throne, it is also studied.