Hindu iconography

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 dissertation aims to analyze the process of integration of Hindu deities inside the Central Asian and Chinese Buddhist Pantheon through the analysis of a particular divinity, Maheśvara, an epithet used in Buddhist sūtras for the Brahmanical god, Śiva. This deity was depicted on early Buddhist visual material from Yungang, Dunhuang, Khotan and Kizil sites; and was characterized by iconographic uniformity during the 5th-8th century A.D. This image seems to testify the influence of Hindu iconography on Central and East Asian Buddhist art. Moreover, the process of incorporation of the Hindu deity into the Buddhist pantheon results in the attribution of a new role of protector to Maheśvara. The choice of this deity was led by both its particular iconography, which allowed for easier detection amongst other foreign divinities, and by its frequency in depiction.

The ancient practice of astrology, the interpretation of the movement of the stars in the sky as reflecting divine powers and enabling prognostication of the future, had a deep and pervasive influence on early and medieval Islamic thought and culture. The history of astrology, which had been introduced into the Iranianised world of Central Asia through Graeco-Babylonian influence, goes back to ancient times. Moreover, with the spread of Buddhism into Central Asia, Iran and China, Indian nakṣatra (lunar asterism) astrology was introduced. Later Parthian (250 BC-224 AD) and Sasanian (224-651 AD) kings are recorded to have maintained a "chief of the star-gazers" (axtarmārānsālār) at court where a regnal horoscope would be drawn up for each king.

Additional material and appendices to the volume:

Sculptures in Bangladesh. An Inventory of Select Hindu, Buddhist and Jain Stone and Bronze Images in Museums and Collections of Bangladesh (up to the 13th Century).
Edited by Enamul Haque and Adalbert J. Gail.
With contributions by Gouriswar Bhattacharya, Adalbert J. Gail, Enamul Haque, Isabell Johne, Gerd J.R. Mevissen and Falk Reitz.
Dhaka: International Centre for Study of Bengal Art, 2008 (Studies in Bengal Art Series No. 8).

Dalla fine dell’Ottocento, le ricerche e gli studi dedicati alla possibile influenza della cultura dell’India su Dante Alighieri e la sua opera, sono state sporadiche e occasionali. Per il passato, fra pochi altri si distinguono i contributi degli indologi Angelo De Gubernatis e di Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy. Mentre molto ci sarebbe ancora fare, per quanto riguarda la ricerca storico artistica, sulle probabili fonti iconografiche centro asiatiche dell'immaginario di Dante, e specialmente di quello infernale, fra tutte le questioni ancora aperte, resta centrale quella della possibile, specifica influenza indiana sulla sua 'invenzione' del Purgatorio come montagna sacra.

A yakṣiṇī called Aśvamukhī in Sanskrit, Assamukhī in Pāli, is peculiarly represented as horse-headed in textual and material sources. While the tale featuring Aśvamukhī as the protagonist only survives in the form of a jātaka narrative, several art-historical records represent a horse-headed female figure, usually in the act of detaining a young brāhman. This iconographic formula appears in different time periods and in various historical and cultural environments, from Buddhist Sāñcī and Bhājā cave reliefs to Cāḷukya’s Aihoḷe and Hoysaḷa’s Belūr sculptures.
This yakṣiṇī has been given little scholarly attention in her own right. While Buddhist representations could be explained as allusions to the jātaka, how can the popularity of the theme in Hindu sites be interpreted? Do these reliefs illustrate the core of a tale, a mythologem shared by Buddhist and Hindu repertoires? Or do these horse-headed figures simply reflect a pre-Buddhist or non-Bud- dhist popular belief, rooted in the mostly pan-Indian world of the genii?
In the present paper, after first presenting the literary sources, I shall list and briefly describe the figurative evidence. An interpretative section follows, where I will discuss the possible background and meaning of the iconographic formula, reflecting on the significances of the half-equine and half- woman representation and speculating about the narrative dimensions in which the typical motif might have conceivably been immersed.

As the emblem of Pāśupata identity, representations of the deified teacher called Lakulīśa (the ‘Lord with a Club’) became a prominent feature of the expanding Śaiva religious landscape in early medieval northwest India. This study works to recover some of Lakulīśa’s historical contingency by reading his appearance in both text and image as a reflection of or response to particular concerns of the developing Śaiva religious community. The significance of Lakulīśa’s literary debut in the Nepalese recension of the early Skandapurāṇa is examined first. I then explore the visual representations of this figure by considering patterns in Lakulīśa’s iconography and the place of his images within sanctified spaces. Since temples were vital loci of interaction across a wide spectrum of social groups and religious communities, even ostensibly Śaiva centres would have accommodated a range of deities, religious practitioners, and devotional repertoires. Given the multivocality of these sanctified spaces, I propose that Lakulīśa images would have been subject to multiple ‘readings’ or interpretations. With his attributes signifying power, fertility, and protection, I suggest that Lakulīśa functioned not only as a potent sign of Pāśupata identity, but as a multivalent persona, facets of which would have resonated with a broader religious community.

This paper examines the changing dynamics of the iconographic representation of goddess Dakshina Kali in Bengal. She is one of the most popular and awe-inspiring deities who figure prominently in the cultural life of Bengal and eastern India. The Tantric hymns that describe her iconic representations show her as a fierce and destructive embodiment of the cosmic feminine. There is repeated stress on her uncanny visual attributes such as her fierce-looking appearance, her fanged mouth with a blood-stained lolling tongue, and served limbs and skulls that form her adornments. The goddess possesses a female body but the features that define her stance and posture, such as trampling the supine body of Shiva, evoke destruction. In the early years of her pre-history, she was a tribal and folk deity, who made her official debut in the celebrated text the Durgasaptashati (600 CE). A goddess named Kali in the early stages of her development was part of the group of female divinities worshipped by rural Bengalis. These village goddesses, Gramadevatas, were represented with amorphous and crude stone images smeared in vermilion and found in spots called Kali Tala or thans. In this form, she is part of the rural collective religious beliefs, where goddesses were propitiated by animal sacrifices. The paper discusses the evolution of Dakshina Kali's iconography and the changes that took place over a period of time.

The figure of Bhatuka Bhairava has been founded in Surat Thani, Southern of Thailand, now is in National Museum Bangkok. Subhadradis Diskul, M.C. claim that Chola art style plays the key role in this image. However, no one proves his assumption. My attempt in this article is to show what is the element of Chola art appears in this figure.

Depictions of dancing Śiva are common all over India. The area in the northeast of the Indian Subcontinent, however, produced a number of images of a distinct iconographic type that occur almost exclusively there and, occasionally, in a few adjacent regions: Śiva dancing on the back of his 'vehicle', the bull (vṛṣa or vṛṣabha). Several such images were already listed by Bhattasali in his important and still consulted Iconography of Buddhist and Brahmanical Sculptures in the Dacca Museum
(1929). Since then several more images came to light and a number of them have been included in new monographs and articles on the subject. The publications, however, vary considerably among each other as far as the descriptions of the sculptures are concerned, giving at times different find
location, attributes, and even a different number of arms for one and the same image. A new attempt to catalogue these fascinating sculptures seemed therefore necessary.

A gilded bronze sword, kept in the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston (Massachusetts) since the beginning of the 1970s, bears a short inscription of two lines in Old Khmer. A new reading of the inscription allows one to correct previous publications. A wrong reading, among other factors, has led to date the sword 862 śaka/940 AD (under Jayavarman IV), and thus to provide "hard evidence for [the] use [of mercury gilding for Khmer artifacts] during the tenth century". In fact, the inscription clearly bears the date 962 śaka/1040-41 AD (under Sūryavarman I).

It is a well-known fact that the artistic production of Bengal reached its peak between the 9th and 12th centuries, with major centres of production mainly located in North and South Bengal. The Brahmanical iconography went notably through one of its most creative period with huge amounts of images being produced and with numerous “new” icons being created and added to an already very rich visual pantheon.
Some of these creations remain isolated with only one or a few examples being known to us and no available textual description and even if inscribed, the name given to it may remain unknown in texts and there may be no consensus when similar images are inscribed and labelled with different names. Two such examples are published here:  both were produced in Bengal, both illustrate a female deity who is not Vaiṣṇavī but show evident signs of being very closely related to the most commonly met with image of Viṣṇu in Bengal, being practically its female echo.

The 7 th Century CE Uma-Maheswara ceiling panel from Huchchappaiyya Gudi temple, Aihole takes pride of place in the collection of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai. The panel, along with the Vishnu and Brahma panels from the same temple, counts amongst the earliest acquisitions of the CSMVS. I attempt, in this essay, to trace a picture of the original setting of the panels and explore the function and symbolism of decorated ceilings within the sculptural program of a temple.