Who e’re while the happy Garden sung,
By one mans disobedience lost, now sing
Recover’d Paradise to all mankind,….
goes John Milton in the opening lines of Paradise regained. This is how i feel now. After the previous post, which was in the lines of Paradise Lost, harboring absolutely no hope of even spotting this moat sculptures which we saw in the antique snaps.
But Sri Selvaraj our reader, immediately recognised the figurines - he was absolutely certain that he had seen them 40 years back and promised to trace them out, despite the heavy encroachments surrounding it now. But inorder to build the tension the recent unabated rains did’nt allow immediate access.
However,today, as promised he produced possibly one of the most rewarding mails to me. The photos of the sculptures and that they are still safe in the walls exactly as captured in the century old pictures. Here they are.
Feel so happy, truly paradise regained !!
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To continue the thread on the Door guardians - we proceed today to a very innocuous looking temple lost midst all the developments in Kanchi. Arvind had a tough time spotting this temple and many thanks again for his untiring efforts to get us these images from the shrine - The Mathangeshwara Temple ( will feature its twin the Mukteshwara shortly as well).
The dating of this temple is not clear and we will discuss that more once we see Mukteshwara as well, however, stylistically it placed between CE 700 - 800 - in the reign of Nandhivaraman II Pallavamalla. A king with a very interesting ascension, rule n exile - who inspired the Nandhikalambagam to be sung in his praise.
Without diverting from our focus, lets step inside.
The lion pillars are obstructing our view of the door guardians.
how do they compare with the early Pallava door guardians - Mahendra style? They do look a lot more terrifying - the earlier ones had a mocking look on them. See for yourself.
Mandagapattu
Seeyamangalam
Dhalavanur
We need to study Mathangeshwara more closely.
Left door guardian
The Horns seem a bit more horn and less prongs of a trident ( can’t spot the centre spoke !)
Right door guardian
Is this a variation of the Axe blade - earlier it was vertical and here it seems a horizontal blade !
The most important variation however is the additional two hands - both the door guardians are four armed.
So now comes the trichy question - Vikramaditya II invaded Kanchi around 745 AD, got inspired by Kailasantha Temple, took back the chief sculptors and went about building temples in Pattadakkal. The horns / trident were certainly Pallava features, but what about the additional set of hands of the door guardians ? Was it a Pallava variant or a Chalukyan Variant that reverse flowed into Pallava styling. For that we need to study the Mathangeshwara Icons ( including its twin Mukteshwara ) for stylistic dating comparing with say the Vaikunta Perumal temple - where we have clear timelines established.
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