Today we are going to see a very special pillar from the tanjore big temple. Who is this man depicted? Do you notice anything unusual ? Well the topic of this post does give it away !!
Its special because it portrays a very special person, who was so great a devote that the most sacred of towns is named after him - yes, we are talking of Puli Kaal Muni in tamil - puli ( tiger), Kaal ( legs), Muni ( saint) or Vyagrapadhar in sanskrit.
He was one of the earliest devotees of Lord Shiva of Thillai ( Chidambaram) which was called from time immemorial as Puliyur or Perumpatrup puliyur ( perum - great, patru - devotion - puli - tiger, ur - city or town)
The legend goes that the great saint, would go early into the forest to collect the choicest of flowers to offer the Lord of Dance. But however early he went, the bees and ants would still get to the blossoms, so he went even earlier - even before the sun rose to find the flowers before the insects. This gave him problems as the dew drops wouldn’t have evaporated yet and he found the branches slippery.
So great was his devotion and his intent to get the best for his Lord, that he prayed to the Lord to endow him tiger paws, so that he could climb the trees effortless - and the Lord obliged. With great delight, he went on to collect the flowers before the first rays of dawn, beating the insects to the race to find the most beautiful and aromatic flowers, that so delighted his Lord. There are many references to him in literature ( pl see tamil portion of this post to read the references)
Now see him beautifully sculpted in the pillars of the big temple, down to the last detail imbibed into the pillar.
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This amazing sculpture is from Khao Preah Vihear, Cambodia. We have already seen a few amazing sculptures from this, today we are seeing a very unique lintel freeze of Shiva as Nataraja. From a distance you can see the lovely depiction of shiva with his ten hands, creating a feel of the cosmic dance.
As we explore more, under him, we see a beautiful depiction of Vishnu as Sesha sayana - reclining of his seprent anantha, with his consort lakshmi lovingly massaging his feet ( badly damaged though). You can also see brahma seated on his lotus pedestal that emerges from Vishnu’s navel. To their right are two cute parrots, and on top of them a mythical beast and a rider. To their right we see two monkeys?
Thought of stopping at this, but as we look closer at the dancing Shiva, we see two spectators ardently enjoying his dance, though their heads have broken off - the statue maybe headless but not clueless, the body parts of the person on to his right - show that its a lady. Now our task becomes is simple, how many ladies have been granted the privilege of watching shiva dance - it could only be the famous Karaikkal ammaiyar. We have some magnificent bronzes from the cholas. Leaves us in no doubt as to who is depicted. We will see the legend of this great devotee in a coming post, but she did ask for her beauty to be taken away by the lord. Maybe this was part of the disfigurement. She is often called as the ghost lady.
We will see in another post, the detailed life history of the great lady and why she got the ghost form
But how did such a very south Indian character ( sadly even many tamils would not be able to remember her) reach Cambodia. Could it be the handiwork of our craftsmen, chances seem remote as the facial features of these sculptors are more south east asian than indian. Maybe they were trained under the same canons of art or the religious scriptures, verses, literature traveled that far.
images courtesy
http://www.sundial.thai-isan-lao.com/phanom_rung.html
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