Monthly Archives: January 2011

Unconnected icons – or are they?

Today, we are going to see some unconnected icons. But before that, a long pending paintings inspired by sculpture – aka temple. Not any temple but The Kailasantha Temple in Kanchipuram.

Rendered by Mr B. Sathish !

There are some icons ( and people) who have a magical allure to them and we could Photogenic but not sure if it applies to architecture, but the creations of Rajasimha – be it the Shore temple, the Panamalai Thaalagireershwarar or the Kanchi Kailasantha, they turn even amateur photographers raving mad. So imagine the plight of experts. Take a look at this work of Aadhi arts.



Really stunning are they not?

Now take a look at these.

Seemingly disconnected icons – The famous Bodhisattva mural from Ajanta, a slice of the penance panel from Mallai and the somaskanda painting from Kanchi Kailasanthar.

For regular followers, you have already seen the traces of the pallava artist’s fantastic creation in the
Recreating a lost treasure

Let me first explain the location of these amazing paintings.

You have to twist a bit to enter between the pillars and peep into to your left. If you are lucky you will get to see the four places where the Somaskanda paintings are still visible. Sadly, the rest of the spaces are used as storage for…

But this one is special. Peep inside the tavern while turning your head to the right.


What looks like a portion of black and maroon, is actually a portion of the original Pallava painting that would have adorned the whole side wall.

We step in closer to view the fantastic Kinnara couple. Notice the lovely lady playing a reed flute, the clawed feet and the style of the wings.

Now lets take a look at the Mallai Penance Panel


do you notice the similarity between the two couples – the clawed feet and the wings?

Now, both the locations we saw are from the Pallava school. But if i were to tell you that a similar creature is there in Ajanta as well, and that you have seen it so many times without registering it, would you believe me?

Yes, here we go

( photo & line drawing credits – An Album of Eighty-five Reproductions in Colour, Editor: A.Ghosh; Published by Archaeological Survey of India)



Found them ?


Truly art knew and knows no borders nor boundaries.

The secrets I have held in my fold

We do come across ruined sites quite often. In India t is a problem of plenty, if not each of these would be a national treasure. But then, the brick temple in Pullalur struck a raw chord.
a crumbling treasure in pullalur

Despite the short time we spent there due to the deteriorating light, risky conditions ( no lunch !) n threat of snakes around, there was a feeling which cannot be explained in words. I talked of the sad plight of this mighty structure to everyone i met and luckily impressed on Mr Chandra of REACH Foundation to do a followup visit. My idea was to get some closeups of the Vimana and also the Sudhai ( lime and mortar figurines there) – so that we may have possible clues to tentatively date this structure.


Chandra did one step better. He took Dr.T. Satyamurthy, along with him and rest …is best to give a blow by blow account.

It was around 4.00 PM my time, when Shankar texts me – ” Reach team has found some remains of paintings”
Me. ” Which temple?”
Shankar : Pullalur !
Me: Which one in Pullalur
Shankar: Brick – ruined one.
Me: OMG, calling you ….

But, why did we miss it in the first instance ? Take a look yourself and judge

If i tell you that the find is on this wall, am sure you will be shaking your head. am not joking.

Not convinced yet. Then our overlooking them is forgiven. There are four people with fantastic ornamentation, ornate crowns and if you are sharp enough – can even spot the eye brows and bulging eyes. Who could they be?

The larger question now, is the date of the basic brick structure and the date of these paintings?

Krishna as a Matador

The weekend has been buzz with news of youths exhibiting their skills in the various bull rings across Tamil Nadu – Jalikkattu as its more popularly known, has had a lot of coverage in the press during the recent years with animal rights activists and also public safety calls.


( image courtesy – wiki)

While respecting their sentiments and also the age old traditions associated with this sport, we present to you an early ( Chola) sculpture depicting this sport and who else to play Matador than the Stud Krishna himself !! This is another miniature from Tirumalpuram.

Before we proceed with a closeup of the sculpture, some quick references. There are two such episodes that are referred to in the brave acts of Krishna ( his leela) – one is the taming of the bull Hastin and the other slaying of the demon Aritasura who took the form of a bull. After close inspection of the panel under question, we believe that it depicts more a taming than a slaying.

The story is a simple one. In brindavan, the abode of Krishna, among the cattle was a prize bull named Hastin. It was massive and had quite an attitude and temper. So it was always tied to a tree and it would go round and round in rage never allowing anyone to come near. If anyone did dare, he would scour the earth with his hoofs and horns and try to gore them.

Such was his display of aggression that once even the fearless Balarama was apprehensive of going near. Around this time, the youth of the village challenge Krishna to a bet – and Krishna accepts to tame Hastin and ride on him.

Krishna tries to take good care of the Bull, giving it choice feed to eat, yet his temper doesn’t improve and he cannot even go near. Finally Krishna takes his flute and plays such a wonderful tune, that the fierce bull is mesmerized and calms down to allow him to pet it and finally mount it and ride it.

On the contrary the story of Arishtasura is that Kamsan sends his assistant to kill Krishna. Arishta takes the form of a massive bull and charges at Krishna. Unperturbed Krishna caught him by his horns, threw him long and far. Then he picked him up like a wet cloth and twisted him, finally impaling him on his own horns !!

The point to note in the sculpture, is the majestic countenance of the bull, the slightly upturned charge of the head and the ease with which Krishna seems to be riding it !!

Thanks to Mrs Parvadha for help and Geetha Madam’s blogs for content http://sivamgss.blogspot.com/2009/06/blog-post.html
http://sivamgss.blogspot.com/2009/06/blog-post_10.html

Baby Krishna restrained by his mother – Tirumalpuram

Friends, today we are going to see an interesting guest post – by Mrs. Parvadha Vardhini Murali Krishnan. She continues to amaze us with her talents and a recent addition is her wonderful blog Ponniyin selvi . One way it was the blog posts that made me seek her help to write about two very interesting miniature sculptures from Tirumalpuram ruined Vishnu temple. Her she goes..

I am a Chartered Accountant, living in Kuwait. Currently I am a fulltime homemaker. Just like many of our friends here, I was also impressed very much by the great novel Ponniyin Selvan written by Amarar Kalki. Out of interest, when I searched in the internet, I found the yahoo group Ponniyin Selvan Varalatru Peravai and joined in it. Through the group, I got introduced to many of our friends. Same way, I got introduced to this site “Poetry in Stone” and Mr. Vijay. From then on, I am a regular reader of this site.

Our friend Mr. Vijay sent me a photograph of a sculpture and asked me if I can do a guest post on it. I was very hesitant and I told him, I do not know about sculpture, what do I write? He said, let me send you the picture, have a look at it and then decide. But once I saw the picture of the sculpture I was very impressed. All of us like children; just imagine if the Lord Almighty is in the form of a child, as Krishna, who wouldn’t love him? Taking this as the willingness of Lord Krishna himself, I write this post.

I am only going to say a story; a story well known to all of us. Yes, it is the story which comes to our mind seeing the sculpture.

Krishna is a mischievous boy. Even though he was in a flourishing house of Nandagopa, with the pots and vessels filled with butter, he always went to others’ house to eat them. The ladies of Gokulam complained about this to Yasodha. Yasodha got furious. Seeing that she’s angry, Krishna wouldn’t come in front of her. Then she calls him with affection, saying that she would feed him with milk. And when he came nearby, she caught hold of him and tied him with a rope to a mortar. Since he was tied in his belly with the rope, he’s called as Damodhara (Thambu + Udharan)

adhirum kadal niRa vaNNanai Aychchi
madhuramulaiyUtti vanjsiththu vaiththu
padhaRappadAmE pazhandhAm pAl Arththa
udharam irundhavA kANIrE
oLivaLaiyIr vandhu kANIrE

(Periyazhwar Thirumozhi – Mudhar pathu – Irandam Thirumozhi – Verse 9)

Yasodha who called Krishna, the mischievous boy like the waves of the ocean, and who was of the same colour of the sea, saying that she would feed him with sweet milk, tied him with an old rope found nearby. See the beauty of Krishna’s belly which has a scar due to tying him with the rope. Oh maiden, who are wearing the twinkling bangles, come over and see the beauty of Krishna’s belly with a scar.

Guess Children will always be children and parents will always be parents. Lets take a look at the depiction in stone now.

Now, we go to act 2. What happened next. Yasodha after tying him in a mortar went inside the house. Krishna was silent for a while. But then, he couldn’t stay quiet anymore. He pulled the mortar and came out of the house. He got an idea to come out of the rope. He saw two big Arjuna trees outside his house. He thought to himself, If only I go in between these trees, then the mortar cannot come to the other side and the rope will get cut on its own and then I can be freed. So, he pulled the mortar and went in between the trees and pulled the mortar with all his strength! But amazingly, the two Arjuna trees, unable to withstand the strength of Krishna, fell on the ground. And two Devakumaras emerged from the fallen trees.

NalakUbara and MaNigriiva were the Devakumaras; they were the sons of Kubera. Out of pride on the matchless prosperity they had, they went to a pond along with Kandharva ladies to play in the water. The sage Naradha, was passing the way. Seeing the sage, the Kandharva ladies were scared and immediately wore their robes and saluted him. Whereas the sons of Kubera, since they had drunk extremely and out of pride, neither did they notice the presence of the sage Naradha nor did they bother to wear their robes. The sage grew angry on their activities and cursed them to become Arjuna trees in the earth. The sons of Kubera realized their position and apologized to the sage and requested for the way out of the curse. Naradha took pity on them and said that when Lord Narayana takes the incarnation of Krishna, their curse will end and they can return to their abodes.

Krishna, knowing all this, pushed the trees to the ground and released the sons of Kubera out of their curse. Nalakoopa and Manikreeva, prayed to the Lord and returned to their abodes.

perumAvuralil piNippuNdirundhu ang
kirumAmarudham iRuththavippiLLai
kurumAmaNippUN kulAvith thigazhum
thirumArvirundhavA kANIrE
seeyizhaiyIr vandhu kANIrE .

(Periyazhwar Thirumozhi – Mudhar pathu – Irandam Thirumozhi – Verse 10)

Tied by Yasodha on to a mortar, due to his mischievous activities, Krishna crawled between the two huge Arjuna trees and broke them. Oh Ladies wearing bright jewels, come and see the radiant chest of Krishna which has Lakshmi, Kowsthubam and the Tulsi Mala adorned.

Arunagiri Nathar, in his Thirupughazh recites as

parivoduma kizhnthi Rainju maruthidaitha vazhnthu ninRa
paramapatha naNpa ranpin marukOnE

He, as a child, crawled in between the Arjuna trees that worshiped Him with love and ecstasy; He is the great friendly Lord residing in the blissful heaven; and You are the love-filled nephew of that Lord VishNu!

Look at the beautiful Krishna who is tethered to the mortar and is pulling it. Also look at the sons of Kubera, Nalakoopa and Manikreeva, who stood as Arjuna trees and were relieved out of their curse.

Look at the beauty of the miniature sculptures which narrates the divine stories for us. The fun in spotting these beauties.

Try to decipher them

That’s the size and see how the trees have been depicting with faces at the bottom.

Weren’t the Silpis so great that they could bring such creativity in such a restrained space and continue to impart divinity in their work!

Not 1, Not 2, Not 3 but…..Meeting old friends – Our Tiger Belly Ganas, in Tirumalpuram

Read this as a prelude to the previous post on Pullalur…

It was well past lunch time, but Shankar showed no signs of even vaguely harboring any thoughts of lunch !! We had been in touch for quite sometime, ever since he sent some wonderful miniatures my Mondays have been filled with anticipation – of where Shankar would be visiting that weekend and what new beauties he will unearth. Such is the enthusiasm of this wonderful heritage enthusiast from Chennai. So it was a quick exchange of pleasantries over phone and we drew a short program – the highlight would be to get to the famed early Chola temple – vaguely mentioned in ASI references as ” North Arcot District. Walajapet Taluk, Tirumalpuram, Ruined Vishnu Temple”

With no further references for the actual location, but confident that we are in the right locality thanks to the train station with the same name, we started our ride on what could at best be called a cart track. The Landscape suddenly turned greener and we saw the familiar ASI green fence. Must have been repaired recently for it was in very good condition ( the fence n gate i mean) and it was locked. At a distance, we could see a very small central shrine bereft of any towering Vimanas. We chanced our luck and placing our bets on the ASI contractor’s ` work’ went around the site, but looks like the ASI picks its contractors well. There was not a inch hole ( not that we could squeeze through a ` hole’). There were quite a few village folk working the farms around the site and we tried our luck if anyone had the keys ( as is the case with many ASI sites). Finally, our patience ran out and having driven in motorcross fashion from Kanchipuram to here, we decided to rough it up. Somehow scaling gates was so easy when you were young and a ` few’ stones lighter. I made it much to delight of a group of young girls and a crowd had already gathered to witness our circus. ( I was quite taken aback at the vocabulary of these children especially with the choice tamil unspeakables they uttered. Always thought Kathi overdid it in Ayirathil oruvan !!). Some good Samaritan produced a cycle with which shankar too jumped in ( the cyclist was gone and then Shankar asks how do we go out ?? – thankfully someone produced a stool later)

Ok, back to the site. as we walked the long walk to the Shrine – the manicured lawns showed us a very very simple structure from a distance. We approached from the rear side.

Not too impressive and how soon we jump to such conclusions ! We walked up to the front and stepped in closer.

Now, the Inscriptions references were so many right from Parantaka Chola times ( 907 – 955 CE) and even our beloved Sri Raja Raja as well.

http://www.whatisindia.com/inscriptions/south_indian_inscriptions/volume_22/part_2/parantaka.html
http://www.whatisindia.com/inscriptions/south_indian_inscriptions/volume_22/part_2/rajaraja_1.html

The simplicity of the shrine defied the sheer volume of gifts and endowments given to it. So we decided to go near and see – every inch was covered with scripts !!

There was some cheer for me as well – we did find many miniature sculptures , two splendid thoranas and some real rare gems ( warrants a sequel post), but to me the greatest interest was finding the Boota gana row lining the lintel.

Could i get lucky and spot our favorite Tiger belly in this row, i scanned each of the charming dwarfs for the familiar one..

Towards the center of the side wall, for a second i thought i had got him

No, it was a false alarm. it was actually one of the guys turned upside down !!

But then, towards the extreme left, yes, we were in luck. Jackpot

Not one but two Tiger belly ganas.


Maybe, if we had seen only one, we could have stopped, but since we found two of this ( which is by the way a first – we have never seen more than one of these guys in one site so far !) , we went around to try and see if we can spot more. The back wall didn’t disappoint.

a jiving Tiger belly specially for us.

Three so far, can we find a fourth ? yes on the other side, we spotted a fourth tiger belly. A rich Haul for the day.

The indulgence in Tiger belly ganas finally getting over, we can focus on the main items in part two of the post shortly.

A crumbling treasure in Pullalur

It was almost noon and despite my folks showing various signals that it was past their endurance point, I was lost amidst the treasures of kanchi kailasanthar temple, when the jolt of my ( ok loan from Dad) samsung handphone brought me back to my senses.

“Vijay, come over on Kanchipuram Arakkonam route, am waiting near Tirumalpuram railway station. ” It was heritage enthusiast K.S. Shankaranarayanan. We were to go and try and cover the Early Chola temple in Tirumalpuram. Little did i realise what the rest of the day held in store for me. Halfway through, the landscape got the best of my brother’s ford and my folks. Quick decision to send them on their way back to chennai and i shifted to shankar’s vehicle. The next two hours was an amazing experience but that post will follow shortly, as what we witnessed later on during that day, churned our insides out. The image has been haunting me every since, and i sincerely hope and pray that there can be something that we can all collectively do to save this astounding structure from crumbling to dust.

What and where is this structure that i talk of ? Its an area that has surprisingly witnessed two historic battles. ofcourse, the name Pullalur, wouldn’t register as a Panipet would do, however a little flashback – for those who have read Kalki’s Sivagamiyin sabatham – thanks to Pavithra for the online English translation – am sure Sivagami & Gundotharan along with Pullikesi and Narasimha Pallava would come back to refresh our memories.

Sivagamiyin Sabatham – Battle at Pullalur

The site also witnessed an astounding defeat of the British by Tippu and the french in 1780 – read more from Sri Muthiah’s –

The story of Two Obelisks.

Ok, enough of the location, what you are going to see below is possibly a ….

No self publicity here. You will understand the reason for me posing here after a couple of progressive longer shots ! Now, where am ?

Hmm, lets zoom out a bit more.

We were actually returning after visiting the temples in worship in Pullalur, when from inside these bushes Shankar spotted this structure. When we enquired around, the villagers mentioned ” Oh, that’s our tonsured Vimana ( mottai Gopuram)”

It was only when we went nearer, that we could gauge the actual scale of this beauty.

The lower base has been subject to parasitic activity – obviously the bricks have been put to ` better’ uses.

The towering tower really started overpowering us with its imposing presence, like an aged warrior, despite its visible marks of valor, it still held its head high in the skies. We counted six tiers capped by a beautiful shikara ( the top dome is missing now)

There were still a few Sudhai ( lime & mortar) sculptures on the Vimana.


Despite all the destruction around it, centuries of obvious neglect spawning a profusion of vegetation eating into it – the real beauty of this Vimana came to us. What we cannot delivery today, with the best of engineering talent, machines, science, technology, advances in materials – this lonely edifice proclaimed its mastery in silence, with a profound sense of grief and overpowering sadness that enveloped us, touching a raw chord in our hears was its core, which revealed itself to us in a powerful manner as we stepped inside the Vimana.

The engineering skill of the ancients – it was still picture perfect, the sacred geometry of the tiers were still doing their duty. But in that, they seem to place an appeal to us. Duty bound to their task, despite the main deity not being present, they conveyed the essence of the Omnipresent. The Tamil equivalent of the central core of a temple is called the ” karu varai” which essentially means a mother’s womb – such a profound significance for a name and the selfless dedication that is associated with it. Can we do something in return?