Most well-known museums around the world boast of at least one Chola bronze. Some have more. It was only in 1904 that the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act was passed in India; many bronzes had been smuggled out of the country by then. In this book, the art historian Job Thomas looks at some of India’s outstanding bronzes and also examines the dispersal of these precious sculptures.
Thomas, who is Affiliated Professor of Art and History Emeritus at Davidson College, North Carolina, United States, began his career at the Madras Museum (now Government Museum, Chennai) where he was smitten by the majesty of the bronze sculpture of Tiruvalangadu Nataraja. The subject of Chola bronzes continued to be a magnificent obsession even after Thomas moved to the University of Michigan to do his doctorate in south Indian painting under the legendary Dr Walter Spink of Ajanta frescoes fame.
The Chola Empire was at its zenith in the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries after its rulers swept into neighbouring kingdoms, won several wars, extended their frontiers and collected untold wealth. The Bhakti movement spread, led by the Nayanmars who traversed the land. It was the golden age of temple-building. In this period, more than 300 temples were built, and almost all of them were endowed with a few bronzes.
Although we know that bronzes were made earlier, during the reign of the Pallavas, the art of bronze casting was at its best during the Chola period. In some temples, the details of these endowments have been chiselled as inscriptions. The Siva temple at Thiruvenkadu, for instance, registers in its lithic records the bronzes thus dedicated as well as the names of the donors.
Images of gods, goddesses, kings, saints and donors were made in bronze and installed in the temple precincts. During festivals, these images, utsavars , were carried in processions around the temple. As the art historian and archaeologist T.N. Ramachandran put it: “Those who could not visit the temples should have an opportunity, equally, of beholding the sacred image of the divinity and thus attain religious merit.” Small bronze icons were made for worship in homes.
Lost wax method
The method of casting these images remains unchanged to date. The “lost wax method”, as it is known, is still practised in Swamimalai near Kumbakonam, where replicas of Chola bronzes are made in hundreds. The “Kurunthogai”, a collection of poems from the Sangam period, details this method. The earliest bronze image from Tamil Nadu, the female figurine dating to 1000 BCE, which was unearthed along with other major archaeological finds in Adichanallur, Tamil Nadu, and labelled “Mother Goddess”, was made in this method. In a separate section, the book discusses, with the help of line drawings and photographs, the technical process of making a bronze.
Line drawings have been used imaginatively in this book to illustrate how a sculptor modelled his icons. While sculptors of the celebrated Greek bronzes used athletes and women as models, the Chola artists drew inspiration from nature, such as a bull’s forehead for a man’s chest. The aim was to depict the ideal human figure.
Thomas examines about 20 well-known bronzes of deities, saints, donors and mythological characters, and subjects them to scholarly scrutiny. A majority of them belong to the Thiruvenkadu temple. Each bronze is discussed in an exclusive chapter, in which Thomas analyses the reference to the icon in the inscription as also the iconographic details. The author looks closely at Rishabhavahanadevar, now in the Thanjavur Art Gallery, as also Ardhanariswarar, exhibited in the Madras Museum bronze gallery.
The celebrated Buddhist image of Tara, originally from Sri Lanka and now housed in the British Museum, comes in for close examination. The author explains how the identity of the icon was arrived at. He points out a niche in Tara’s crown, meant to house a tiny image of the Buddha, as the clue. Then there is the Amman icon in the Freer Art Gallery, Washington, truly a masterpiece of Chola art, labelled mistakenly as Sembian Madevi. When “dealers” passed on these icons, they gave them celebrated names to hike up the price. That is probably how this icon got its label. There are other such examples.
Two bronzes, ostensibly the portrait sculptures of Rajaraja Cholan and Queen Lokamadevi, that were recovered recently with much fanfare from the museum run by the Sarabhai Foundation in Ahmedabad get a separate chapter. The author argues convincingly that these are not the images of the Chola king and his queen.
The Archaeological Survey of India, with the help of the police and other government agencies, has mounted a massive rescue effort to trace lost bronzes. One of the main problems in protecting and caring for this precious heritage is the lack of coordination between various government agencies dealing with this subject.
The author has meticulously recorded the works of earlier scholars on the subject, from Ponnambalam Arunachalam to Sharada Srinivasan, and this puts his own study in perspective. In addition to the bibliography at the end of the book, each chapter contains exhaustive documentation, providing leads for future students and researchers. Some of the Tamil inscriptions relating to some specific bronzes have been reproduced. We do not know the temples to which some bronzes described in the book originally belonged. In his evaluation of the images, Thomas points out the defects in some works, such as a disproportionate limb. His style is simple and readable. He avoids unnecessary Sanskrit jargon that often mystifies writings on Indian art history.
Historians generally believe that there was a dark period before the Pallavas and the Cholas arrived on the scene. They refer to it as the interregnum of the Kalabhras, a name mentioned in the eighth-century Velvikudi copperplate grant. Most historians accept this and move on without looking at the issue closely. Thomas also follows this conventional trajectory. Before the Bhakti movement, Jainism, Ajivika and Buddhism flourished in Tamil Nadu, often with royal patronage.
Mahendravarma Pallava was a Jain who later converted to Saivism. Pazhayarai of the Cholas was one of the Buddhist centres. Was this the phase of history of Tamil Nadu which has been labelled “the Kalabhra interregnum”?
Chola Bronzes is elegantly produced, matching its content. The photographs, all in black and white, have been reproduced sharply. The fonts have been chosen with care, and it is a joy to hold the book. However, the absence of an index for a work of this kind reduces the utility of the book.
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