Abstract
Metal Images from Southern India. Mr. T. B. Nayar has recently published (J. Annamalai Univ., 3, No. 1) an account with illustrations of three metal images from a Saivite shrine, called Pasupeteswarar Kovil, at Tiruvetkalam, South Arcot, Madras. The images are said to have been excavated from a mound a few yards southward of the present shrine within the memory of the great-grandmother of the present hereditary priest. Local tradition credits the place with Arjuna's penance, and an annual festival is celebrated here for two days in the month of May-June. The chief interest of the festival is a fight between men dressed as hunters and men dressed as Arjuna. The festival, however, is of recent growth and not more than twenty-seven years old. The first of the three metal images is that of Kiratarjuna-murti, that is, Siva as he appeared to Arjuna in the story of Arjuna's penance. Representations of the penance are rare in art and few images of Siva in this manifestation, either in stone or metal, are in existence. The image here described is 23-2 in. high and is made of copper, cast solid by the cire perdue process. The figure wears the sacred thread and a loin-cloth tightly wrapped and kept in position by a decorated belt or girdle. Its arrangement is unique in South Indian metal figures. The figure stands with the weight on the left leg, the right arm raised at right angles, holding the arrow, the left arm being raised vertically from the plane of the shoulder as if holding the top of a bow. An oval ring fringed with tongues of flame surrounds the image. When excavated, this figure had the figure of Arjuna on its left and a broken image of Indra on its right, both engaged in sockets. If this statement be correct, the image of Indra is difficult to explain. Verification is not possible, as the figure was destroyed for its metal. The arrangement is not known in any other South Indian examples. The figure of Arjuna wears no thread, and the loin-cloth is kept in position by three bands, below which is an arrangement of two sashes, characteristic in certain sculptures.
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Research Items. Nature 134, 575–577 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134575a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/134575a0