SOUTH INDIA UNDER VIJAYANAGARA ED. ANILA VERGHESE AND ANNA DALLAPICCOLA

South India under Vijayanagara: Art and Archaeology
Ed Anila Verghese and Anna Dallapiccola
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011

In 1900, when Robert Sewell the ICS officer and historian published the Forgotten Empire Vijayangara had faded into oblivion with Lethe hanging heavy on the memoria of the last imperial power of Peninsular India. Since then Vijayanagara has emerged as a promising field of inquiry partly due to the onset of "identity politics" of the early twentieth century with its twin avatars in the form of caste and lanuage. Were the early founders of Vijayanagara from the Kannada region or the Telugu region. This question animated a great deal of the early historiography of Vijayanagara with scholars like Srikantaiya advocation the Hoysala origin of the Sangamas and Venkataramanyya advocating the Kakatiya origin. Shedon Pollock has quite rightly stated in his Language of the Gods in the World of Men that vernacularization of the Peninsualr polities began as early as the days of the Rashtrakutas and continued apace during the Vijayanagara period. In fact the titles bornes of the ealy Sangama rulers recognise the desh bhasha  when they proudly accord the primary status to regions like Karnat and Telnengu in their inscriptions. Historians have virtually fragmented the Vijayanagara Empire into linguistic zones, a trend that has distorted the study and research on Vijaynagara. Fortunately the volume which is being reviewed herein eschews this trend and looks at Vijayanagara in a more comprehensive manner.

Anila Verghese and Anna Dallapiccola are both well established scholars on Vijaynagara who have worked on the Vijyanagara Reseach Project constituted by Gerrge Michell and John Fritz. The past three decades have seen large sclae exploration and ecxavation in and around the Royal Center at Hampi which has led to a total reapprisal of historical knowledge regarding the urban form and morphology of Vijayaanagara. Unlike other capital cities of Peninsular India, Vijayanagara has had a large number of visitors who have left eyewitness accounts of their experience in Vijyanagara. The discovery and publication of the manuscripts of the Portuguese horse dealer Paes and Nuniz in the archives at Lisbon in the late nineteenth century opened up a vey interesting chapter in Vijayanagara research in that textual evidence could be tested against archeological material. One consequence of this method, though untended, was to view the many landscapes of Vijayangara through the "lens" of foreign visitors. Every building or piece of monumental architectre was identified using literary accounts. Thus the account of the nine day Mahanavami Festival formed the basis for identifying the Throne Platforms found in the royal core of Vijyanagara.

This book contains 24 articles each one of them exploring an interesting aspect of Vijaynagara material culture. Philip Wagoner's article on the "Stepped Well" found in the capital is a remarkable piece of historical scholarship. He demonstrates that the architectural marvel was brought from Kalyan, and it was moved to Vijayanagara during the 16th century when effort was made to link Vijaynagara with the past of the Chalukyas of Kalyan.AnilaVerghese in her contribution  looks at the "sacred topography" of Vijaynagara on the basis of inscriptions and the associated myhs of temples. The thene of the Ramayana looms large in the political imagination of Vijayangara and one sees a tendency to expoit mythic associations and popular memory in order to sacralise the landscape of Vijayanagara. This trend toward scaralizing the landscape was further reinforced by the dasakuta tradition represented by the haridasa singers of whom Purandaradasa was the most preeminent. A recent Ph D thesis submitted by a student of mine explores this theme is a substantial manner.

This volume is a excellent attempt at systhesising the  state of the art in so far as Vijaynagara studies is concerend and will be useful to students and researchers alike.

SOCIAL LIFE AS REFLECTED IN NAYAKA PAINTINGS; THE TIRUPPUDAIMARUDUR PAINTINGS

A Study of Nayaka-Period Social Life: Tiruppudaimarudur paintings
Institute Francais de Pondichery
Jean Deloche, 2012

Indian paintings have hardly attracted attention, except for the precocious Ajanta Cave murals. Even Sivaramamurthi chose to concentrate on paintings found on the walls of Tamil temples particularly the famous paintings found in the Brihadesvara Temple at Tanjavur. The reason why paintings have been a neglected area of study can easily be determined. India offers a very rich fare in Sculpture, Iconography, Architecture and the identification of sculptural representations with the agamic sources and texts formed the basis of art history ever since T A Gopinath Rao published his monumental Elements of Hindu Inconography. Indeed it may even be argued that the only enduring paradigm for studying south Indian art and architecture was legislated by Gopinath Rao nearly a century back. Obviously this method of inquiry previleged the works of art found in Saiva and Vaishanva temples with elaborate treatises being composed on arcane matters of textual reconstruction and identification. While Gopinath Rao made a good beginning, he certainly did not wish that his method of investigatiom would be the classic statement frozen in time and beyond critical scrutiny. The French Institute of Pondicherry has been at the forefront of new methods and perspectives in the study of south Indian art amnd architecture.

Jean Deloche is well known historian famous for his study on roads and networks of transport and communication in India prior to the advent of European colonialism. More recently he published an excellent monograph on the medieval fort of Senji located in South Arcot district. The books under review is his most recent publication. While his earlier work betrays the influence of the Annaliste group of historians, that shadow seems to be lifting in his later and more recent publications. Theoretical issues are barely referred to in this slim volume.

The murals which were discovered in the late Pandyan temple dedicated to a Saivite deity, covered the walls of the gopura which has 5 teirs. The murals are found all along the walls of the gopura. Deloche correctly dates them to the Vijayanagra period, though the term nayaka period seems to be ambiguous. Deloche seems to regard the presence of handguns in some of the murals to be evidence of a late date. It is well known that even Krishnadevaraya used firearms in the Battle of Raichur, AD 1520. Ma Huan's account found in the  Overall Survey of the Ocean Shores shows that firearms were used by Zheng-He during his foray into the Arabian Sea/Indian Ocean. Another piece of evidence that he uses for dating the paintings is the presence of curb bits which according to him were intoroduced only in the 17th century. The use of internal evidence for dating the murals is an interesting idea but may not be entirely reliable.

The paintings depict scence from the medieval text Tiruvilaiyatapuranam which has been found in innmerable manuscript versions all over the Tamil region. Deloche has identified the paintings using this text. Apart from the religious or sectarian themes, Deloche has made a fairly comprehensive study of the ships shown in the paintings. One of the vessels, a tall ship with a half deck clearly shows horses and the author argues that the ship could have been a Portuguese ship. From the term parasika which actually means Persian and a term which is found even in Chola inscriptions, Deloche wrongly deduces the reference to Portuguese. The murals clearly show Indian soldiers carrying firearms, though the main battle weapon seems to have been the pike and the sword. An interesting illustration shows Europeans carrying firearms (fig. 94).

This is a very interesting book and the methodology employed is critical and some of the conclusions drawn are nuanced. However given the highly naturalistic style and the absence of conventional elements, we may have to further investigate the origins of natualistic art in Peninsular India. The illustrations are excellent and on the whole this book is a worthwhile addition to the slender library of art of the sixteenth and seventeenth century.