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.
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.
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