It would be something of an understatement to say that Indian temples are a great repository of a cultural information. The goal of this blog is to see what information can be gleaned of the dress, weapons and anything else of the time period the sculptures belong to.
Some of my inpirations have been http://www.varnam.org/history and Kamat's Potpourri. I must also mention an article on Sulekha where they mentioned that Dr. Padma Subrahmaniam, the famous dancer, analyzed some of the sculptures on the walls of Chidambaram temple and discovered that the multiple arms of the figures actually indicated the start and end points of dance movements and correlated to Bharata's Natya Sastra.
I am not a trained archaelogist or historian. I am just a programmer who likes history :)
I am fascinated by the detail in these sculptures. It's almost like they were 3-D photographs of their day. Many of the sculptures that I saw had different faces and had different accesories. They were clearly meant to represent different people. Whether or not it was real people or the sculptor's fancy is anyone's guess. It's pretty amazing how many details spring to your eye once you actually start looking for this sort of thing though.
If anyone would like to use the photographs posted in this site, they are free to, provided they mention their provenance. If you want higher quality photographs, let me know and I will email them to you.
If any of you visitors have comments, illuminating insights or photographs you wish to share, please feel free to contribute.
18 comments:
Great initiative. And nice blog. I am fascinated by Tamil History and often travel to different temples in Tamil Nadu. If you need any help, photographs to be taken, do let me know
chandrachoodan@gmail.com
Chandrachoodan,
Thanks for your offer.
If you see anything interesting email me.
thanks
Hi
Interesting . But a few doubts. Natya sastra, as far as I know, was written by Bharata, and Patanjali is famous for his Yogasutra.
And yes, the pillars of Chidambaram
have the 108 KaraNaas, or the poses of dancers as explained in the Natya sastra of Bharatha.
I remember having once heard Padmaji say something like there being similar sculptures found in some dilapidated temple in Indonesia. Quite fascinating.
By the way, really excited to read a post from the future! Dec 2007! wowww ! I must look like the pillar of Chidambaram,for ur post ,something the belongs to the past
This is a highly motivated and great effort!
Some time back I had blogged about one old temple on the outskirts of Hyderabad (with photographs) and revival of a dance form. The link is here .
My friend Kedar, a history buff, has blogged about a less visited Pataleshwara Temple and others at Shivanasamudra in Karnataka. The link is here .
Iam gathering all such links and if we could put together a colelction of these, it would help greatly in this effort, I believe.
Keep going… and Iam linking you on my blog.
Achinthya,
You are right, it's Bharata. I have edited it as appropriate. I believe that the temple that Ms Padma was referring to is the Prambanan temple in Indonesia. Here's a reference http://www.ignca.nic.in/nl002601.htm
Yadbhavisya,
Thanks for linking me in.
I checked out the photographs that you and kedar posted. Very interesting.
I am really fascinated by history and temples as historical records. I will be glad for any kind of collaboration.
psssttttt...
I just heard that Dr P Subrahmaniam has designed the sculptures in a temple near Pune . I think its caled Sithara temple? eeeeeeeeeeekkkkk I may be wrong. There she is said to have designed the karanas as per the Natyashasthra. If at all you ever go there, please do post the pics.
Thanks
It is a welcome effort.
It will be very interesting to read more on our sculptures, temples and monuments. And also will be a great pleasure to contribute in conserving them in print and an reality both.
Hi, DId you leave a comment at my blog? Sorry I had to close shop. I did know you read it because you've never commented before
Tilo,
Yeah. Your blog was one of my morning-browsing-reads :-)
Too bad you had to close up..
I post more often on my other blog..
I will see if I can revive my archives though I have no intention of posting anything new...
I liked your blog very much! I wrote something recently that you might be interested in, take a look at this link:
http://mumbai-magic.blogspot.com/2006/10/turtlerama.html
Cheers, and keep up the good stuff!
- Deepa
good work !! temples are always very interesting.
blog-rolling.
also, look at the date on this post ... !!
yesbob,
Thanks. The post is dated like that to make the welcome post the first post always :-)
Deepa, You are right in stating "Indian temples are a great repository of a cultural information."
Hindu temple symbolises a person's attempt to reach spiritual heights.
The innermost sanctum of a Hindu temple is Garbhagriha [Womb chamber]or Bliss sheath (Ananda-maya kosa).
keep up the good work.
your culture and your country are very pretty.
These guys have a wonderful collection of indian sculptures www.exoticindiaart.com
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