This sculpture is in the mandapam of the Jalakanteswara Temple inside the Vellore Fort.
The fort and the temple were built by the Nayak ruler of the area in the early 16th century.
This horseman has a dagger, a short bow in a bow-quiver, and a long sword along the side of the horse. This kind of armament (bow for long-range skirmishing and sword for close-range) has been the standard equipment for light cavalry across the world. The sword is, interestingly enough a recurved sword(like the gurkha khukri or the turkish yataghan) and not the khanda style straight sword shown most commonly in Indian sculpture. The soldier under the horse's foot is armed with an identical sword and a targe of some sort.
The headgear is similar to the headgear of the Vijayanagara kingdom (the kulavi). That is not too surprising since the nayak kings were chieftains who ruled on behalf of the Vijayanagara kings.
That is all I have from this particular sculpture. Any further details are welcome :-)
I took another picture of the three men attacking the tiger, and that will be discussed in the next post.
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