South Indian Bronzes: A Historical Survey of South Indian Sculpture with Iconographical Notes Based on Original Sources c6.21

c6.21

Although the later development of South Indian art has drawn its inspiration from the Vaishnava philosophy and faith, at its inception, South Indian art as developed under the Aryan influence was entirely Saivaite in its character and inspiration. Many of the images of the Saivaite gods illustrated in this volume had assumed individual types at the time of Agastya, but the actual examples here reproduced mostly represent the artistic activity of the later Saiva revival during the Chola ascendancy, *viz.*, 984 to 1243 A.D.