South Indian Bronzes: A Historical Survey of South Indian Sculpture with Iconographical Notes Based on Original Sources c7.1

c7.1

It is difficult to ascertain the exact time when Saivaism established itself in India as a definite cult. Siva in his aspect of the Rudra is as old as the Vedas. The Rāmāyana and the Mahābhārata suggest a period when Saivaism had taken a definite shape. Passages in the Lalita Vistara and other Buddhist works distinctly show that Saiva worship existed in India before the advent of Buddhism; Dr. Barnouf has stated that it existed as early as 600 B.C. In the time of Patanjali, about the second century B.C., images (pratikriti) of Siva, Skanda, and Visakha, made sometimes of precious metals, were kept for common worship by certain persons referred to as the Mayuryas who practised image-making as a profession¹. "The fact that the Mayuryas thought of making money out of the trade in images shows that the demand was considerable". In the invocation to Siva in Mrichchhatika we find that the 'blue-throated' God had begun to be worshipped about the first century A.D., the date attributed to Sudraka. It is not possible to indicate the time when the Saiva faith was first introduced into South India. Probably it came along with the advent of Brahmanism led by Agastya. The Skanda and Brahmanda Puranas represent the pauranic elaboration of South Indian Saivaism and the date of the composition of these Puranas obviously suggests the time of the beginning of Saiva movement in South India. Of the important group of Saiva shrines, those at Ellora were excavated about 760 A.D., while the rock-cut temples at Māmallapuram, of which three are Saivaite, were excavated during the reign of the Pallava Kings, between the sixth and seventh centuries. The Pallava Prince Sivaskanda Varman who lived in the second century A.D., "was an orthodox Hindu with a special devotion for Siva". Mahendra Varman, I. (600-625 A.D.) and Narshinha Varmana, I. (Cir. 625 A.D.) to whom many of the rock-temples are attributed, were also Saivaite. When Hiuen Tsang visited the South in 640 A.D., he found the country was studded with hundreds of Brahmanical temples most of which must have been Saivaite.