South Indian Bronzes: A Historical Survey of South Indian Sculpture with Iconographical Notes Based on Original Sources c7.19

c7.19

In each temple while the *Dhruva-bera* or the *Mula bigraha*, the phallic symbol, remained a fixture, it had its accompanying secondary series of bronze images known as *Utsava bigrahas*¹ or *Bhoga murtis* (ceremonial images) which in order to stimulate the imagination of the populace were taken out in gorgeous processions and had been the subject of elaborate ceremonials. Ordinarily they are placed in rows in long *prākāras*, or corridors round the main shrine or in the passages leading to it, and form a veritable sculpture gallery in the procession-path of the pilgrims. We learn from an inscription of Raja Raja² that on the first day of the religious fête "musicians used to proclaim by the beat of the drum that the image of such and such deity will be carried in procession on three days including to-day.” By far the most important group of these *Utsava murtis* are those now existing in the famous rock-cut temple at Trichinopoly, in the Jambukeswar temple at Trichinopoly and in the Brihadeswar Temple at Tanjore.