South Indian Bronzes: A Historical Survey of South Indian Sculpture with Iconographical Notes Based on Original Sources c7.30

c7.30

In ancient Greece, among votive objects or *anathemata*, figures representing human persons were also very common. These represented the dedicators themselves or others in whom they were nearly interested; some of them "represented the victors at the athletic games and were set up in temple precincts and were intended rather as thank-offerings than as means of glorifying the victors themselves". It is very interesting to read the accounts of these gifts of images in the innumerable inscriptions which have been discovered in the various temples in South India. They are not confined to the royal personages alone but people from all classes of society had been their donors, as will appear from the inscriptions to which we will presently refer. The spirit of these votive offerings is very well rendered in the famous lines of Lucian :—