South Indian Bronzes: A Historical Survey of South Indian Sculpture with Iconographical Notes Based on Original Sources c7.40

c7.40

The list of these grants could be easily multiplied at length but we shall refer to a few more. From a record in the 12th year of the reign of King Raja Raja I, we find that Nakkan Nallattadigal, a member of the community, called Raj-Raj-atterinja kai-kkolar presented an image of silver to the temple of Koneri-raj-puram. Similarly an inscription of the time of Kulottunga Chola, II, records that the image of the goddess Uma-parameswari was presented to the temple at Tirimalam which was founded in the 15th year of the reign of Rajendra Chola, II. The Chandeswara shrine in the Uma Maheswara temple at Konneri-Raj-puram was built of stone in the 15th year of the reign of King Kulottunga⁵ by a private individual who had his own figure and that of Chandeswara cut on the west wall of the shrine. The references to the gifts of *Utsava Murtis* are also numerous. We shall refer, here, to only one example. A grant to the temple of Lakhsmi Narsinha Murti at Narasinhapuram states that an agent of the king named Tippara Pillai of Conjeeveram set up at this place the image of Lakhsmi-Narsinhamurti on which occasion he granted lands to Bramhanas, to servants, to the reciters of the *purānas* and the Vedas. An image called Prahlad-Purandara which was to be carried out in processions was also presented to the temple on the same occasion.¹ More numerous, however, are the references to the gifts of lamps which the pious devotees thought of special merit. These lamps or deepas are of two kinds—those which were used for the ceremony of arati (the waving of the lamp) and those which were kept burning before the images throughout the nights, as a symbol, as it were, of the burning devotion of the donor. And we read in the inscriptions various endowments and arrangements made for the burning of these lamps.² There is a curious reference to a fine imposed at the time of Kulottunga III. A grant of his time records an accidental death in a deer hunt, the punishment for which was a fine to be utilized for burning a perpetual lamp in the temple for the merit of the man who was killed “ in order that he may escape the possible mischief of the revengeful soul of the victim.”