South Indian Bronzes: A Historical Survey of South Indian Sculpture with Iconographical Notes Based on Original Sources c9.21

c9.21

The ten-armed sculpture of Natarāja at the Brahminical cave at Aihole (655-680 A.D.) formerly known as Aryapura comes earlier in order of time to that in the Kailāshnāth temple. At Aihole, the stone-relief of Natarāja (Fig. 9A) resembles the one at Badami in the pose of the two upraised arms holding up a serpent horizontally over the crown. This conception is evidently based on *dhyān* mantras different from the ones to which the South Indian sculptures owe their inspiration. There is a very interesting stone figure of Siva in one of the temples at Aihole (*vide* Fig. 5, Annual Report, Archæological Survey, 1907—1908, p. 202) which in its general conception and details of ornaments, clearly resembles the South Indian type as familiar to us in bronze images.