South Indian Bronzes: A Historical Survey of South Indian Sculpture with Iconographical Notes Based on Original Sources c9.39

c9.39

in metal must have been current in South India long before the advent of the Cholas. Next to the collection of bronze images in the Brihadeswar temple, the other important old collection of such images is found in the shrines on the south and west flanks of the rock-cut temple at Trichinopoly. If we go by the date of the excavation of this temple which is attributed to the Pallava King Mahendra Varman I at the beginning of the seventh century, the bronze images ought to be older by three centuries than those in the Tanjore temple collection. Some of the images in the rock-cut temple, however, are, in style and quality, comparatively modern and many of them can not be given any date earlier than those at Tanjore. Some of them, however, appear to be earlier than the Brihadeswar images, but it can not be stated definitely that they were set up by the Pallava King when the temple itself was constructed, *i.e.*, at the beginning of the seventh century. None of the inscriptions affords any reference to the Pallava Kings having set up any bronze images, although Narsinha Potavarman is credited with having set up stone images in Raj Sinheswara temple (Kailāsnath). Some *pancha louha* images of Subramanya and Somāskanda have been found in the Kailāsnath temple which is ascribed to the early part of the sixth century¹ (*vide* Plate LII "Pallava Architecture" by A. Rea, Madras, 1909). But they are evidently later than the Tanjore images and seem to belong to a period when the Chola princes lavished their bounty on the temples at Conjivaram. Some of the earlier Pallava Kings whose dates cannot now be definitely ascertained are associated with Saivaite art of the time previous to the Cholas.