South Indian Bronzes: A Historical Survey of South Indian Sculpture with Iconographical Notes Based on Original Sources c9.96

c9.96

down in the *Kāśyapiya* regarding the modelling of the image of a Natarāja to dispose the hands and the feet of that figure at such absurd angles as in the Polonnaruwa image (illustrated in Plate X). According to the canon of the Saivaite imager the arms shall not out-strip the *hṛcca-sutra*, the horizontal line drawn across the neck and the shoulders—a rule which has hardly if ever been violated by the sculptors brought up in the South Indian traditions. The seated figure of Pārvatī found in Ceylon (Plate LXXX) is perhaps a less unsuccessful attempt of a Sinhalese sculptor to reproduce a Tamil model of the same deity. If we compare this image with a somewhat similar sedent figure (Plate XXXV) of the same goddess it will be apparent there is a deviation both in the modelling and the treatment of the figure as also in the ornaments and details in the Ceylonese example which marks it out as the work of an artist unacquainted with the rules and conventions of South Indian sculpture. The hand carrying the lotus, in this class of images, according to the rule in the South Indian texts, should never cross or touch the nipple of the right breast. Similarly the drawn up right leg shall nearly touch the knee of the other leg in this class of images. Both these rules have been observed in the South Indian examples but not in the Ceylonese specimen. We reproduce here (Fig. 18)¹ another typical example of an abortive attempt of a Sinhalese sculptor to imitate the Tamil model of the figure of Siva-kāma-sundarī (Plate XXXIII). Another interesting little figure in the Colombo Museum (Fig. 19) has some kinship with the South Indian bronzes. The rosary of *rudraksha*, the holy thread and the serpent would seem to proclaim a Saivaite subject. The true relationship between the art of Ceylon and that of South India is indicated by the fact that many of the details of ornament and dresses and head-gears are derived from the practices of the old Buddhist sculptors which were adopted by the later Saivaite sculptors and which are met with in many of the contemporary Buddhist figure sculptures of Ceylon. Take for instance the stone Nāgadwārapala from Ceylon (illustrated in Fig. 6A). One easily recognises in this figure the waist band—the *ratna kodar banda*. The *arunon-malai*—the central tiger buckle and the festoons of the drapery at the sides—are the unmistakable characteristics of South Indian bronze sculpture. They were in fact the common properties of all Buddhist artists of South India and Ceylon and have been adopted by and have survived in the practices of the Saivaite sculptors when Buddhism died out in South India. Referring to these bronzes found in Polonnaruwa, Dr. Willey has observed that "there are some experts who will declare that these bronzes are not so good as South Indian bronzes. Such a statement rests upon the conscious or more likely unconscious assumption that Ceylon is a paradise of mediocrities, and that whilst it produces many good things it never has produced one really excellent thing. The assumption may be correct, but it should be stated if it is so." Any one familiar with the splendid examples of Buddhist bronzes found in Ceylon will admit that the craftsmen of Ceylon hold their own in figure sculpture against all the master-pieces of the kind produced in the Indian Continent and the fact that the Polonnaruwa bronzes are not the work of Sinhalese craftsmen does not in any way detract from their reputation. The 'Jambala', the 'Avalokiteswara', and above all, the bronze statuette of Bodhisattva from Anurādhapura' in the Colombo Museum, to name only a few, are "really excellent things", executed by Sinhalese artists, which have no rivals in India.