Elements of Hindu Iconography v1.c7.128

v1.c7.128

Secondly, there is plenty of epigraphical evidences to demonstrate that the art of metal casting was practised in South India long before the tenth century A. D. In the several inscriptions of the reigns of the Chōḷa kings, Rājarāja-dēva the great and his son, Rājēndrachōḷadēva, engraved on the central shrine of the Bṛihadīśvara temple at Tanjore, we meet with scores of references to images cast solid and hollow.[*] It is well known that the first of these kings reigned in the last quarter of the tenth century and that the second reigned in the beginning of the eleventh century. Hence it may be asserted without fear of contradiction that the Indians were familiar with the art of casting metals in wax moulds earlier than the tenth century. The bronze images of Mahiṣāsura-marddanī, Śakti, Gaṇēśa and Nandi portrayed on the plate preceding page 241, in the Annual of the Director-General of Archæology for India for 1902-3, are considered to be as old as the beginning of the 8th century. All these instances bear out well the statement that the art of metal casting is an old one in India and is evidently indigenous.