Elements of Hindu Iconography v2.c16.50

v2.c16.50

The second most ancient Liṅga is the one discovered by me at Guḍimallam some years ago and which has not been described in detail hitherto. It is one of the most perfect pieces of sculpture of its class and is of great value in connection with the history and nature of the liṅga worship. Guḍimallam is a village situated at a distance of six miles to the north-east of Reṇiguṇṭa, a railway junction station on the Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway. In this place, there is an ancient temple with several inscriptions in it; the god of that temple, the Liṅga under consideration, is known from ancient times by the name of Paraśurāmeśvara and the liṅga is still in pūjā. Being a badly managed temple, scarcely any oil is spent upon bathing the images, a fact which accounts for the liṅga being in the same condition as when it was carved; there is no oily dirt on it and the high polish is in no way lost; but there are a few chips here and there, and it is not known if they have existed from the beginning or came into existence at a later period. It is very probably the latter. The liṅga is made of a reddish igneous rock, very brittle and compact in its composition which takes very high polish and which is found in the Tirupati hills which pass near the temple of Paraśuramēśvara. The Liṅga is set directly on the floor of the central shrine and the piṇḍikā or the pedestal is cut out in the form of a quadrangular ridge on the ground; it is exactly five feet in height and bears upon its front portion a beautiful figure of Śiva. This figure of Śiva has two arms, in the right one of which a ram is held by its hind legs and with its head hanging downwards (see fig. 4, Pl. V); in the left one is held a water-pot (fig. 3, Pl. V), and a battle-axe (paraśu) rests upon the left shoulder (fig. 2, Pl. V). On the head of the figure of Śiva is a covering, resembling a turban, of plaited,—not matted,—hair (see Pl. III and fig. 9, Pl. IV). The face is distinctly Mongoloid in its features, with a somewhat snub nose, high cheek-bones, narrow forehead and oblique eyes. This last item agrees well with Virūpāksha (he with oblique eyes), one of the