South-Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses c6.s1.1

c6.s1.1

Almost every village of any importance in Southern India has its temple, round which centres in a very large measure the corporate civic life of the community which lives in it. The casual visitor is at once attracted by the temple and when he goes there he sees various images in all sorts of incongruous postures and is generally puzzled to know what they mean or what they represent, and how they serve to evoke the religious feelings of the people worshipping them. An attempt will be made in the succeeding pages to describe and classify them in various groups so as to make them more intelligible to the ordinary visitor.