South-Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses c9.s3.8

c9.s3.8

Standing images of Siva generally belong to the class known as Ashtamūrtis or Ekādasa-Rudras. The former have generally four hands and three eyes and wear the jaṭāmakuta. The fore-arms exhibit the protecting and the boon-giving postures; while the hind arms hold the tanka and the antelope. The Ekādasa-Rudras are almost similar to Rudramūrti in form, with the black scar on the neck, the crescent on the head and the scarf of tiger-skin. In place of the dhakkā in the right upper hand is seen the axe (parasu). A form of Siva combining five bodies in one is known as Panchadēhamūrti. Though not found in any of the temples examined so far, it is often mentioned in the Tanjore inscriptions as having been installed in the Rājarājēsvara (i.e., the modern Brihadīsvara) temple by the Chōla king Rājarāja or his subordinates, in the first quarter of the eleventh century A.D. The Panchadēhamūrti consisted of five images, four of which stood in the four directions and the fifth was placed in the middle, its head being higher in level than the others.² One of these was called Aghōra. The linga with five faces called Panchamukha-linga is only the five-bodied Panchadēhamūrti translated in terms of the symbolical phallus.³ It has the heads of four Siva-images figured on its four sides. The illustration from Tiruvānaikkāval (fig. 47) does not show any face at the top. The Skānda-Purāna mentions a seated form of Siva called Mahākailāsa or Mahā-Sadāsiva which is represented with twenty-five faces and fifty hands, wears a garland of skulls and is clothed in tiger's skin.