Page 27 - Stone and Bronze, Indian art of the Chola Dynasty, Metropolitan Museum, NYC

fifth head. The Agamas, religious texts created in the FIGURE 26
south, follow the Puranic stories and describe the icon Lingodbhavamurti, late viii century. Cave tem-
accordingly, with minor variations.53 ple, Tirumayam
Although the cult ofthe linga is as ancient as the Indus
Valley civilization, the Lingodbhavamurti concept ap-
peared only in post-Gupta times and was created in
south India. It corresponds with the aniconic tradition
of the early historic south, which associated stones with
burial (this idea continued in the hero stones) and in-
cluded the worship of wooden posts, anthills, and trees.
The puritanical element in the early medieval bhakti
movement of the hymnists, moreover, did not take
kindly to the vestiges of the old fertility cults, which had
survived more freely elsewhere. Therefore the linga
was now conceived as a flaming pillar, apparently de-
void of phallic associations.54
We first encounter the icon in cave XV at Ellora in
the Deccanss (first halfofthe eighth century), and on the
Kailasanatha temple at Kanchi56 in the south (about
730), where a small Brahma (in his human form) and
Varaha try to measure the fiery pillar while full-size
figures of the two gods stand at either side worshiping
Siva. The flames, garland, and lenticular opening of
the linga as well as the flying Brahma and digging
Varaha on the Virupaksha temple at Pattadakal in the
Deccans7 (about 740) still are very close to the Das
Avatara (Ellora cave XV) sculpture, but the large fig-
ures of the two worshiping gods have disappeared.
They are present, however, on another Chalukya tem-
ple of this period, the Padma-Brahma at Alampur.58
In a Muttarayar cave temple of the late eighth cen-
tury at Tirumayam in Pudukkottai (Figure 26), Siva
has two arms and is not accompanied by Vishnu and
Brahma in any form. The concept of the sudden and
blinding manifestation of the god who reveals himself
in the fiery pillar is most beautifully realized in this
little-known relief.
The earliest Chola sanctuary in which the Lingod-
bhavamurti appears in the western sanctum niche is

53. Filliozat, "L'Image," pp. 47-48; Barrett, "Lingodbhava-
murti," pp. 37-38.
54. K. R. Srinivasan, "Some Aspects," pp. 191 ff.
55. Louis Freddric, L'Inde (Paris, 1959) pl. I27.
56. Gopinatha Rao, Elements, II, part i, pi. xm.
57. Filliozat, "L'Image," fig. 2.
58. Barrett, "Lingodbhavamurti," pl. xin.

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