Page 7 - Stone and Bronze, Indian art of the Chola Dynasty, Metropolitan Museum, NYC

ward 955. The shadow that these events cast over the appears, in ninth-century temples of the Chola heart-
Chola fortunes did not begin to lift until the reign of land, in the northern niche of the neck under the cupola
Uttama Chola (969-985), whose mother, Sembiyan or of the upper story, but extremely rarely in the north-
of
Mahadevi, was a prodigious patron religion and the ern sanctum niche. On the Cholisvaram, twin temple
arts and sponsored the construction of a large number of the Agastyesvaram at Kilayur (884), there are, on
of temples, many of which still exist. the north facade, three seated Brahmas, one on each
The Brahma reliefs of the late tenth century once of the three architectural levels of the temple: at the
more have somewhat less tubular and more modeled top on the neck, beneath it in the upper-story niche,
bodies, but despite this they are more formalized and and below in the sanctum niche. In the top image,
often lifeless. There are among them considerable dif- Brahma is seated on the double lotus, his right foot sup-
ferences in quality. A Brahma in the Tiru-Alandurai- ported by a small lotus or extension of the throne. On
Mahadeva temple at Kilappaluvur, near Kilayur
(984),7 still carries a distant echo of the Punjai icon but FIGURE 5
has lost the latter's imposing majesty. The Brahma in Govinda-
the Gangajatadhara temple at Govindaputtur (982) Brahma, 982. Gangajatadhara temple,
in the same Tiruchirappalli district, which was built in puttur
the thirteenth year of Uttama Chola, is plump and
v
mannered (Figure 5). The ribbon of the sacred cord,
tied on the shoulder, is twisted into a sinuous curve, re-
peated in the bow of the sash. The undulating, twisted
girdle loop recalls Punjai but has become soggy; the
lion mask has lost its magic power. The mannered pose
of the lower left hand is even more stilted than at Kilap-
paluvur; the knees, which had disappeared on the lat-
ter icon, here have become pudgy little cushions. The
face, lovely still at Kilappaluvur, has lost its radiance.
We notice the fly whisks first seen at Punjai, which are
here much more prominent. The back panel fills most
of the niche.
The extraordinary revival of Chola power and cre-
ativity that took place under the great Rajaraja I(985-
IOI4) perhaps found its fullest expression in the con-
struction of the great temple at Tanjavur, the Rajara-
jesvara (now Brhadisvara), in o I (Figure 56). Almost
200 feet high, it is probably the tallest and most beauti-
ful of all Indian temples.
In the gate tower (gopura) of the Tanjavur temple
we encounter for the first time the bearded Brahma, a
northern variant of the icon.8 He occurs again on the
great temple at Gangaikondacholapuram, which was
built in I030 by Rajaraja's son and successor Rajen-
dra I.
I mentioned above that a seated Brahma sometimes

7. Balasubrahmanyam,
Four Chola Temples, fig. 24.
8. See Gopinatha Rao, Elements, II, part 2, p. 505, who quotes
the Rupamandana.
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