Siva

The unique Rudra Śiva image found at Tala in Chhattisgarh has been misunderstood as a subordinate deity in the Śiva pantheon and a tribal misinterpretation of imperial metropolitan art, lacking roots in Vedic philosophy. It has been dismissed as an isolated, enigmatic local creation, without ancestor or progeny. On the contrary, this image is an attempt to give composite visual form to the Vedic perception of a Supreme Universal Being, who combines Agni and Soma, Sūrya and Varuna, fire and water, paśu and Pati, sacrifice and sacrificed, emanation and resolution. The image provides a synthesis of the shape and meaning, conceived in Vedic texts and traditions, not paralleled in its predecessors or successors.

This book deals with the early development of Śaivism in ancient Dakṣiṇa Kosala, the region that roughly corresponds to the modern state of Chhattisgarh, plus the districts of Sambalpur, Balangir and Kalahandi
of Odhisha (formerly Orissa). At the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh century, this region was under the control of the Pāṇḍava king Śivagupta alias ‘Bālārjuna' hailing from Śrīpura (the modern village of Sirpur), who was a great patron of religion. Epigraphical evidence, supported by archaeological remains, has shown that by the time of Śivagupta's reign, which lasted for at least fifty-seven years, Dakṣiṇa Kosala was already a rich centre of early Śaivism.

In the context of this setting the following research questions were formulated: what circumstances fostered the rise and development
of Śaivism in this area, and did the Skandapurāṇa, an important and contemporaneous religious scripture, play any role in that development? An answer to these questions would not only shed light on the religious processes at work in Dakṣiṇa Kosala, but would also touch upon the interplay of political, social, economic and geographical factors.

Puranic myths of Hinduism are carefully encrypted ideas of some event in the past. The myth of Tripura Samhara is the oldest myth that has parallels with the eruption of a massive volcano that wiped out most of mankind. Geologically, this coincides with the eruption of Mt Toba  of Indonesia that erupted about 73,000 years ago. This article relates the myth of Tripura Samhara with that of Toba eruption.

This paper elaborates the character and dance of Shiva, one of the principle deities in the Hindu pantheon. Shiva is from the gods celebrated for their dance, for which he also came to be called Śiva Natarāja. Mentioned in almost every phase of Hindu mythology, Shiva holds a particularly important place among the deities. Within his part in the Hindu trinity, he is considered to be the destroyer. Yet, apart from this position, he has also been subject to a variety of alternate descriptions. Among these, there are narrations which do not quite fit the deity paradigm. The portrayal of him as a homeless bagger or as wearing the personally flayed skin of a tiger, may serve as expressions of patterns that do not tend to agree with the image of a god. This paper seeks to adress Shiva’s diversified activities, as well as his famous act of ‘dancing’. As such, it will provide insight into the Hindu belief system and into the significance of dance in its art.

To know well, must we know through difference? Can human beings know more through comparison with the other than through the most rigorous study of the same? Although there has been much debate on this subject, little concrete evidence has been offered either way. This study hopes to provide such evidence. To do so, we compare the Nataraja of Shaivite devotionalism and Picasso’s 1930 Crucifixion, reflecting on each work first in isolation and then in relation to the other. Through this comparison we will generate em-pirical data regarding the relationship between difference and interpretation. The study will conclude that excellence in interpretation is only achieved through the encounter with difference.

This book deals with the early development of Śaivism in ancient Dakṣiṇa Kosala, the region that roughly corresponds to the modern state of Chhattisgarh, plus the districts of Sambalpur, Balangir and Kalahandi
of Odhisha (formerly Orissa). At the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh century, this region was under the control of the Pāṇḍava king Śivagupta alias ‘Bālārjuna' hailing from Śrīpura (the modern village of Sirpur), who was a great patron of religion. Epigraphical evidence, supported by archaeological remains, has shown that by the time of Śivagupta's reign, which lasted for at least fifty-seven years, Dakṣiṇa Kosala was already a rich centre of early Śaivism.

In the context of this setting the following research questions were formulated: what circumstances fostered the rise and development
of Śaivism in this area, and did the Skandapurāṇa, an important and contemporaneous religious scripture, play any role in that development? An answer to these questions would not only shed light on the religious processes at work in Dakṣiṇa Kosala, but would also touch upon the interplay of political, social, economic and geographical factors.

After discussing the integration of the Śaṅkara Gītā (ŚG) which makes up adh. 51 to 65 of the first khaṇḍa of the Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa and briefly summarizing its contents, the paper focuses on the three avatāra myths (viz. of the Boar, Man-Lion and Dwarf) narrated in adh. 3 to 5 of the same Gītā. A detailed analysis of their textual relationship to concurrent versions found in the Harivaṁśa and Brahma Purāṇa evinces the considerable antiquity of the ŚG version. A distinctive feature of the latter appears to be the invention of the nṛ-varăha (Man-Boar) figure in lieu of the more usual varāha (Boar), prompted by the intent of bringing the relevant myth in line with the two other myths of the trilogy, which are bent on highlighting the magic of the “grant of boons” and the correlative need for the avatāra to have recourse to the well-known “loophole in the law” technique (best exemplified in the Man-Lion myth, especially in its mature form as narrated in the late Bhāgavata Puraṇa) in order to successfully cope with his task.

Koṭukoṭṭi is a dance type notified in the Cilappatikāram for the first time. It gained popularity with the plastic and pictorial arts of the Tamil country since the Pallava period. The earliest examples are traceable from the Pallava temples of Kāñcīpuram (e.g. Kailāsanātha, Iṟvātaneśvara) and had an interaction with the Rāṣṭrakūṭa sculptors working in Ellora (Cave XVI, the Kailāsa). During this early phase it is not found in the other centers of South Indian art in Upper or Lower Deccan and the Far South. In the Badāmī, Eastern Cālukyan and Pāṇḍyan zone it is totally missing. It was not so popular an art form with the Cōḻas. It gained a fresh momentum with the Vijayanagara-Nāyaka sculptors in the 14th-18th century CE. Adjoining panels of Śiva performing koṭukoṭṭi and Kāḷi came to be represented on pillars, placed juxtaposed or opposite pillars; e.g. Tāṭikkompu, Pērūr, Maturai (Sundareśvara) and so on.

The present article examines two sets of Pallava and Vijayanagara-Nāyaka specimens from the temples of Kāñci, i.e. Ēkāmranātha and Kaccabheśvara. The agreeing and discordant elements in both the types of specimens are examined and the reasons explained with reference to the corpus and the canon.