Processions in the medieval South Indian temple:

Sociology, sovereignty and soteriology*

Leslie C. Orr

Processions in Madurai — the sixth to ninth century

To introduce this study of medieval temple processions, I will provide two
contrasting sets of images from Madurai, in the far south of India. The first set
of images is drawn from the Tamil devotional literature of the sixth to ninth
centuries — from the text called Paripàñal and from the poems composed by the
poet-saint Nammà×vàr. In these texts, we see worshippers going from the royal
city of Madurai, the capital of the Pandya kings, toward the shrine of Lord
Muruka− on the hill of Parankunram to the southwest of the city, and toward
Tirumaliruncolai, sacred to Viùõu, to the north. First, we see Muruka−'s
worshippers, as they are described in Paripàñal:1
Carrying honey-bearing blossoms, tender leaves, rich cloth, clear-sounding bells, and the
spear,
they crowded around the tree, where the v¹la− had tied the buffalo smeared with sandal
paste,
and sang words of praise,
coming forward (e×u) together, with torches, music, perfumes, incense, and flags,
to the mountain whose trees are moist with the nectar of flowers.
Those who join together every night to abide at the foot of this wondrous hill —
what desire would they have to dwell among the gods?
...
Filled with songs of his fame, overflowing with words of praise,
the road between Madurai and Paraïku−Ÿam
was so crowded with people adorned with fragrant sandal
that the short distance was made long.
And so many petals came loose and fell from the garlands
borne in the hair of men and women, in great rejoicing,

*
For sharing their translations, or helping me with mine, I am deeply indebted to Daud Ali, Jean-
Luc Chevillard, Richard Davis, James Heitzman, Tanisha Ramachandran, James Ryan, Gregory
Schopen, S. Swaminathan, and Blake Wentworth. Great thanks are due also to Anthony Good,
Phyllis Granoff, Ginni Ishimatsu, Anne Monius, Vasudha Narayanan, Indira Peterson, Devesh
Soneji, Joanne Waghorne, Phillip Wagoner, Katherine Young, Paul Younger and my colleagues in
the Department of Religion at Concordia University, Montr‚al. I am extremely grateful, as always,
to Dr. M.D. Sampath, head of the Office of the Director of Epigraphy in Mysore, for permission to
consult the transcripts of unpublished inscriptions.
Tamil words are transliterated according to the system of the Tamil Lexicon of the
University of Madras, except that, in keeping with medieval inscriptional usage, I do not
distinguish between long and short vowels e and o when discussing terms and names that appear in
Chola period inscriptions. It should be noted that Tamil inscriptions make frequent use of Grantha
characters to represent Sanskrit letters. In these cases, and in the case of Sanskrit words, I have used
the conventional system of transliterating Sanskrit. In general, I use spellings without diacritics for
place names, and for the names of kings and dynasties.
1
Fran‡ois Gros' French translation and notes for Paripàñal have been of immense value to me in
preparing my English translation. I am very grateful to Tanisha Ramachandran for working with
me on this project.

South Indian Horizons (F. Gros Felicitation Volume) pp. 437–470

438 Leslie C. Orr

that one could not move forward.

Paripàñal 17.1-8 and 22-27

On the great road filled with flowers,

your devotees came forth (e×untu) to celebrate the festival,
with sandalwood paste, white incense smoke,
lamps that remained alight in the breezes that passed,
with blossoms that spread fragrance, and the loud music of drums.
Bearing bells, cords, your banners with peacock, axe, and elephant,
and everything needed for their purpose,
your worshippers approached the sacred mountain, so difficult to reach.
Paripàñal 8.95-102

[The people of Madurai] dressed in brilliant clothes, adorned with shining jewels,
mounted on splendid horses or in fast-moving chariots,
with garlands of bright flowers, made light the darkness of the road
between Madurai and Tirupparaïku−Ÿam, where they all gathered.
The crowded road along which the procession (yàttirai) flowed,
as if on cool sands beside the roaring shore,
was laid out like a garland placed on the Earth,
around the head of Him who dwells on this hill.
As the stars together with the moon encircle Mount Meru,
the learned king Va×uti was surrounded
by his wives graceful as peacocks together with his dutiful and wise ministers
as he mounted the broad slopes of the hill, the place of demons.
Circumambulating the mountain, he was joined
by throngs of people from the country and the city,
wearing cloth on their heads in the old-fashioned way,
that fell to their shoulders, chanting praise, filled with joy.
O You, the tall one, whose elephant has sounding bells!
This is the way we travel the road around your beautiful mountain.
Paripàñal 19.12-29
Another poet in the Paripàñal collection extols the shrine of Viùõu at
Tirumaliruncolai — also known as Iruïku−Ÿam — somewhat further distant
and to the north of the city of Madurai:
Understand, you humans! Hear of the glory that arises here!
Blue lotuses blossom in the mountain pools, and around each pool
golden flowers cover the branches of the A÷oka trees.
Green fruit and ripe fruit hang side by side and bright clusters of v¹ïkai flowers bloom.
This beauty is like that of Màyº−, who dwells here.
You who do not approach to worship, see and offer reverence to the mountain from afar.
The name of Iruïku−Ÿam has spread
across the great flourishing earth; its fame is ancient.
The sight of the beloved Lord who is here destroys delusion.
...
Together with your wives and with your parents,
with your children in your arms and with those whom you love,
come! Offer worship to this god!
The one whose eyes resemble lotuses,
the one whose body gleams like a gem, dark as a raincloud,
the one who is here, and appears in all the worlds
to remove the suffering that torments humankind —
that gracious one is the Lord of Iruïku−Ÿam!
Paripàñal 15.29-37 and 46-53
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 439

Several centuries later, Nammà×vàr, one of the Tamil poet-saints known as the
â×vàrs, continued to exhort devotees to make their way to this holy place:
Before the growing glow of youth begins to fade,
and your limbs become feeble,
if you reach the temple,
where the dark Lord,
whose splendor ever grows,
dwells with love
Màliru¤cºlai,
hill surrounded by luxuriant young groves
Rare fortune is yours.

My heart! there is nothing to gain

by performing wasteful deeds.
Reach yonder hill:
near Màliru¤cºlai
surrounded by thick enchanted forests.
This is the temple
where he who has the hue of stormy cloud,
delights to dwell.
This is the right thing to do.

Do not add to your sins with your gathered strength:

Reach the slopes of the outer hill.
Màliru¤cºlai,
surrounded by sparkling clear mountain springs.
This is the temple of the Lord
who uses his discus
in righteous wars.
That is the way.

Be strong, don't waste your strength day by day.

This is the temple of the marvelous cowherd,
who makes you strong.
Màliru¤cºlai
where the celestials come
to circle him in adoration.
Circle, come near him everyday;
it is the right way.
Tiruvàymoli 2.10.1, 3, 5, and 8, trans. Narayanan et al. (Narayanan 1994, 152-54)
This depiction in the poetry of fifteen hundred or a thousand years ago — the
parade of human and celestial worshippers winding their way up the slopes of
Tirumaliruncolai, sacred to Viùõu, and of Tirupparankunram, Lord Muruka−'s
abode, with praise-songs and drums, flags and lamps, and offerings for the
Lord, and their circumambulation of these holy hills — reflects a conception of
divinity in which God is understood as being present in particular locales and
landscapes. The poems of the â×vàrs and Nàya−màrs, composed in the seventh
to ninth centuries, are filled with such images of devotees, sages, celestial
maidens and deities all thronging to the temples of Viùõu and øiva, with
440 Leslie C. Orr

scarcely any mention of the gods themselves coming forth from their shrines to
pass through the streets.2

Processions in modern Madurai

When the subject of processions comes up today, however, we are less apt to
envision streams of worshippers moving towards a temple, and instead are
more likely to think of the movement of the god outward from the inner
sanctum of his temple. In the modern context, we especially think of festivals in
which bronze images of deities are placed on palanquins or chariots ("cars"),
and taken by an entourage of temple servants in procession through the streets,
where residents and pilgrims are crowded, awaiting the privilege of the "sight"
(dar÷ana) of the god. In this scenario, the deity becomes accessible to the
humblest among the inhabitants of his city, bestows honours upon eminent
citizens or special devotees, marks out the territory over which he rules, and
displays his dominance over, or relationship with, other deities of the locality.
In Madurai, processions of this character are part of the two festivals that
take place in the month of Cittirai, one celebrating the marriage of the goddess
Mãnàkùã to her consort, Lord øiva, in the temple at the centre of the city of
Madurai, and the other taking place at Viùõu's temple of Alagarkoyil (as
Tirumaliruncolai is known today) to the north of the city. The complex
processional choreography associated with these festivals has been wonderfully
described by Dennis Hudson (1982). During the twelve-day festival at the
Mãnàkùã temple, the divine couple is taken out in procession twice daily, in
golden palanquins in the morning and on their vàhanas or "animal vehicles" in
the evenings. On the ninth day, the goddess Mãnàkùã's digvijaya, "conquest of
the universe," is enacted. Mãnàkùã was a Pandya princess who was reared as if
she were a warrior prince. Her festival image is supplied with weapons and is

2
The description of the procession at Tiruvarur on the festival day of Tiruvàtirai, by the øaiva poet-
saint Appar (T¹vàram 4.21), is one of the very few portraits we have of the god's movement in the
bhakti literature. Here Lord øiva is envisioned as the wandering mendicant: "He goes on his begging
rounds/ amid the glitter of a pearl canopy/ and gem-encrusted golden fans./ Devoted men and
women follow him,/ along with Virati ascetics in bizarre garb... The ascetic god goes in
procession,/ led by the immortal gods/ whose heads are bowed to him,/ while lovely celestial
women/ with shoulders graceful as the bamboo/ follow behind, and ash-smeared devotees/
surround him, singing his praise." (trans. Peterson, pp. 184-85). øiva as the beggar, Bhikùàñana, is the
image that is today taken in procession on the eighth day of the Tiruvàtirai festival at
Chidambaram, although Nañaràja is the processional image that is used on other days of the
Tiruvàtirai festival in Màrka×i month at Chidambaram and other temples (Younger 1995, 59-60; see
also Kamikàgama cited in Davis trans. Mahotsavavidhi; and L'Hernault and Reiniche 1999, 70). It is
possible, however, that the form of øiva taken in the streets of Tiruvarur in Appar's time was not
that of Bhikùàñana, but this temple's famous Somàskanda image — Tyàgaràja or Vãtiviñaïka− —
which continues to be the main processional icon, and is taken out to "dance" during the yearly
Tiruvàtirai festival (Devesh Soneji, personal communication). Richard Davis (2002, 60) considers the
deities accompanying øiva in this poem also to be processional images, but I think it more likely
that Appar is suggesting the presence of gods and celestial maidens amid the human worshippers
— a motif frequently met with elsewhere in the bhakti hymns. For other references in the øaiva
devotional literature to processions of the Lord, chariots/ cars (t¹r), and festivals, see Kandiah (1973,
182-87), Balasubramanian (1980, 259), Peterson (1989, 183-89), and Dehejia (2002, 14-16). Such
depictions of Viùõu, in the hymns of the â×vàrs, appear to be extremely rare.
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 441

placed in a large cart, which sets out from the east gate of the temple towards
the outskirts of the city, where the goddess wages battle with the god Indra,
and defeats him, after which she makes the circuit of the city, conquering the
Lords of the Eight Directions at each of the eight points of the city. Finally, she
encounters Lord øiva, in his festival cart, with whom she engages in combat
and loses — and is thus transformed into a suitable marriage partner for the
spouse whom she has long been destined to marry. The following day, the tenth
day of the festival, is the day when Mãnàkùã and øiva are wed. On this day, the
bride and groom are taken in procession in royal splendour around the town,
both before and after the marriage ceremony. One of the deities of Madurai
whom we have already met, Lord Muruka−, has made his journey in image
form from his home in Tiruparankunram in order to arrive early in the morning
on this day, in time to witness the marriage, and is invited to stay in the
Madurai temple as an honoured guest during the festivities which will take
place during the next several days. On the eleventh day is the great car festival,
where the god and goddess are placed on thrones in two immense chariots
which are moved through the streets, by hundreds of men pulling on ropes.
Meanwhile, the "Journey Festival" of the god Viùõu of Alagarkoyil is
underway, and, on the very day of the car festival at the Mãnàkùã temple, Lord
Viùõu has himself set out from his temple in the direction of Madurai, riding in
a golden palanquin. In the course of the next five days, this deity, garbed in an
array of garments and mounted on different vehicles, travelling about in the
area north of the city, encounters people of various villages and communities.
Deities of the region, including Kåñala×akar, Viùõu who resides in Madurai,
come to honour him. But he himself never arrives in the city of Madurai, where,
according to popular belief, he was expected to attend the wedding as Mãnàkùã's
brother. The traditions of the Alagarkoyil temple maintain, however, that Lord
Viùõu's journey has nothing to do with Mãnàkùã's wedding; there are three other
rather different purposes of his peregrinations — to bestow salvation on an
ascetic who had undertaken severe penance on the hill of Tirumaliruncolai, to
give dar÷ana to the residents of a particular village next to the river Vaikai at the
northern edge of Madurai, and to receive a garland as a gift from the female
saint âõñàë, who comes in image form from her home temple every year to meet
the Lord.
In these modern processions, according to Hudson's descriptions of the
Cittirai festivals of Madurai — or Reiniche's (1985) interpretations of the
processions of Tiruvannamalai or Younger's (2002) analysis of the Païku−i
festival of Srirangam — the nature of movement suggests that the significance
of the temple procession lies in its definition of the deity's relations with the
territory and society of the region where he dwells, including interactions with
other gods and goddesses resident in the area. The procession, in this
interpretation, is expressive of — and constitutive of — sovereignty over the
god's realm, the recognition and incorporation of people of various castes and
neighbourhoods as subjects of the Lord, and the articulation of relationships
with other divine beings in the locality. The conduct and route of the procession
is also a means through which human rivalries and hierarchies are articulated
442 Leslie C. Orr

and negotiated, as patrons claim the right to have the procession pass by their
homes, or to participate in the procession and to display their status in other
neighbourhoods (Mines 1996, 67-83; Good n.d., chapter 13). The pattern of the
journey of Viùõu of Alagarkoyil temple, for example, has changed over time, as
different castes and communities have asserted their right to receive the Lord
(Kaali 1999, 154-57). The highly political character of South Indian processions
in colonial and modern times has meant that they have provided the context for
overt conflict and violence on numerous occasions (Good 1999; Peterson 2001).
In contrast to the modern temple procession's outward trajectory — and
mapping out of spatialities that are "saturated with relations of power" (Kaali
1999, 161-62) — the procession described in the early devotional poetry presents
an image of in-gathering and inclusivism. God is strongly identified with a
particular place, and has a magnetic attraction that draws pilgrims towards
him. These poems are focussed on the devotee's experience — the experience of
longing to go and see the Lord, the sense of anticipation and excitement in
joining the company of devotees journeying to the Lord's dwelling place, the
wonder of arriving at the magnificent temple town and partaking of God's
beauty and grace.
What has actually changed between the sixth century and the twenty-first
century, and why? In the processions described by the bhakti poets, it seems that
the devotees move inward to the temple, while later the god moves outward.
Earlier, the god was encountered within his shrine — amidst the throngs of his
worshippers, human and divine — while in our times he gives dar÷ana in the
streets, singling out the preeminent for special favour. The devotional literature
shows the deity as a pervading presence in his particular place, while the
modern Lord goes in procession in order to demarcate space and establish
sovereignty.

Processions in-between: the Chola period temple and its

everyday rituals
My focus in the present essay is on an historical period that lies in between the
time of the bhakti poets, on the one hand, and our own times, on the other. My
effort will be to envision the temple procession of medieval Tamilnadu, in the
period of the ninth to fourteenth centuries, in what is loosely referred to as the
Chola period. For such an investigation, we are fortunate in having at hand
sources that allow us a glimpse through the eyes of several different kinds of
participants. The multitude of beautiful bronze processional images — øaiva,
Vaiùõava, Jain, and Buddhist — that were produced during this period and that
have survived until today allow us to see the gods as they were seen by those
who witnessed their processions, while the Sanskrit ritual handbooks, the
âgamas, which were utilized in South Indian temples provide another
perspective, and the Tamil inscriptions engraved on the stone walls of the
temples yet another. I propose to rely primarily on the evidence of the
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 443

inscriptions.3 The inscriptions that I have examined for this undertaking appear
on the walls of øaiva, Vaiùõava, and Jain temples, throughout Tamilnadu, and it
should be noted that there is a remarkable consistency in the ways that
processions are referred to regardless of regional or sectarian context. The stone
inscriptions are almost entirely records of donations, and serve both as legal
documents sanctioning the terms of the transfer of property and as public
declarations of the generosity of the donor, whose munificence was designed to
support various kinds of activities in the temple. The inscriptions document
some of the actual arrangements relating to processions that were made in
medieval temples. In the case of these sources, we would expect to find a
reflection of the point of view of the donor, as sponsor of or participant in the
ceremony, or perhaps the perspective of the temple personnel whose
managerial, ritual, or performance skills would be required for the conduct of
the procession. But this is not the case, as we shall see. Surprisingly, the
inscriptions represent God as the central actor.
The first thing that must be acknowledged is that although references to
processions in the Tamil inscriptions are relatively numerous, they are rather
fleeting, almost incidental. It cannot be said that processions are actually
described in the inscriptions. Invariably, processions are mentioned as part of an
account of arrangements being made with reference to other matters — for
example, the provision of food offerings, the donation of an image, the cele-
bration of a festival, or the decree of the temple deity. While gifts to the temple
may have made processions more elaborate or more frequent, it is extremely
rare to find donors playing a role in instituting a procession or contributing
substantially to the re-shaping of an already-existing procession — by altering
its route, for example, or introducing new purposes for the deity's movement.
Most of the processions referred to by the inscriptions are a part of the
temple's daily ritual, rather than periodic festival celebrations — just as most of
the inscriptions more generally are concerned with day-to-day temple affairs.
The daily ÷rãbali ceremony stands out particularly as an occasion for procession.
This ritual receives elaborate treatment in both the øaiva and Vaiùõava Agamic
literature, and although the picture we get from the inscriptions is somewhat

3
This essay is based on epigraphical evidence gathered in two ways. On the one hand, I have
undertaken an intensive examination of all inscriptions (published and unpublished) of the ninth to
early fourteenth centuries at three temples in the Madurai city area (the Mãnàkùã temple,
Tiruparankunram, and Alagarkoyil), at Tiruvidaimarudur and Tiruvisalur (both in Tanjavur
district), at Srirangam and Tiruvanaikkaval (Tiruchirappalli district — surveying also inscriptions
in the vicinity of these two temples), at Kudumiyamalai (also in Tiruchirappalli district), at
Chidambaram and at Udaiyargudi/ Kattumannargudi (both in South Arcot district), at
Tirukkoyilur/ Kilur (also in South Arcot district — surveying also inscriptions at several other
important temple towns in Tirukkoyilur taluk), and at Tiruvannamalai (North Arcot district). A
second strategy has been a more extensive search for inscriptions throughout the Tamil country that
relate to processions. In this case, I have utilized my own databases on temple ritual, temple
servants and performers (prepared for Orr 1999a, 1999b and 2000a), have surveyed the entire
Topographical List of Inscriptions (T.V. Mahalingam, ed.) for Tanjavur district, and have followed up
on numerous references in the secondary literature.
444 Leslie C. Orr

different, it is not inconsistent with what the texts prescribe.4 In this ritual,
which took place three times a day at some temples, a form of the deity, diffe-
rent from the fixed image found in the central shrine, was brought out and,
together with his consort, processed around the temple compound, halting at
several points along the way so that food offerings could be made to the guar-
dian deities of the directions. In a thirteenth-century inscription from Chidam-
baram, for example, we read about the occasion "when [the Lord] graciously
comes forth and receives worship (påjai), as the ørãrudram is recited before the
God of the central shrine (÷rãmålastànam) at the start of the ÷rãbali procession"
(SII 4.631). Details about the exact nature of the images used in the ÷rãbali ritual
are rarely provided by the inscriptions, and references to goddess images are
encountered as often as those to forms of the male deity to whom the temple
was dedicated. At Tirukarugavur, in Tanjavur district, an eleventh-century
record (ARE 400 of 1961-62) identifies the image taken out in the ÷rãbali proces-
sion as Pà÷upatadevar — a standing form of øiva holding the trident and
rosary. Another eleventh-century inscription (ARE 624 of 1920), from Udaiyar-
gudi in South Arcot district, describes the arrangements made for worship and
food offerings to two images of the goddess as the consort of Candra÷ekhara,
one for ÷rãbali and the other for festival processions; in this case, the goddess'
male counterpart would have been a processional image of øiva, standing and
bearing the attributes of the axe and the deer.5 Both Pà÷upatadevar and Candra-
÷ekhara are images that were emblazoned on the trident, or Astraràja, another
form of øiva that had an important role to play in processions, and could have
been used in the ÷rãbali ritual.6 But the paucity of inscriptional references to
÷rãbali images of the central male deity may indicate that the deity was most

4
Most of the inscriptional references to ÷rãbali come from øaiva temples, although they are also
found in the Vaiùõava and even the Jain context (SII 7.1017). Agamic references to daily ÷rãbali,
which is also called nityotsava, "daily festival," are found in the øaiva texts, and in the two bodies of
Vaiùõava literature, the Pà¤caràtra, and Vaikhànasa — see, e.g., Brunner 1967, 36 (Suprabhedàgama
kriyàpàda 13); Rauravàgama kriyàpàda16; Paràrthanityapåjàvidhi, 307-311; references to Pà¤caràtra
texts in Smith 1980, including Pàdma Saühità caryàpàda 5 and ørãpra÷na Saühità 30; and Goudriaan
1970. Descriptions of the daily ÷rãbali in modern South Indian temples are provided by Fuller (1987,
26-27) and Good (n.d., chapter 2).
5
Other inscriptional references to images used in ÷rãbali include a record of the provision made for
ornaments, food offerings, and a perpetual lamp for the ÷rãbali image of Nàcciyàr (øiva's consort) at
Tiruvannamalai (TAM 86, AD 1180), and the donation by the Chola king Rajaraja I of a golden
image called Koëkaidevar ("the god who takes [offerings]"), to go in procession for ÷rãbali, at the
great temple of Tanjavur (SII 2.1). Dehejia (2002, 84) has identified this image as "a linga set with
five gems," but I am doubtful that a ÷rãbali image would have had such a form.
6
On Chola period images of Candra÷ekhara and Pà÷upatadevar, and their association with the
Astra (trident), see Adic‚am 1970 and 1971, especially 1971, 42. Astradeva is mentioned in an
inscription from Tirupandurai, near Kumbakonam, in the context of a monthly procession on the
new moon day (KTK 68). On the trident form and its role in festivals, see Janaki 1988, 164-65 and
Dehejia 2002, 146-49. In its description of the daily ÷rãbali, the øaiva text Rauravàgama (kriyàpàda
16.1b-5a) says that Astraràja is to be invoked in the liïga made of food, flowers or grain, and that
this liïga is to go on procession with the image (pratimà) either of Candra÷ekara or Pà÷upatadevar.
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 445

often represented in the ritual by a form composed of cooked food or flowers, a

possibility that is suggested by the Agamic texts.7
What did the daily ÷rãbali procession look like? It is interesting that it is in
this context that we find what is apparently the one and only inscriptional
reference to the use of elephants in temple processions in the early medieval
period: a tenth-century record from Tiruvamattur in South Arcot district refers
to the employment of an elephant to carry the ÷rãbali offerings (SII 8.739).8
Elsewhere, we find no mention of special conveyances used in the procession to
transport either deities or offerings. In some cases, we find that men were
employed to carry lamps and incense, and there is one reference to women
singing.9 But the most important participants in the ÷rãbali procession were

7
Not only does the øaiva text Rauravàgama speak of the representation of the central deity of the
temple in a form made of food, flowers or grain (see note 6 above), but this is an option mentioned
by the Pà¤caràtra Pàdma Saühità (caryàpàda 5.4-6), where Viùõu may be invoked in rice or flowers,
if an image is not going to be used in the daily ÷rãbali ritual. From Goudriaan (1970, 211-12) we learn
that the earlier Vaikhànasa literature — for example, Kà÷yapasaühità — does not refer to an image
(balibera) for use in the daily ÷rãbali, as do the later texts, but regards the bali offering itself as a
manifestation of Viùõu.
8
Elephants are referred to by the inscriptions of our period in a royal context — particularly in
copper-plate inscriptions, we read of elephants conveying the king's orders and marking out a
parcel of land which was being presented as a royal gift. War elephants are often mentioned in
pra÷astis (Tamil meykkãrttis), the poetic, if rather formulaic, descriptions of the exploits and
attainments of the ruling king that often serve as a preface to the "business" part of the inscription.
But, apart from the Tiruvamattur inscription, I know of no inscriptional references to the gift of
elephants to a temple, or the presence of elephants in temple ceremonies, earlier than the fifteenth
century, when we find a record at Srirangam mentioning the participation of elephants in a car
festival (AD 1434; SII 24.329). In the subsequent period, and up until the present, elephants seem to
have become essential elements in religious processions of all kinds. By the early eighteenth
century, for example, the authorities at the Srirangam temple and those in charge of the nearby
tomb of the Muslim saint Hazarat Nathar Wali had made arrangements to coordinate the timing of
festival celebrations, so that they could share the same elephants and festival paraphernalia (Bayly
1989, 117, 162-63). In the Agamic texts, some of which would have been contemporary with the
inscriptions of the earlier period, we see elephants mentioned in the context of festivals, but their
use seems to have been optional. So, for example, both the Rauravàgama (kriyàpàda 18.114) and the
Pàdma Saühità (caryàpàda 11.198) describe the conveyance of the deity during the "hunting festival"
on either an elephant or a horse — although the Chola period inscriptions do not indicate that
horses were used any more than elephants. The øaiva Mahotsavavidhi, in describing the carrying of
earth in procession as a preliminary to the annual festival, says it may be borne by temple
attendants (paricàrakas), by màhe÷varas, by temple women (rudragaõikàs), by elephants, or by other
animals; elsewhere, this text shows the use of a whole range of "mounts" for the deity — swings,
cars, palanquins, and other vehicles, as well as horses and elephants — in the context of the pariveùa
or "perambulation ceremony" (Davis, trans.; see also Paràrthanityapåjàvidhi, 281-82; Barazer-Billoret
1999, 139-43).
9
References to men bearing lamps and incense are found in two tenth century inscriptions, one
from Udaiyargudi in South Arcot district (SII 19.62) and the other from Kuttalam, Tanjavur district
(SII 13.170 — transl. in Orr 2000a, 91). The reference to women singing is quite a bit later, dating
from the fourteenth century (SITI 525, Tiruvorriyur, Chingleput district). Women's dance as an
element of the ÷rãbali procession evidently developed in even more recent times, and is more
characteristic of the festival context than daily ÷rãbali; particularly noteworthy in this connection is
the performance by temple women, in the last several centuries, of the navasandhi kautvam, a dance
performed at each of the places where bali offerings are made within the temple courtyard, in the
eight directions and the centre (Janaki 1988, 167-75; Kersenboom 1987, 44, 61, 117, 170 n126; Orr
2000a, 103-106, 234 n11-12). The Agamic literature dealing with daily ÷rãbali usually refers in a
446 Leslie C. Orr

drummers. These performers, called uvaccar, are very frequently encountered in

the inscriptions, often in bands of five or seven men charged with "beating
÷rãbali." So essential were drummers to the conduct of this ritual, as well as to
other temple processions, that when the uvaccar of the temple at Tiruvilangudi
(in Pudukkottai) emigrated, in the early eleventh century, the ÷rãbali ceremony
— and all other processions — had to be suspended completely; the inscription
records the provision for support of a new group of five drummers and a conch
player, so that these services could be resumed, after the lapse of a year (IPS 89).
The central role of drummers in the ÷rãbali procession leads me to believe that
other daily rituals in which drummers were employed also may have had a
processional component. In a tenth-century inscription from Kuttalam, for
example, we see that a group of twelve uvaccar were given the responsibility of
performing not only at ÷rãbali, but "at the time of the sacred bath, and at the
times of the food offerings, bhåtabali, ... late night service, and early morning
service" (SII 13.170 — see trans. in Orr 2000a, 90). Certainly the last two of these
occasions would have involved processions — at night, when images of the god
and goddess would be taken to the temple's "bedchamber," and, in the morning,
when they were "awakened" and returned to their daytime abodes. It seems
that the round of daily ritual provided numerous occasions for processions
within the temple.
The inscriptions also indicate that some temples had weekly processions;
these, like the daily processions, seem to have been "inside processions," around
the temple compound, and — interestingly — most often featured the goddess.
For example, a twelfth-century inscription from Elvanasur (in South Arcot
district; SII 22.165) records an endowment of land to provide for what would be
necessary when TiruppaëëiyaŸai àëuñaiyàë (the "bedchamber goddess")
"graciously comes forth (puŸampe e×untaruëi) every Sunday, to listen to [the
hymn] Tiruccà×al and receive food offerings, and to circumambulate the temple
(koyillai cå×al e×untaruëi)." 10 An eleventh-century inscription (ARE 234 of 1961-62)
from the temple at Sivapuram, in Chingleput district, gives us a glimpse of the
various personnel who might have been involved in a Sunday procession — "[a
priest] who performs worship, six assistants to the priest (màõikaë), twenty-four
temple women (patiyàr), the àcàrya, a musician to play the vãõà, and one to play
the small drum (uñukkai), a man to sing hymns (tiruppatiyam), twenty drummers
(uvaccar), and four men to carry garlands."

general way to music, song, and dance as part of the proceedings, but rarely specifies the identities
of the performers. The Rauravàgama seems to indicate that the performer of the "dance of the
directions" (di÷ançtta) is a woman — a courtesan (gaõikà) — (kriyàpàda 16.17b cf. 19.7b-8), but the
Pàdma Saühità's extended account of the rhythms and dance-gestures to be used in daily ÷rãbali
suggests that the performer is a paricàraka, a male temple servant (caryàpàda 5.16-45).
10
Sunday processions of TiruppaëëiyaŸai àëuñaiyàë also took place at nearby Kilur, according to
another inscription of the twelfth century (SII 7.913), and — far to the south, in Madurai district —
at Kiranur, as recorded in an inscription of the early thirteenth century (SII 5.276).
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 447

Festivals: the god at home and abroad

Processions were a part of annual and monthly festivals, as well, although — in
contrast to modern festival processions — the movement of the deity usually
took place within a very circumscribed area. As in the daily and weekly
processions, the gods emerged from their shrines and made their way to
mandapas and altars within the temple compound. The inscriptions' accounts
of festival processions focus on the food, bathing, and adornment provided for
the deities as they stopped in their progress around the temple. For example, at
Elvanasur, we have the fourteenth-century record of a merchant whose gift of
land was intended to provide for the expenses involved when, "on the festival
day, the Lord (mutaliyàr) having been awakened (tiruva−antal e×untaruëi) comes
forth in procession (e×untaruëi iruntu) to the àsthàna maõóapam, where he
graciously allows himself to be bathed (tãrttam prasàdittu aruëi), and for the
expenses when he comes forth in the evening on that same day and goes out for
the procession (tiruppava−ikku àññiyaruëa) and receives food offerings,
adornments and unguents, including rose-water, musk, camphor, kumkum,
sandal paste, blue lotus garlands, and white lotus garlands, and for the expense
of lamps when [the Lord] makes his procession (tiruvulà ceytaruëa) inside the
temple walls (tirumàëikai)" (SII 22.160).
The occasions for monthly festivals were the first of the month (caïkranti)
or the day of the new moon (amàvàsya), or particular asterisms (nakùatras)
associated with the birthday of a donor — these birthday festivals were
established in the thirteenth century by the kings of the Pandya dynasty at
many temples throughout the Tamil country.11 Annual festivals were celebrated
at various times of year in different temples. In some cases, the medieval
inscriptions describe festivals that are still celebrated today — for example,
Chidambaram's festival in the month of Màci, with its procession to the sea, or
Srirangam's festival in the month of Païku−i which then, as now, drew many
pilgrims to the temple — but at other temples, like those in and around
Madurai, the yearly festival calendar, and festive activities, appear to have
undergone major transformations in the course of the last thousand years.12

11
Sethuraman (1987, 22-24) maintains that Chola kings, too, instituted monthly temple festivals to
mark their birthdays, but it in fact appears that on the few occasions when the Chola king's nakùatra
was celebrated, this was done by arranging for an additional service in the context of an already-
established observance on that day. For example, a record issued by the temple authorities of
Tiruvenkadu (SII 5.976) informs the inhabitants of local villages that they are to provide for the
expenses of a special food offering when the deity goes in procession at the monthly bathing festival
on âyileyam, which is the birth-star of Virarajendra.
12
The medieval inscriptions from the Mãnàkùã temple in Madurai mention festivals taking place in
the months of Màrka×i, Aippaci, and âvaõi; only the last of these appears to have continued up to the
present. The Cittirai festival seems to have been instituted by the Nayaka kings in the seventeenth
century — perhaps drawing on an earlier celebration of Mãnàkùã's marriage that took place in the
month of Màci, but developing the processional routes and rituals in an entirely new way, as the
rulers of Madurai laid down new streets, renovated and expanded the temples of their city, and
built their palaces (Census 1961 vi, 134; Hudson 1982; Howes 2003, 68). The Alagarkoyil inscriptions
mention festivals in âñi and Aippaci, which remain important, but also mention festivals that have
faded into obscurity, while others have emerged relatively recently — including Viùõu's "Journey
448 Leslie C. Orr

In most of the inscriptions referring to festivals, there is no mention of

processions. Most often these records concern themselves with food offerings
for the deity — and providing food for pilgrims and devotees — with bathing
the god's image (tiruma¤canam, tãrttam), and adorning it (càttu). Other festival
arrangements frequently mentioned include the provision of lamps, garlands,
and banners, and the singing of hymns. It is clear that some of these special
observances would require the deity to emerge from his central shrine, and
therefore would likely involve the movement of a festival icon, but no
preparation or procedure for this coming forth is specified. When the
inscriptions do refer explicitly to processions, as we have seen, these seem most
often to have as their setting the interior spaces of the temple compound. But
sometimes the inscriptions tell us about the god's movement outside the temple
precincts, into the streets around the temple or his conveyance in a temple car
(ter). For example, a thirteenth-century inscription from Alagarkoyil records the
order of the deity, which was issued as he listened to the hymns of "our"
Cañakopa− (Nammà×vàr), while seated in the car named Amaittanàràyaõa−, in
Tiyàka¤ciriyà− street, on the ninth day of the âñi wedding festival (ARE 14 of
1931-3).13 The number of inscriptional references to the temple car is small, and

Festival" in Cittirai (Census 1961 vi, 108; Hudson 1982). At the great øaiva temple of Tiruvannamalai,
the major festival in the month of Kàrttikai has long been celebrated, judging from the evidence of
the inscriptions, but other festivals that are important today, like those in Màci, Tai, and âñi appear
to be more modern — the last of these having been established as recently as the nineteenth century
(L'Hernault and Reiniche 1999, 156). At Srirangam, the Païku−i festival has endured, but the
celebrations that formerly took place in the month of Aippaci are no longer observed; meanwhile
the Adhyayanotsava in Màrka×i, which attracts the largest number of visitors to the temple, has
taken shape from the fifteenth century onwards (Census 1961 ii, 196; Younger 2002, 51-57, 80-94).
Chidambaram's modern festivals include the early medieval celebrations in Màci and Tai, but today
the great festivals in Màrka×i and â−i are more important. Younger (1995, 66-67) maintains that
these two latter festivals — with their royal and cosmic symbolism — were established, or took on
their present form, under the influence of the Chola court, but there is little epigraphical evidence
for this. I believe that the only inscription at Chidambaram that mentions either of these festivals is
SII 4.223 (AD 1039 — trans. Orr 2000a, 121-22), which records an endowment by the aõukkiyar
("intimate," mistress) of Rajendra Chola, covering a number of expenditures including several
festivals. For the festival in Màrka×i, food offerings for the deity were arranged for, as well as food
for the màhe÷varas (devotees) and gold and sacred cloths (parivaññam) to be distributed, and in â−i,
the provision was for food offerings to the deity and the distribution of cloths. I do not see the hand
of the king here, nor anything particularly "imperial" — or novel — about these festival
arrangements. It is interesting that the inscription makes no mention of a procession, although this
is a prominent feature in the celebration of these two festivals today (cf. Younger 1995, 55, 59).
13
The term used for wedding or marriage is kaõõàlam. References to the marriage of the deity are
very rare. One which is quite similar to the Alagarkoyil inscription is from Tirukannapuram in
Tanjavur district (thirteenth century; ARE 503 of 1922): in this case, the Lord, together with his
consorts, listens to the hymns of Nammà×vàr seated in a mandapa within the temple rather than in
the temple car, and the occasion is the fifth day of the marriage festival in the month of Cittirai. The
only other references to marriage within the context of a festival that I have come across are from
the temple dedicated to Viùõu at Tirumokur, in Madurai district (ARE 334 of 1918), where the
wedding procession took place in the month of Màrka×i, and from the øaiva temple at
Brahmadesam (South Arcot district) which refers to an image of the goddess used in marriage
festivals (twelfth century; ARE 192 of 1918). It is perhaps significant that three of these four
references to marriage festivals come from Vaiùõava temples. In the Agamic literature, as well, there
seems more interest in this ritual on the Vaiùõava side, where it is treated at some length in various
Pà¤caràtra texts (including ørãpra÷na Saühità 26.1-35, Pàdma Saühità kriyàpàda 30.1-37, and
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 449

those that we have most often resemble this one, in which the car appears to be
"parked" in the street just outside the temple — resembling a semi-mobile
mandapa more than a mode of transport.
But at times the god's festival procession took him further afield; there are
two occasions for leaving the vicinity of the temple that are particularly
mentioned in the medieval inscriptions. The first is a trip to a river or other
body of water, for a special festival bath — as in the case, for example, of the
Lord of Chidambaram's procession to the sea. References to processions to the
sea (kañal, tuŸai) come not only from Chidambaram, but from Tiruvendipuram
to the north of Chidambaram (South Arcot district; ARE 93 of 1943-44) and
Tiruvidaikali to the south (Tanjavur district; ARE 269 of 1925). Inscriptions from
these temple towns, all of which are within ten miles of the ocean (the Bay of
Bengal), describe the laying out of roads and the establishment of gardens and
mandapas where the deity stops for food-offerings or to receive his ritual bath.
More surprising is the mention at Tiruvannamalai of a procession to the sea
(TAM 40); the fact that this place is over sixty miles from the ocean suggests
that the "sea" was perhaps in this case a tank, of which there are many in Tiru-
vannamalai (Reiniche 1985, 107). Elsewhere, the inscriptions' references to
processions to rivers for festival bathing most often occur in the context of des-
cribing a gift of land which was to be used for making a road leading from the
temple to the river, and give us few details of the festival or procession itself.
The second occasion mentioned by the inscriptions when the god went
forth from the temple in procession was during the "hunting festival"
(tiruveññai). The hunting festival, like the bathing ritual, was one of the events
that could be incorporated into a number of different annual festivals.14 For

Viùõutilaka Saühità 7.584-603 — summarized in Smith 1975), while it is mentioned fleetingly in only
two øaiva texts, Ajitàgama and Mahotsavavidhi (Barazer-Billoret 1999, 205-6).
14
The øaivàgamas, as well as the Vaiùõava âgamas, both Pà¤caràtra and Vaikhànasa, indicate that
a procession to a tãrtha for bathing is to take place on the last day of a nine- or ten-day festival, while
the hunting festival (mçgayàtra, mçgayotsava) should be scheduled for the preceding day. The
ørãpra÷na Saühità, however, describes the hunting festival not as part of an annual festival, but as an
independent celebration which was instituted by Lord Viùõu so that the vànaprasthas (forest
"hermits") would have the opportunity to encounter him. The bathing ritual involves the procession
of the trident or cakra, as embodiments of øiva and Viùõu respectively, to the tãrtha, where
worshippers participate in the bathing. It seems an essential component of festival celebrations. But
the hunting festival is not treated at all, or only in passing, in many Agamic texts, leading some
scholars to suggest that it was a later addition to, or regional adaptation of, the basic festival
structure (Colas 1996, 326-27; Barazer-Billoret 1999, 156-63). Among the texts that do provide some
detail about this procession, there are some common themes: the deity is mounted on a horse
(Pàdma Saühità and Rauravàgama mention an elephant as an alternative) and, surrounded by armed
attendants, enters the forest (Pàdma Saühità caryàpàda 11.180-201a; Màrkaõóeya Saühità 22.60-64a;
ørãpra÷na Saühità 43.1-23; Rauravàgama kriyàpàda 18.108-136; Kàraõàgama I.141.193-97 cited by Bhatt
in Rauravàgama; Mahotsavavidhi "pariveùa" section). The Rauravàgama and Kàraõàgama mention that
øiva in this procession may have the form of Tripuràntaka, and refer to the slaying or capture of
wild animals in the course of this ritual. The Vaiùõava texts depict the proceedings as unrolling in a
more measured and sedate fashion; the emphasis is more on the Lord's sojourn in the forest, seated
within a mandapa or beneath a tree. In the fifteenth-century Viråpàkùa-vasantotsava-campu,
describing the spring festival of Lord Viråpàkùa of Vijayanagara, we have a poetic depiction of the
hunting festival, which features the god as both hunter and king, but stresses even more the
romantic aspect of the Lord's stay in the forest, where he dallies with celestial maidens, much to the
450 Leslie C. Orr

example, several thirteenth-century inscriptions from Kudumiyamalai, in the

former Pudukkottai state, tell us that the deity went down the street in
procession to the tiruveññaittoppu (grove of the sacred hunt) on festival days in
the months of Màrka×i, Màci, and Païku−i; on each of these occasions, lamps
were provided for the street and food was offered to the deity when he took his
place in the mandapa in the grove (IPS 291 and 301). While in principle the
deity was supposed to go to the forest on this expedition, in practice it appears
that special gardens, perhaps not so far distant from the temple, were created
for this purpose. In at least one case, the hunting procession went to the river:
an eleventh-century record from Marangiyur (South Arcot district; ARE 80 of
1935-36) describes the arrangements for a special service of expiation that had
to be performed by the Brahman assembly as a result of the unfortunate
damage suffered by the image of the god at the river bank during the course of
the hunting festival.15 Although in many respects the inscriptional represen-
tation of the hunting festival differs from what we find in the Agamas — the
inscriptions do not show us gods mounted on horses, bearing royal or military
insignia — the injury to the Lord described in this record from Marangiyur may
indicate something of a shared spirit with what is found in a text like
Rauravàgama, where the appropriate procession is one in which throngs of
worshippers "of all classes" set off, with loud shouts and at break-neck speed, to
accompany the image of the deity into the forest.

Who's on parade?: comings and goings

It is difficult to determine, on the basis of the medieval inscriptions, precisely
who participated in festival processions. As was the case for daily or weekly
processions, drummers seem to have been important figures, but beyond that,
the character of the deity's entourage remains obscure. There are a few
references to men charged with the duty of bearing flags or lamps, or carrying
the god (at Chidambaram, ARE 325 of 1958-59; at Udaiyargudi, ARE 608 of
1920; Madras Museum Plates [SII 3.128]; at Tiruvadavur, ARE 483 of 1962-63).
On rare occasions, we encounter an indication that musicians, singers, or
dancers accompanied the deity in procession. One such reference, from the
early eleventh century, suggests that there was an exchange of personnel
between øaiva and Vaiùõava temples: at Dadapuram in South Arcot district, the
sister of the Chola king Rajaraja I, Kuntavai, ordered that the thirty-two temple
women (taëiccerippeõñukaë), the àcàrya, the drummer, and the musicians of the

annoyance of the goddess left at home in his temple (Anderson 1993, 183-89). This erotic mood also
characterizes the hunting festival as it is celebrated today at Srirangam (Vasudha Narayanan,
personal communication).
15
In addition to the references to processions as part of hunting festivals from Kudumiyamalai and
Marangiyur, there are mentions at Tiruvannamalai (TAM 31); Srirangam (SII 24.69); Chidambaram
(SII 12.245); Allur (SII 8.681) and Tirunedungulam (SII 13.42), both in Tiruchirappalli district;
Peravur in Tanjavur district (ARE 11 of 1925); and Tirumokur (ARE 334 of 1918) and Tiruvadavur
(ARE 470 of 1962-63), both in Madurai district. Many of these inscriptions record arrangements for
food offerings, and mention the deities' sojourn in a garden or grove. References to bathing
processions are frequently encountered in the inscriptions of Tanjavur district, where the deity is
taken to the Kaveri or Kollidam rivers.
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 451

øiva temple she had built were to be responsible for singing, dancing, and
attendance both at øiva's hunting festival, and in the festival procession of the
deity enshrined in the Viùõu temple in the same village (ARE 14 of 1919).16
The only participants who are really highlighted in epigraphical
descriptions of the festival procession are those who have paid for the honour
of attending on the deity. A thirteenth-century inscription from Vedaranyam in
Tanjavur district (SII 17.543) shows us how a donor was rewarded for his gifts
to the temple by being granted the privilege of rendering "special service"
(parici−−am paõimàŸavum) when the deity went in procession (tiru ulà).
Elsewhere, we learn that the right to carry the deities in procession was
conferred upon a man who had made a number of generous gifts to the temple
(Tukkacci, Tanjavur district; AD 1239; ARE 1 of 1918). But the major players in
this game were temple women, who made deals with various temples that
allowed them to participate in festival processions. For example, at the Sunda-
ravarada Perumàë temple of Uttaramerur, in the early thirteenth century, we
find a temple woman (emperumà−añiyàë) rewarded for her sponsorship of
numerous repairs to the temple with the following privilege: "that on every
occasion when the god goes forth in the temple car on festival days in this
temple, she will stand at the front of the car and wave the flywhisk, holding
onto the top of the car, the little girls [of her family] to be seated on the upper
platform of the car, while other relatives stand behind and perform flywhisk
service" (ARE 180 of 1923; cf. also ARE 183 of 1923). At Tirupampuram
(Tanjavur district), also in the early thirteenth century, a temple woman
(tevarañiyàë) who had donated several images to the temple was granted the
right to participate in the "waking" ceremony of the Lord, to have an important
place in the hunting procession, and to sing part of the hymn "Tiruvempàvai" at
the festival in the month of Màrka×i (NK 139). At Nallur in South Arcot district,
again in the same period of the late twelfth and early thirteenth century, we see
the temple authorities making an outright sale of such privileges to a number of
temple women (tevarañiyàr) — the rights to sing "Tiruvempàvai," to dance the
càkkai dance, to be first in the hunting procession, and to ride in the temple car
(ARE 143, 144, 149, 160, 161, 176 of 1940-41).17

16
The inscriptions' general failure to mention the activities of the àcàrya in festival observances
contrasts with the focus on the importance of this figure in the Agamic texts (see Davis' introduction
to his translation of Mahotsavavidhi). Furthermore, the Dadapuram inscription — one of the few
records which does in fact show us an àcàrya or priestly participant in a procession — represents an
arrangement that would be quite unseemly from the Agamic perspective, with its assumption that
an àcàrya initiated and trained in the øaiva tradition would be qualified (or willing) to serve Viùõu
as well.
17
By the time we get to the later part of the fourteenth century, such rights start to become the
source of disputes among temple servants more generally, and in the wider community as well. The
conflicts involved in the organization of different groups of temple women with respect to their
privileges, including those relating to participation in "outside processions," are documented in a
series of inscriptions from Tiruvorriyur, dated from 1342 to 1371 (ARE 195, 196, 208, 212 of 1912).
The "temple honours" system as such (described, for example, in Appadurai and Breckenridge
1976), which is especially elaborated within the framework of temple festivals and processions, is
more characteristic of the late pre-colonial and colonial periods than of the period surveyed in this
essay. The activities of temple women in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in making "deals"
452 Leslie C. Orr

Apart from these patrons who paraded their privileged status, it is hard to
catch a glimpse in the inscriptions of other members of the god's entourage as
he moved outside the temple gates in procession. On the other hand, we have a
very striking impression of the movement into the temple of visitors who came
to celebrate the festival. The context in which the presence of such visitors
becomes evident is in the arrangements made for feeding them during the
festival. We have numerous inscriptions which describe the feeding of
Brahmans, devotees, màhe÷varas, ÷rãvaiùõavas, ascetics, and pilgrims (apårvis —
those "not seen" before). Frequently these people are explicitly described as
being from other lands (parade÷i, de÷àntri), or having come to worship at the
time of the festival. The numbers of visitors provided for is in some cases
impressively large. In the Mãnàkùã temple at Madurai, one hundred ascetics
were fed on each of the ten days of the festival in the month of âvaõi (AD 1275;
ARE 278 of 1941-42). At the other end of Tamilnadu, in the north, a tenth
century inscription from Tondaimanad in Chittoor district (SII 8.529) describes
the arrangements made for each of the seven days of the festival (tiruvilà): 200
ascetics of the six schools (samaya), including the ÷rãmahàvratikaë, were to be fed,
as well as 300 Brahmans, and 500 devotees of various samayas. The inscriptions
even mention celestial visitors. A record of the many gifts to the temple of
Tiruvannamalai made by Kopperuncinkadeva, a thirteenth-century chief who
claimed to have succeeded to the Pallava throne, tells us that he provided for
the "paving of the floor with stones quarried from the hill ... which shone with
brilliance in the moonlight ... [allowing] the gods (và−or) whose garlands never
faded, whose eyes did not wink, and whose feet did not touch the earth to
descend and circumambulate (valamvara) the temple." This king also gave "a
fine and wide garden ... intended for the stay of the deity during his summer
processions (v¹−iŸ te−Ÿal viya−), where the celestial beings (imaiyavar) could
worship him" (TAM 208).18

Getting from here to there

The inscriptions show affinities with the earlier bhakti literature — and
dissimilarity with the patterns of more modern times — with respect to the
movement of gods and people in temple processions, and the way that
movement is perceived. Although the inscriptions show us a deity who does
take occasional excursions outside the temple for bathing, enjoying the hunt, or

with the temple in exchange for various privileges, seem to anticipate this later system (see Orr
2000a). It should be noted, however, that honours were attached in the Chola period to individuals,
while in later times, they were understood as being possessed by castes and communities as
hereditary rights.
18
This translation is based on that of P.R. Srinivasan. The presence of celestial beings at earthly
shrines and in temple towns is a motif commonly found in the hymns of the â×vàrs and Nàya−màrs.
We encounter it also in Periya Puràõam, the twelfth-century hagiography of the Nàya−màrs where,
for example, Kanchipuram is described as being filled with huge and lofty mansions connected by
staircases: "Men, women and kin ascend and descend through/ These steps; Devas and Apsaras too
use these steps/ For coming down; so it is hard to tell who/ The celestials are, and who the human
beings are" (v. 1173, trans. T.N. Ramachandran). The âgamas, too, in outlining the procedures for
preparing for a festival, insist that the gods must be invited.
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 453

resting in his garden, accompanied by an entourage, most of the god's

processions take place within or before the temple gates. Meanwhile, pilgrims
and patrons, devotees and divinities, come from afar, move around the temple,
and enter its interior spaces, in order to draw near to the Lord who is present in
this place. Conspicuous by their absence are epigraphical references to the god's
circular movement outside the temple compound — the type of trajectory that
may be interpreted as a demarcation of the Lord's domain, and which seems
integral to the character of modern temple processions. I have found only a
single such reference — in a twelfth-century inscription from Seyyur, in
Chingleput district, which records the arrangements for the Lord to make
pradakùiõa around the village (gràma), "as prescribed in the ÷àstras," at the time of
the festivals in the months of Màci and Païku−i (SII 8.39).19 Indeed, the Agamic
texts do hold that such a circumambulation — around the temple or the village
— should be a regular part of festival observances.20
But the festival processions we read about in the inscriptions do not fulfill
this ritual requirement — this encompassing — which not only maps the deity's
realm, but symbolizes his sovereignty over the entirety of the universe (Barazer-
Billoret 1999, 148; see also Reiniche 1985, 111 and Reiniche 1989, 66-67). While
the circumambulation of the "inside" processions described in the inscriptions
— and especially the ÷rãbali procession — certainly carries something of this
significance, the "outside" procession depicted in the inscriptions seems to be
more goal-oriented in a linear sense, with specific aims and purposes. It is
actually a means to an end, a transportational exercise. At Chidambaram, for
instance, provisions were made for the offering of cakes to the Lord at the
halting places (tirukkañci) in the course of his procession through the sacred
street (tiruvãti) called Ràcàkkaëtampirà− on his way to the shrine of
Vinàyakapiëëaiyàr (Gaõe÷a), east of the temple (AD 1279; SII 12.245). Food
offerings were also the concern for a temple woman of Uyyakondan Tirumalai,
near Tiruchirappalli, who wished to make arrangements for the god øiva on the
festival day of Vaikàci, when the Lord departed from his place within the
Rajendraco×a− pavilion and went to the west of the village, to the Iràma river,
where he was seated in the bathing maõóapa called Jaóaimeliruntàë, and subse-
quently made his way back to the tiruvºlakkam (assembly hall) (AD 1142; ARE
435 of 1961-62). Another inscription that tells us something about processional
routes is from Tiruvidaimarudur, where the Chola king Kulottunga III ordered,
in 1193, that henceforth the deity's procession was to leave from the east gate of
the temple, rather than the south, on a new street which would be laid out on

19
This rare inscriptional reference to the authority of sacred texts in the conduct of festival rituals
finds an interesting counterpart in a tenth-century record (SII 5.588) from Tillasthanam, near
Tanjavur, giving the decree of a royal officer that the temple authorities were to be guided in their
performance of the festival in the month of Vaikàci by what had earlier been engraved on the
temple walls.
20
See, e.g., Rauravàgama and Mahotsavavidhi, passim; Màrkaõóeya Saühità 25.52; Paramasaühità 22.28;
Colas 1996, 333-34. But, as Barazer-Billoret (1999, 56-57) points out, the texts are extremely imprecise
about the circumambulatory route the procession is to take, and if they refer to streets at all — e.g.,
the vàstuvithi (encircling the village) or the maïgalavithi (the four streets surrounding the temple) —
they do so in a confused and inconsistent fashion.
454 Leslie C. Orr

land formerly part of the palace grounds; the main palace gate was to be
constructed on the north side of the new street, and the residences formerly on
the south side of the temple were to be taken over and replaced by a flower
garden and grove (SII 23.288). This new processional street does not go around
the temple or the town, but runs between the temple and the palace.21 The kind
of procession that is suggested here is one in which the deity is conveyed
straight out from the temple gates into the town — possibly with a further
destination in mind, or perhaps simply to occupy the street in front of the
palace in a display of divine majesty before returning to the temple.
This kind of go-and-come-back procession is precisely what we see in the
car festival (rathotsava) of Lord Viråpàkùa of Vijayanagara, as it is described in
the fifteenth-century Viråpàkùa-vasantotsava-campu (Anderson 1993, 175-80).
Here, the street is lined with multitudes of devotees as the deities emerge from
the temple and mount the car, which is pulled to its destination at the end of the
street; for the return journey, the ropes are simply attached to the back of the
car, and the deities turned around to face the temple.22 In Tamil literature of the
Chola period we also see signs that this processional pattern was prevalent,
both in the case of the royal processions depicted in the poems known as ulàs,
and in the descriptions of temple towns found in Periya Puràõam, the twelfth-
century hagiography of the Nàya−màrs, where temple streets (tiruvãti) are
rarely mentioned, but when they are — for example at Chidambaram — they
seem to radiate from rather than to encircle the temple.23 The notion that a
processional street was at times a kind of stage upon which the deity presented
himself is suggested by an inscription of the early thirteenth century from

21
Processional streets linking palace and temple were constructed in the sixteenth century at
Udaiyarpalaiyam (Reiniche 1985, 84-91), at Madurai in the seventeenth century (Howes 2003, 68),
and at Kalugumalai in the mid-nineteenth century (Good n.d., chapter 1).
22
The archaeological evidence at Vijayanagara suggests that this poetic account is quite accurate:
not only the Viråpàkùa temple, but all the major temple complexes have monumental processional
streets leading straight outward from the temple enclosure, and not concentric streets around the
four sides of the temple (Phillip Wagoner, personal communication).
23
Periya Puràõam describes in some detail the visits of Cuntarar (vv. 243-256), Appar (vv. 1426-
1436), and Campantar (vv. 3035-3043) to the Chidambaram temple. In all three cases, the saints first
come through a gate (vàyil) — for Cuntarar and Campantar it is the north gate, and for Appar the
west — and then proceed down a tiruvãti, where Brahmans dwell, to the entrance (kºpuram) in the
temple wall (màëikai). In the account of Cuntarar's entry, we do see a reference to streets
surrounding the ampalam, evidently around the outside of the temple walls, but Cuntarar doesn't
use these streets for his own circumambulation of the shrine, which takes place within the temple
walls. Periya Puràõam, although it is largely an account of pilgrimages to the places sacred to øiva in
the Tamil country, mentions only one other place which has temple streets, and that is Tiruvarur —
doubtless because of the fame of its processional image, Tyàgaràja or Vãtiviñaïka−. This is also the
only place where we see any reference to temple processions, notably (in vv. 1494-1500) the proces-
sion on the Tiruvàtirai festival day described in Appar's hymn (see note 2 above). Periya Puràõam
highlights not the deity's movement, but the processions of the pilgrim-saints, who travel with an
entourage of fellow-devotees, and are greeted with great fanfare wherever they go (see, e.g.,
Appar's return to Tiruvatikai in vv. 1402-1407; Campantar's departure for Madurai, in a bejeweled
palanquin, in vv. 2517ff; Cuntarar's approach to the palace of C¹ramà− Perumàë, mounted on an
elephant, in vv. 4247-4254; and the final episode of Cuntarar and C¹ramà−'s ascension to Kailàsa, in
vv. 4259-4267).
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 455

Achyutamangalam in Tanjavur district (NK 269), recording the arrangements

made with residents to renovate their houses in the new temple street (tiruvãti)
that had been constructed in place of the old one, which had been too narrow
and insufficiently populated. Here it is not simply a question of having
adequate space for the movement of the deity — perhaps mounted in his
wheeled car — into the street, but also having a suitable number of onlookers.24
The image of the god in procession as a motionless god giving a public
audience is reinforced by the way the inscriptions describe the services and
diversions that are presented to the Lord in the course of the festival procession
— he condescends to be adorned, he graciously takes food, he listens to hymns,
he sees a dance performance — as offerings received while the deity is at rest.
The road-building that was required at Tiruvidaimarudur and
Achyutamangalam, as a result of the new arrangements deemed appropriate by
the king or the temple authorities, points toward a significant issue. One of the
reasons that processional routes in medieval Tamilnadu did not conform to
ֈstric norms is that settlements did not in the least resemble the idealized
town-plans of the âgamas or the øilpa÷àstras, in which a mandala or grid
pattern governed the placement of buildings and the lay-out of streets.25 In the
medieval temple town of Tamilnadu, especially in the "wet" regions where rice
was cultivated, residences, commercial areas, gardens, and fields were
interspersed and immediately adjacent to one another (Heitzman 2001, 126-28).
Streets were a problem. Land had to be acquired in order to lay out a street or to
widen it, and many of the inscriptions relating to processions deal with
precisely this issue. The "classic" South Indian temple town — centred on a
shrine surrounded by a series of regular, concentric temple walls and four
processional streets — seems not to have been a feature of Tamilnadu's
landscape in the Chola period, but only emerged in the subsequent era,
particularly from the seventeenth century onward, as a result of the patronage
of the Nayakas and the "little kings" of the Tamil country. These rulers not only
enlarged the scale of many temples — with new walls, gopuras, mandapas,
shrines, tanks, and temple streets — but radically reorganized the cityscape and
altered ritual arrangements in order to strengthen their claim to having a
privileged relationship with the temple deity, bringing into being "a new state-
level culture of kingship and pious patronage" (Bayly 1989, 68). The nature of
the city, and its character as a zone distinctly marked off from the countryside,

24
In the post-Chola period — in the context of the courts of Vijayanagara, the Nayakas, and the
"little kingdoms" — we see a number of examples of the overlapping of the procession and the royal
audience (durbar). The king's entourage in procession was in a sense "a palace in motion"
(Waghorne 1994, 164; see also 7-9, 161-63). In other cases, the king came forth to be seated in state in
the large open area in front of his palace to view a military parade or to be entertained by a
performance of dance or music (Sewell 1962; Narayana Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam 1992,
58-66; Wagoner 1993, 126-28).
25
In fact, the øilpa÷àstras provide for a great variety of different site plans, with various
arrangements of streets and placement of temples (see, e.g., Mayamatam and Vi÷vakarma
Vàstu÷àstram). There are a number of interesting and important questions about the significance of
the ֈstric diagrams and mandalas for actual site planning and building practices that have been
recently debated by, among others, Michell (1992), Bafna (2000), and Howes (2003, 185-91).
456 Leslie C. Orr

was also changed during this period by the increasing fortification of towns and
the settlement of in-migrating populations — including the rulers themselves,
arriving from the north and west (Bayly 1989, 22-27; Narayana Rao, Shulman,
and Subrahmanyam 1992, 86-87; Howes 2003, 190). The new patterns of
patronage, new conceptions of divinity, new mobility and militarization, and
new demarcations of social and sacred space all had an impact on processions
and their meanings.

The politics of processions

The interest on the part of Kulottunga III in the processions of Tiruvidai-
marudur is most unusual, since kings of the Chola dynasty — unlike later
South Indian rulers — generally did not institute changes in temple ritual. And
although the øaiva text Mahotsavavidhi features the king as a participant in the
festival procession, there is no inscriptional evidence indicating that temple
processions included devotees of royal status or of local standing. In contrast to
the practices of more recent times, political hierarchies were evidently not at
stake in the ordering of the medieval festival procession. When the inscriptions
broach the subject of rank and precedence within processions, as we have seen,
privilege belongs to the patron, and not to the one invested with royal power
nor to the local worthy. Nor was the processional route expressive of the right
to recognition claimed by various castes and communities, as it is today. Major
changes in social as well as political structures in the course of the last six
hundred years seem to have altered the ways in which people related to the
temple and its rituals. As corporate and sectarian identities became more fixed
and caste hierarchies more rigid — and as royal patronage of temples became a
means of seizing power by kings and a source of the ritual honours meted out
on the occasion of festivals — temple processions became arenas where political
claims were demonstrated and contested, and the processional route was being
continually renegotiated (Appadurai and Breckenridge 1976, 203-4; Bayly 1989,
46-47, 58-61; Orr 2000a, 176-77). The trajectory of the medieval procession, on
the other hand, was evidently not so wide-ranging nor subject to such
modification. When a procession did depart from the immediate vicinity of the
temple, it was so that the deity could visit a "natural" feature (a river or a grove)
rather than a social entity (a neighbourhood or a village). The fact that the deity
stopped in a mandapa or in a garden which was named after a donor suggests
not so much the deity's movement toward the donor, but rather the donor's
approaching the place of the deity.
The god in procession did not seem to go out of his way to find his special
human devotees, nor did he interact very much with other deities. This presents
a sharp contrast with the ways in which relationships of alliance, dominance
and competition among various divinities within a locale are expressed through
the design of processional routes in modern times (Hudson 1982; Reiniche 1985,
80; Mines 1996, 75-77; Kaali 1999). We have seen that the Chola period
inscriptions include a reference to the visit of the Lord of Chidambaram to
Gaõe÷a's shrine to the east of the temple (AD 1279; SII 12.245), and there is
another record, from Tiruchengattangudi in Tanjavur district, describing the
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 457

construction of a new road so that the image of Gaõe÷a could go in procession

from the mandapa of saint CiŸuttoõñar in the øiva temple to a nearby
brahmadeya village (AD 1197; NK 57). An inscription from Tirumangalam, also
in Tanjavur district, describes the visit of one øiva to the temple of another
during the festival in Vaikàci month (AD 1184; ARE 113 of 1927). The
encounters among deities occasioned by medieval processions seem few and
friendly. The single piece of epigraphical evidence that such relationships may
not have been entirely cordial is found in a thirteenth-century inscription from
the temple dedicated to Viùõu at Akkur, in Tanjavur district, recording a gift of
land for a road to the Kaveri river to be used for the procession of the Lord; this
new road had to be made because the temple authorities at the øiva temple in
the village had refused the use of the tank at their temple for Viùõu's sacred
bath, as had been customary in the past (AD 1230; ARE 231 of 1925). But the
very fact that such processional resources had, up until then, been shared —
like the personnel for the øaiva and Vaiùõava festivals at Dadapuram, as
arranged by the princess Kuntavai — shows that serious sectarian rivalry had
yet to emerge.

Going in procession: the Lord appears

The absence of a strong sectarian spirit seems also to be indicated by the ways
in which the temple deities, who were the central figures in festival
celebrations, were identified by the inscriptions. The inscriptions usually
identify the gods participating in festival processions simply as the "Lord" and
"Lady" (nàyakar and nàcciyàr), or use a local name for the god — in either case,
there is a lack of distinction among øaiva, Vaiùõava and Jain images. It is very
difficult to know what were the precise forms of these festival icons, or to link
the descriptions in the inscriptions of gods in procession with the bronze
images of the gods that we see today in museums, or still under worship in
South Indian temples. I have found only ten inscriptions in which the form of
the image used in festival processions is clear — in three cases, it is øiva as
Nañaràja (âñavallàr).26 It is interesting that the inscriptions generally do not use

26
I am excluding here the few references to ÷rãbali images — for which see the discussion above and
note 5. Processional images of øiva used in annual festivals, apart from Nañaràja, include Candra-
÷ekara, Pà÷upatadevar, èùabhavàhana, and Attiratevar (Astradeva) — each of these forms is
mentioned once, in the context of a festival procession. It is quite remarkable that in the inscriptions
dealing with processions, we find no mention of Somàskanda, although this is the image that is
today used most often in processions in øiva temples, the image specified for festival use in the
Agamic text Mahotsavavidhi, and the image that appears most abundantly among the extant Chola
period bronzes, second only to Nañaràja (L'Hernault 1978, 78). There are two references to Gaõe÷a
(Piëëaiyàr), and an inscription from Tukkacci (AD 1239; ARE 1 of 1918) describes the establishment
of images of øani (Saturn) and Bçhaspati (Jupiter) for processional use. From Shermadevi, in
Tirunelveli district, comes the single reference that I have found to processions in the Vaiùõava
context where one can identify the images mobilized: here is recorded the setting up of Ràma, Sãtà,
and Lakùmaõa, to be taken in procession (AD 1277; ARE 648 of 1916). Note that there are a large
number of inscriptions, which I am not considering here, that refer to the donation of images —
including many goddess images, a large number of Nañaràjas, very few Vaiùõava images, and,
surprisingly, no Somàskandas (unless "Umàsahitar" refers to such images) — where the ritual use of
these images is unspecified. Although some of these must have been processional images, I am
458 Leslie C. Orr

language that distinguishes the processional image from the deity of the central
shrine. Such a distinction would appear to be of particular significance in the
øaiva context, where the central, fixed image (måla mårti) is a øivaliïga, while
the movable, processional image is øiva in anthropomorphic form. The differen-
tiation among various types of images is also an issue in Vaiùõava temples,
where we often see the fixed stone dhruva image in the central shrine accom-
panied by a metal kautuka image, which is the actual object of daily worship,
while other metal images may be used for ÷rãbali, bathing rituals, and festivals;
the Vaiùõava Agamic literature devotes some attention to these image
typologies.27 Yet, in the inscriptions, it is as if these distinctions were irrelevant.
In a related fashion, the inscriptions blur the boundary between stone and metal
images. Precisely the same language is used in describing the establishment of a
stone niche figure or a bronze processional image — except that the inscriptions
almost never tell us what the material of the image actually is, and we can only
figure this out if, for example, the image is said to have been set up "on the
south side of the temple" (where presumably it will stay put), or if, as in the
cases we have been considering, the image will be taken in procession. The
distinction between stone deities installed in shrines and niches and movable
metal images is also made less significant when we consider that festival and
÷rãbali images of gods and goddesses frequently received daily worship (SII
5.707; TAM 86; ARE 624 of 1920).
In the inscriptions, in fact, it would seem that the very idea of "image" is
de-emphasized. The lack of distinction among the different forms the Lord
might take, and the scant use of a vocabulary relating to "images," point to a
perspective in which it is God's pervasive presence at a particular sacred site
that is of primary significance.28 In this regard, the inscriptions accord very
closely with the spirit of the earlier devotional literature. This understanding of
the nature of divine presence is also consistent, generally speaking, with the

excluding them from the present discussion because in most cases it is not clear whether they are
images of metal or stone. The major exceptions to this general rule are the inscriptions at the Great
Temple of Tanjavur (published in SII 2) which provide lengthy descriptions of the precise form and
materials (the weight of gold, etc.) used in the making of metal images presented by Rajaraja I and
members of his court, and the two inscriptions from Tiruvaduturai (ARE 104 and 117 of 1925) that
refer to the gifts of metal images and ornaments by members of the Chola court several years later
(see Dehejia 2002, 82-85 for summaries). Rajeshwari Ghose considers that the names
Dakùiõameruviñankar, Ta¤jaiviñankar, and Mahàmeruviñankar in the Tanjavur inscriptions refer to
Somàskanda, and that the failure of the inscriptions at Tanjavur and elsewhere to make explicit
mention of the Somàskanda image is explained by "cultic taboos against its being exposed to
ordinary mortal eyes" (1996, 302-3). See Barrett 1965 and Thomas 1986 on inscriptions from other
sites which refer to metal images, including ones still extant.
27
Up to eight kinds of images, including the dhruva image, are mentioned in the Pà¤caràtra texts
(e.g. Aniruddha Saühità 15.39-42 and ä÷vara Saühità 17.238-248 — summarized in Smith 1975; Pàdma
Saühità kriyàpàda 19.1-3; ørãpra÷na Saühità 14.1-23) and four or five kinds in the Vaikhànasa
literature (Goudriaan 1970, 166-67; Marãci Saühità, 71-74).
28
The only term for "image" that is found with any regularity in the inscriptions is tirume−i, "sacred
form." It occurs most often, and particularly in Jain contexts, in simple "label" inscriptions — "this
image was set up by donor X." Occasionally the term is also found in expressions indicating the
transfer of merit to a human recipient — "this is given for the tirume−i of Y," i.e. for his well-being.
The word tiru in this case seems to serve as an honorific, and does not indicate royalty or divinity.
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 459

øaiva Siddhànta and ørãvaiùõava theologies of "descent" into image form, which
were being formulated by teachers of these traditions in the same period as the
inscriptions were being engraved on temple walls.29 On the other hand, the
ritual corollaries of these theologies, elaborated in the Agamic literature, seem
to indicate a notion of divine manifestation which is much less immediate than
that proposed by the inscriptions, and more spatially hierarchized, in terms of
the emphasis in the texts on the primacy of the temple's central icon and on the
preparations and qualifications necessary for those who would approach it.30
But it is only in the post-Chola period that rigid demarcations of sacred space,
the insistence on specific iconic identities, and the mapping of divine power
through processional movement became prominent features of temple ritual.
The temple milieu represented by the inscriptions — and to a large extent by
the sectarian literature of the same period — is one in which the sacred site in
its entirety is seen as imbued with the transcendent divine.
The close links between the notion of God's presence — his locational
fixity — and God's activity as an actor in procession — his apparent mobility —
are indicated very clearly through the language used in the inscriptions to refer
to processions. Medieval Tamil inscriptions almost invariably express the act of
going in procession with the verb e×u, to rise, ascend, appear, start out, in
combination with the "benefactive" verbal auxiliary aruë, which signals that this
is the act of a superior being. The term thus produced, e×untaruë, therefore has
the meaning "to graciously come forth" or "to graciously appear." Further verbal
forms may be added to indicate other aspects of the deity's activities. For
instance, returning to the region of Madurai where we started our explorations,
at the beginning of this essay, we have an early fourteenth-century inscription
(ARE 321 of 1929-30) from Alagarkoyil (Tirumaliruncolai) that records the god's
command concerning one of his temple servants, which was made while "he
(A×akar) and his [two] consorts (nàccimàr) were graciously listening to the
hymns of Nammà×vàr (tiruvàymo×i keññaruëaniŸka), having graciously come forth

29
See Narayanan (1985) on the ørãvaiùõava understanding of god's "descent" (avatàra) into the arcà,
or image, and Davis (1991) on emanation or emission (sçùñi) as descent from an absolute state into a
visualized form in the øaiva context.
30
One of the complexities in the Agamic treatment of divine presence is the apparent redundancy
of the daily invocation of the deity (àvàhana), prescribed by both øaiva and Pà¤caràtra texts, in an
image which has already been imbued with divinity at the time it was set up, through the ritual of
consecration (pratiùñhà) (see Brunner 1990 and 1992; Granoff 2000). There is also the question of the
status of the processional image as a complete or partial, permanent or temporary, manifestation of
the divinity inherent in the central temple image. While it may be the case that by undergoing
pratiùñhà a processional image becomes fully divine at the time it first takes its place in the temple
(Davis 1997, 33-34, 223), there is the suggestion in some texts that a "transfer" from the central icon is
required to prepare the image for its festival role — which may or may not produce a temporary
absence of divinity in the central icon — and that the processional image may be regarded as
containing a fraction, rather than the whole, of the divine power present in the central icon (Diehl
1956, 146-48; Goudriaan 1970, 193-94, 208; Brunner in Soma÷ambhupaddhati 2, 282-85; ørãpra÷na
Saühità 33.28-34). The idea that the central image is the primary, generative source of divine
presence — and that access to this source is not open to all — is found in the devotional as well as
ritual texts of the ørãvaiùõava and øaiva teachers (Davis 1991, 62-72; Nayar 1992, 159-67; Hopkins
2002, 188-197, 204-213).
460 Leslie C. Orr

to be seated on the Cetiràya− throne under the ørãkulacekara pantal adorned

with pearls in the Cuntarapàõñiya− Tirumaõñapa." The use of the verb e×u for
"going in procession" gives it an active sense; the noun forms ulà and pava−i are
rarely encountered.31 But more importantly, this usage underscores the agency
of the deity. It is he — and not the priests or patrons, or his servants — who
makes the procession happen.
But the compound verb e×untaruë is most often found in another context,
where it also refers to the action of a deity. The god, in this case, "appears" in
image form. Virtually every inscriptional reference to the donation or setting up
of the image of a deity or saint uses this language, with the addition of a
causative verbal form (usually vitta), so that the sense of the phrase is: "the
donor caused the deity to appear." The same expression is used regardless of
the form, type, or material of the image. And the same language is used
whether the deity is newly established in a temple or whether the deity is
caused to "reappear" — when the deity is returned and re-established in the
temple, after having been removed.32 Again, "appearing" in image form is a
verb, not a noun — we see the noun pratiùñhà ("consecration") in only a handful
of inscriptions — and it refers to an action performed, with assistance from a
donor, by the deity himself or herself. If "appearing in image form" and "going
in procession" are referred to in exactly the same way in the inscriptions, we
may be obliged to rethink the dichotomy between fixity as an aspect of god's
iconic manifestation and motion as the defining characteristic of the god's
appearance in procession. The congruence in the inscriptions' language for

31
Ulà is, of course, the term used for the Tamil poetic genre which describes the procession of the
hero through the streets. An alternative verb form is eŸu (to ascend, go up) which is used especially
for the Lord's "appearing" in a mandapa or a ter.
32
It is quite surprising that among the numerous inscriptional references to the setting up of images
I have looked at, I have found only one mention of a consecration performed by a ritual specialist,
despite the fact that it is precisely the role of such individuals that is at the centre of discussions of
pratiùñhà in the Agamic literature. This singular reference is in a Sanskrit inscription recording the
foundation of the Kampahare÷vara temple in Tribhuvanam, by Kulottunga III; here the god and
goddess were consecrated by the king's guru Some÷vara ä÷vara-÷iva (SII 23.190). I have come across
a few inscriptions in which other àcàryas figure, but, after close examination, I am convinced that
these are in fact the donors of the images, rather than performers of priestly consecrations. At
Tiruvidaimarudur, there are two inscriptions dated 1121 and 1122 (SII 23. 301 and 302) that refer to
the setting up of an image by Svàmidevar ørãkaõñha÷ivar; and at the Vaiùõava temple of
Tirukkoyilur, an image is said to have been set up by a jãyar (thirteenth century; ARE 329 of 1921).
The lack of reference to ritual consecration is no doubt linked to the fact that there are virtually no
"foundation" inscriptions in the temples of Tamilnadu. Almost all of these temples were already
established shrines, with central deities (and perhaps principal processional icons) in place, at the
time that stone structures were erected and inscriptions engraved on their walls.
I have come across three references to the re-establishment of displaced images: at
Tirukannapuram, an inscription of AD 1143 (ARE 533 of 1922) records that a deity that had been
put (e×untaruëi irutta) in another temple was restored (e×untaruëi vikka) to its original place (pårva
tà−am); at Sembanarkoyil, another temple in Tanjavur district, a (øiva?) image that had been
removed during "troubled times" (turita kàlam) to a Piëëaiyàr temple, was re-established (e×untaruëi
irutta) and worship restored (ARE 171 of 1925, AD 1184); and at Tiruvelvikkudi, also in Tanjavur
district, a record of AD 1223 (ARE 141 of 1926) tells us that a number of images which had been
carried off by the followers of the chief Vàõakovaraiyar were discovered in another temple and
reconsecrated in their "home" temple by Toõñaimà−àr, a rival leader.
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 461

these two aspects of divinity — fixity and motion — adds another dimension to
the blurring of distinctions between central and processional images, fixed and
mobile images, stone and metal images that we have already noticed. Indeed, as
we have seen, the inscriptions indicate that in processions themselves, halting is
at least as important as moving. There are far more references to the deity's
presence in the mandapa than to his travelling through the streets.

Lords of temples and of palaces

E×untaruë language is used not only in connection with gods, but also with
kings. At Tiruparankunram, for example, there is a thirteenth-century inscrip-
tion (SII 4.372) recording the order of Sundara Pandya I, who "had graciously
come forth to be seated on the Ma×avaràya− throne in the hall of the bed-
chamber (paëëiyaŸaikkåñam) at the palace (koyil) in Madurai." Elsewhere we find
such expressions used for Chola kings and princesses. At times, the inscriptions
portray the Pandya or Chola king on his throne listening to music or viewing a
dance performance in a manner that closely resemble the ways that the
entertainment of the gods is described. The movement that is implied by such
references in the inscriptions to the "gracious appearance" of the king is
minimal, although his displacement from one part of the palace to another may
have been similar to some of the "inside processions" that took place in the
temple context; perhaps the king, like the deity, was accompanied by
drummers, musicians, and bearers of garlands and lamps. The only instance in
the inscriptions that I know of where e×untaruë relates to a king's "coming forth"
from within his palace to the outside world — which is, in fact the only
reference of any sort to a royal procession that I have encountered in the
inscriptions — is a record of Vikrama Chola's visit to the temple of
Chidambaram (ARE 314 of 1959).
The inscriptions employ the same language to describe the "appearing" of
gods and kings, although e×untaruë is much more characteristic of the temple
context than the court. Other activities "graciously" engaged in by both kinds of
figures — including ceremonial bathing, the enjoyment of artistic performances,
and the issuing of decrees — are described in similar terms, being marked by
the verbal suffix aruë or the nominal prefix tiru ("sacred," "auspicious"), and are
depicted in both cases as taking place in koyil-s. But did the god's procession
resemble a royal procession? The problem we have in answering this question
is that the inscriptions do not tell us a great deal about the arrangements of
courtly life in medieval Tamilnadu, and, although we catch glimpses of the
royal style of the Cholas and Pandyas, we do not see the king in procession (Orr
1999). We can learn somewhat more from the literature in Tamil and Sanskrit,
contemporary with the inscriptions, that concerns itself with the affairs of kings
(Shulman 1985; Ali 2002). There is little indication that the imaging of the king
in this literature as fearless warrior or romantic hero found any counterpart in
temple pageantry.33 The absence from festival processions of one of the

33
The closest relationship between the temple procession and the royal procession is perhaps to be
found within the framework of the hunting festival — although this link is much more obvious in
462 Leslie C. Orr

quintessential attributes of kingship — the elephant — is particularly telling.

The political ambitions of monarchs were not dramatized in temple ritual, nor
did the gods find it necessary to draw on the prevailing royal ethos to make
their presence felt. Chola kings may have claimed to have conquered the rulers
of the four directions, performing a triumphant digvijaya, but the deity of the
Chola period temple did not replicate this movement. It is in subsequent
centuries, under the kings of Vijayanagara, that the "royalization" of the god —
and the divinization of the king — began to colour the rituals that took place in
both temple and court (Anderson 1993, 180-81). By the seventeenth century, the
Nayaka kings of the Tamil country had effectively blurred the boundary
between these two spheres, in a "fusion of symbolic domains": "temple and
court, once similar but separate, have redefined themselves as explicit images of
one another" (Narayana Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam 1992, 187). Another
chapter in the royal imaging of the divine opened up in the late eighteenth
century, under colonial rule: while human kings no longer exercised
sovereignty over their territories and their subjects, the renovations and ritual
rearrangements of patrons like the Dubashes of Madras established a new
idiom of the divine overlordship of the temple deity, conceptualized as a
revival of ancient temple tradition— in an image that still remains very much
with us today (Waghorne forthcoming; Peterson 2001; cf. Appadurai and
Breckenridge 1976).

Seeing god/ The seeing god

The Chola period's most explicit depiction of the royal procession is found in
the poetic genre of the ulà. Ulàs are Tamil poems describing the procession of
the hero through the streets, as love-stricken women of various ages look on.
"Tirukailàya¤à−a ulà," a poem composed in the ninth century by the Nàya−màr
C¹ramà− Perumàë in honour of øiva, is given the title "the first ulà" — although
the Jain epic Cãvakacintàmaõi, written in the same period, also contains an ulà on
the prince who is the hero of the story.34 In "Tirukailàya¤à−a ulà," øiva is
prompted to emerge from his heavenly palace by a request from the gods, who

the âgamas than in the inscriptions. In some of these texts it is clear that the hunting festival has
royal connotations: in the same way that the king claims the right to enjoy himself in, or to bring
back game from, the forest, so too does the god. As we have earlier seen, however, the hunting
festival, although mentioned in some øaiva and Vaiùõava sources, does not appear to be an integral
part of the Agamic festival program. The inscriptions that mention the hunting festival do not
provide us with any sign that royal insignia, royal motifs, or royal conveyances are involved —
there are no horses nor elephants, no hunting, and, indeed, no forest. It has often been said that, in
general, the honours shown to the gods enshrined in the temple were those that belonged to kings.
It is extremely difficult, however, to demonstrate that this was the case in the Chola period. Even
the ideal program of services described in the âgamas is only occasionally characterized as "royal,"
and G‚rard Colas suggests that the royal elements of festival celebrations were the product of the
imagination of sponsors rather than being dictated by ritual necessity (1996, 304 cf. 321).
34
In Cãvakacintàmaõi vv. 1095-1112, Cãvaka−, who is being taken to prison, passes before women of
each of the seven age groups, who watch him with distress and longing. I am indebted to James
Ryan for sharing with me his translation of this passage, and several others which depict Cãvaka− in
procession. I also thank Blake Wentworth for his translation of "Tirukailàya¤à−a ulà," and Daud Ali
for his "Vikramacº×a− ulà."
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 463

wish to have a vision (kàñci) of him. In the twelfth century, ulàs were written on
the Chola kings Vikrama, Kulottunga II, Rajaraja II, and Caïkaracº×a−, who is
probably Rajadhiraja II (Thirumalavan 1992, 15-27). The structure of the Chola
ulàs is similar to "Tirukailàya¤à−a ulà," although they all contain an extended
description of the royal elephant, which is absent from the ulà on øiva, and of
course the setting and the identities of the participants in the processions are
not the same.35 But the processions of the ulàs are radically different from the
temple processions described in the medieval inscriptions. In the procession of
the inscriptions, as we have seen, the deity is active and present, while the hero
of the ulà — whether god or king — is passive and impassive. Verbs relating to
the hero's moving, seeing, or responding are in very short supply in the ulàs.
Indeed, the reader of these poems scarcely sees the hero at all; instead, we
watch the women watching him.
Did the Lord go in procession in medieval Tamilnadu in order to be seen,
as does the hero of the ulà or the deity of modern festivals who goes into the
streets to give dar÷ana to his devotees? The inscriptions, in fact, convey quite a
different idea: the deity goes forth not to be seen, but to see. As is the case for
going in procession, or appearing in image form, the language of the
inscriptions makes God the agent, the one whose action and experience is
described — he looks with favour, graciously casting his eye (tirukaõcàttiyaruë),
upon those whom he encounters. The Tamil equivalent of dar÷ana — kàñci —
does appear occasionally in the inscriptions, where it refers to a place where the
deity stops during a procession, while tirukaõcàttiyaruë is synonymous with the
procession itself.
The significance of dar÷ana in contemporary understandings of the temple
procession is closely tied to the issue of access: by leaving his sanctuary, the
Lord provides an opportunity for encounter with the divine to those who
would be prohibited from entering the temple precincts, or glimpsing him in
the central shrine at the heart of the temple. But there are reasons to believe
that, in medieval Tamilnadu, most if not all of his potential worshippers were
able to experience the deity's presence within his temple. The names of donors
from a wide range of backgrounds and professions are engraved on the stone
walls of mandapas in the inner compound and on the central shrine itself —
surely the people themselves were admitted to these same places. The emphasis
in the inscriptions on the temple's reception of pilgrims of various kinds also
indicates a spirit of inclusion. We must consider, as well, that the temples of the
Chola period that have remained more or less intact are very simple structures,
and evidently not difficult of access; there was little that was physically
standing between the potential worshipper and the god. Temples were subject
to renovations over the course of time which involved the radical re-shaping of

35
"Tirukailàya¤à−a ulà" is similar in a number of respects to "Tiruppaëëiye×ucci," a poem written in
praise of Viùõu by the â×vàr Toõñarañippoñi, which was likely also composed in the ninth century.
Both poems feature a procession of deities, whose identities are similar in the two contexts, and
employ the motif of the gods' request for the Lord to come forth from his palace/ temple to be seen
by them. In the case of "Tiruppaëëiye×ucci," Viùõu is asked to awake and emerge from his shrine at
Srirangam.
464 Leslie C. Orr

the interior spaces of the temple, and the alteration or replacement of the central
shrine, calling into question the absolute sacrality — and centrality — of the
garbhagçha (Orr 2000b; Branfoot 2000). Much of what we now consider to be the
standard lay-out of the South Indian temple — a small enclosed sanctum at its
core, surrounded by a series of concentric enclosure walls with towering
gopuras over the entrances — is the result of construction that only began to
take place in the twelfth century, and is even more the product of the Nayaka
period, continuing into our own times. Strictly hierarchized spatial arrange-
ments, including the demarcation of boundaries with enclosure walls and im-
posing gates, do not appear to be characteristic of the Chola period temple. This
explains, perhaps, why the inscriptions are so little concerned with the
distinction between inside and outside processions, or between fixed and
mobile images.
This organization of the physical space of the temple — and the social and
ritual implications of this arrangement — appears to be more in keeping with
patterns of the earlier bhakti period than those of today. For those donors and
devotees whose perspective seems to be represented in the inscriptions of the
Chola period the experience of seeing God was also similar to that of the poet-
saints. There are countless references in the hymns of the â×vàrs and Nàya−màrs
to having a vision of the Lord, but the modern reader who seeks to determine
whether these poets are "really" seeing God — i.e., in image form — and if so,
what that form is, will quickly become frustrated. Tirupàõà×vàr, beholding the
Lord at Srirangam, Viùõu reclining on the serpent, gives a detailed description
of his form and attributes, but also tells us that he is seeing Viùõu as Narasiüha
and as the baby lying on a banyan leaf ("Amala−àtipira−," trans. Hopkins 2002,
141-44). One of Appar's poems on Tiruvaymur (T¹vàram 6.77) uses the word
kaõñ¹−, "I saw," sixty-five times in the space of ten stanzas — and what Appar
saw there was Lord øiva in at least six different "iconic" forms. This is seeing
with what Richard Davis has called the "devotional eye" (1997, 23, 38). Judging
from the inscriptions' vagueness about the specific identities of the deities who
went in procession, these are the same eyes that were used by those who
witnessed the Lord's appearance in the Chola period temple.

The procession in history: gods on the move

The â×vàrs and Nàya−màrs tell us about seeing God, but even more often they
complain of his elusiveness. The poems are filled with images of searching.
Appar may have had a vision of his Lord at Tiruvaymur, but then øiva slips
away:
I saw him with these eyes,
and did not see him leave.
Never leaving his side,
I ran along with him.
Yet Vàymår's Lord has vanished on the road,
leaving me caught in the web
of his wily tricks.
O wonder!
T¹vàram 5.164.4, trans. Peterson (Peterson 1989, 298)
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 465

When God takes to the road, this is not regarded as an opportunity for the
worshipper to behold him — as it is in the case of Viùõu's "Journey Festival" in
modern Madurai — but as a problem. The devotee beseeches the Lord: where
are you? why do you wander off? how can I find you? why can't you stay in
one place? The inscriptions show us what the solution to this problem is,
celebrating the presence of God in a particular place, as well as his active role in
becoming present. The combination of iconic indeterminacy with locational
fixity is characteristic of the understanding of the nature of the divine from the
perspective of both the bhakti poets, and the Chola period devotees who have
left their records engraved on temple walls.
In a later age, however, the temple procession seems to represent
something quite different: specificity of divine identity and far-ranging mobility
are now at a premium. These features correspond to new historical
circumstances. Instead of the problem of elusiveness, there is now the problem
of power — brought into being in the post-Chola period by political disruption,
the movement of populations, and increasingly marked social and sectarian
divisions. If the modern temple procession is an expression of the Lord's domi-
nance over other deities, a display of sovereignty over territory and human
subjects, and an occasion for conferring status on particular communities, it
would appear that this model has taken shape in the course of the last four
hundred years. The mobility of gods becomes a major theme in religious
narratives beginning in the sixteenth century, in the sthàla puràõas that recount
the origins of temples throughout the Tamil country, and in tales of the pere-
grinations of temple images seized in war or sent into hiding (Shulman 1980,
48-55; Davis 1997, 129-140). The Nayaka kings' origin stories depict them as
mobile, military figures interacting with various deities, and the devotional
poems composed under these kings' patronage show God as a wanderer cut
loose from his "stable earthly home" (Narayana Rao, Shulman, and Subrahma-
nyam 1992, 54-55, 115-120). In a period experiencing political instability, social
change, and the migration of many people, new poetic genres emerged that
featured the themes of travel, pilgrimage, and procession (Peterson 2001). In the
eighteenth century, rajas who ruled over "little kingdoms" went on annual
"cavalcades of prestation" to distant temples, displaying arms and royal insignia
and following routes carefully designed to outface rival kings (Bayly 1989, 58-
61). And while the movement of people — as pastoralists or itinerant craftsmen,
for trade, seeking work, in response to war and famine — was still a real fact of
life in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, colonial administrators
struggled to fix boundaries and sedentarize the Indian population, and
collaborated with Hindu patrons in the glorification of the ancient temple as an
emblem of fixedness (Irschick 1994; Waghorne forthcoming).
We have come full circle, it would seem, to the notion of God's presence in
place that is expressed in the early bhakti literature, and in the inscriptions of the
Chola period. Yet the fact that Chola period temple processions differ so greatly
from their modern counterparts points toward major changes in the character
and the significance of the activity of that divine presence. Today, evidently,
God's identity needs to be defined, and his territory needs to be demarcated
466 Leslie C. Orr

and defended — and the modern procession performs these functions, through
the shape of its route, its representation of the deities in specific roles, and
through its military and royal trappings. The processional route also serves as a
means of negotiating relationships with rival gods, and responding to the rival
claims of various communities. But the deity in procession whom we glimpse in
the Chola period inscriptions, like the god of Tamil bhakti poetry, is secure in his
place. As a pervasive presence, there is no necessity to assert his identity, nor to
use the procession to map out the zone of his authority.
So much seems to tie the Chola period temple procession to antecedents in
the bhakti period, but clearly there is some continuity with the developments of
subsequent centuries. By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, new patterns
of patronage, and the evolution of øaiva and Vaiùõava sectarian movements,
were already having an impact on the political, social, ritual, and physical
contexts and meanings of temple processions. The success of temple women in
using donations as a means of garnering ritual recognition — allowing them to
become participants in processions — set the stage for the later elaboration of
systems of ranking and privilege which engaged both temple servants and
patrons, and politicized the procession. The Pandya kings' interest in temple
renovation and in instituting festival celebrations in their own honour far
surpasses the involvement of the Cholas in such matters, and anticipates the
even more intense activity of the kings of the following age, when royal
symbolism came to colour every aspect of the temple procession. The thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries were witness to the shaping of the physical space of
the temple as a series of graded zones, each one more difficult of access as one
moved toward the central shrine. The material effect of the gifts of kings and
other donors destined to make the temple ever grander intersected with social
and ritual developments, in which hierarchies were created that increasingly
restricted encounter with the divinity at the heart of the sacred site, and made
the emergence of God outside the walls of his temple increasingly necessary to
his worshippers.
Nonetheless, the image of the temple procession conveyed by the Chola
period inscriptions is still one which is dominated by the inrushing of pilgrims
and devotees, rather than the outward motion of the deity. The deity appears in
procession within the temple courtyard, or just outside the temple gate, amid
throngs of worshippers, adorned with fragrant pastes and decked with
garlands. The drums beat loudly, banners and lamps are borne aloft. Offerings
of food and flowers are heaped before the Lord, and hymns are sung in his
praise. His beautiful form is seen by his devotees, and he graciously casts his
eye on them. And, as at Tirucengattangudi in Tanjavur district — where the
deity came forth in procession in the month of Cittirai, was seated in the
Tirumuttuvà−eri mandapam and received offerings of food, unguents,
garlands, and lamps — the Lord grants liberation (mutti kuñutta) (AD 1240; NK
64). What is made possible by the encounter between God and devotee that
takes place in the procession is, in the end, salvation.
Processions in the Medieval South Indian Temple 467

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