#classical india

[bronzeageecho]

standing woman with headdress | c. 200-500 CE | kushan dynasty, gandhara period (found in modern-day india)

in the davis museum collection

[storiesbyt]

Bishnupur, the capital of the Malla Kings, one of the most unique architectural wonder of the world.

From top left:

1. Jorbangla Temple

2. Unknown temple made in the Odisha style

3. Radheshyam temple

4. Bhog Mancha (where holy food was distributed), Laljiu Temple

5 & 6 Laljiu temple

7. Old Fort Gate

8. Rash Mancha

The Malla kings ruled from 7th Century, until India’s independence in 1947. Being Vaishanvs, their structures were mainly dedicated to Krishna, the eight avtaar of Vishnu.

Photos taken: August 2022

[themuseumwithoutwalls]

MWW Artwork of the Day (1/12/19) Classical India (Aravidu Dynasty, 1542-1646) Ayyanar on an Elephant (16th c.) Stone sculpture Government Museum, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Ayyanar is a Tamil village god, worshiped predominantly in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and Tamil villages in Sri Lanka. He is primarily worshiped as a guardian deity who protects the rural villages. His priests are usually non-Brahmins, who belong to mostly the potter caste, but other caste members also officiate in his temples. The temples of Aiyanar are usually flanked by gigantic and colorful statues of him and his companions riding horses or elephants. There are number of theories as to the origins of the deity as well as the etymology of the name. He is associated with god Aiyanayake by the Sinhalese people of Sri Lanka.  (Wikipedia extracts)

[themuseumwithoutwalls]

MWW Artwork of the Day (10/6/18) Classical India (Chola Dynasty, 880–1279) Shiva as Mahesha (10th c.) Granite statue, 147.3 x 81.3 x 40.6 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Egleston Fund)

This statue is part of a group of unusual large stone carvings in the round from the Chola period. They all portray the same deity, long identified as Brahma but now thought to be Mahesha, a form of Shiva. Shiva's worshipers believe that he manifests himself in three stages, which move from the abstract to the concrete. The first stage is symbolized by the undecorated linga (the phallic emblem of Shiva); the second, by the linga with one or more faces emerging from its shaft. The third and final stage is Mahesha. From him are born the other two great Hindu gods, Brahma and Vishnu. Mahesha is shown with four faces: the one on the right represents Brahma; in the center, Shiva; on the left, Vishnu; and on the back, Rudra (perhaps the predecessor of Shiva). The attributes associated with Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu are on their respective sides. (from the MMA catalog)

[atreides]

Roman wares as well as coins are found throughout the Indian subcontinent. Tamil poetry expresses local admiration for the “cool and fragrant wine” brought from western parts. The Indian poets describe the “beautiful large ships” of the westerners docking at Muziris, the very city whence the Hermapollon sailed; there they brought gold and returned “laden with pepper.” There was certainly a permanent Roman trading colony here. The Peutinger Map, the most important map to survive from the Roman world, shows a Temple of Augustus at Muziris, a religious implantation by western traders, who carried goods and gods to the east and back. The trade along the coast of India was abutted by spurs curving far inland, through the Kushan Empire, to the Silk Roads and China beyond. The Chinese were the “silk people” to the Romans. Silk was a coveted commodity with a major market in the west, and during the early empire its exchange was conducted principally through the southern ocean route.

Kyle Harper, The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire

[themuseumwithoutwalls]

MWW Artwork of the Day (1/13/18) Classical India (Western Chalukyan Empire, 973-1189) Celestial Musician (Gandharva)(11th c.) Slate statue, 103.5 cm. high The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Gift of Florence & Herbert Irving)

A semidivine celestial musician to the gods is shown playing a flute, standing beneath the canopy of a flowering tree. This bracket figure was intended to decorate a pillar capital of the interior of a Hindu temple of the western Chalukyas. Temples of the southern Deccan favored the use of such figures of celestial musicians and dancers, poised at an angle between the capital of a pillar and the temple's interior ceiling stones to form a bridge between the worldly and heavenly spheres, and to make explicit the notion of the temple as a heavenly palace.

(from the MMA catalog)

For more South Asian and Non-Western artworks, see these MWW Special Collections: * MWW Non-Western Painting Gallery * MWW Non-Western Sculpture & Architecture

[clock-health-fr]

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