Any study of early south Indian stone sculpture would be incomplete without a study of the door guardian. From the early Pallava caves, where we only get to see the door guardians as sculpted forms, they have come a long way to today’s mass produced works. Despite great research and results published by scholars such as Dr. Gift Siromoney, we rarely get to see door guardians sculpted as per the cannons of old. What are these cannons?
The door guardians were actually personifications of the divine weapons of the deity enshrined inside: ie, if it were a shrine of Siva his door guardians would be his Trident and Axe. We can see this feature as early as in the Lakshitayatnam cave of Mahendra Pallava in Mandagapattu and even in the Kanchipuram Kailasantha Temple.
Dr. Siromoney had spotted something unique in the ‘horns’ (as they were thought of before) in the door guardians of the early Pallava cave in Vallam. But there are no finer examples to prove the hypothesis that these door guardians are the personifications of his weapons as Tirsoolanathar and Mazhuvudayar than the door guardians of the Satyagirishwara shrine in Tirumeyyam, Pudukkottai.
The majestic door guardian on the right of the sanctum is sculpted leaning gracefully on his massive stone mace, but the grandeur of this sculpture is the spread of his ‘horns.’ Initial attempts to fix a rational explanation have led to his identification as Nandhi but let us step closer for a thorough examination.
Notice the base of the ‘ horns’ – there are complex curves on both sides of the protrusions, just before the curves of the main ‘horn’ begins. Notice also the sharp spoke projecting above the crown. Combined they form the three spikes of Siva’s Trident and hence he is Trisoolanathar.
The depiction of the Axe face in the headgear is slightly more difficult to explain on print but if you visit this site or any of the pre-12th C CE sites and closely observe – you will notice the Axe blade projecting out just above the forehead. This one is a clear angle from the Kanchipuram Kailasantha temple of Rajasimha Pallava.
As most early cave shrines especially in Pallava country did not have monolithic sculptures inside the sanctum – either they had them made out of perishable materials like wood or stucco or movable stone forms, we generally get to see only empty shrines. The study of the door guardians then becomes an essential tool to ascertain the presiding deity of the cave in the absence of any other clues. They are also witness to shrines that have been subsequently converted from one to another. They might not talk but these stones do have their way of communicating to us.
(The author is a sculpture enthusiast and blogs about temple art at www.poetryinstone.in)
