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William Dalrymple

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19 Mar, 19 tweets, 6 min read

One last set of Pallava masterpieces from the exquisite Kailashanatha Temple of Rajasimha Pallava dating from 685 CE

The sculptures of the north wall-
L- The Goddess Tripura-bhairavi
Middle- Tripurantaka or Tripurari Shiva, depicted with four arms wielding a bow and arrow
R- Durga on her lion (I think...)

Detail of the Goddess Tripura-bhairavi
North wall, Kailashanatha Temple
Kanchipuram

Gana dwarves, Lord Shiva's attendants, in ecstatic joy

Lingodbhava Siva
S Wall of Sanctum
Kailashanatha Temple
Kanchipuram

Shiva Natraj
West wall of the sanctum
Kailashanatha Temple,
Kanchipuram

Chowri-bearing attendant
West wall of Sanctum
Kailashanatha Temple,
Kanchipuram

Durga riding the lion (simha-vahini)
North wall of sanctum
Kailashanatha Temple
Kanchipuram

Surya and Chandra adoring Shiva within the linga
S wall of sanctum
Kailashanatha Temple
Kanchipuram

Shiva dancing with Nandi!
N wall of sanctum
Kailashanatha Temple
Kanchipuram

Durga on her lion
N wall of sanctuary
Kailashanatha Temple
Kanchipuram

Siva as kirata fighting Arjuna
shrine on the South wall of the courtyard
Kailashanatha Temple
Kanchipuram

Detail of Shiva Tripurantaka or Tripurari Shiva, depicted with four arms wielding a bow and arrow
N wall of sanctum
Kailashanatha Temple
Kanchipuram

Detail of Shiva destroying Kala
N Wall of Sanctuary
Kailashanatha Temple
Kanchipuram

Lions listening to Siva preach
S wall of sanctum
Kailashanatha Temple
Kanchipuram

I was the only person looking around this exquisite structure and the ASI chowkidar complained about how few came to visit or study it. But its one of the great masterworks of Indian civilization and deserves far greater fame than it has.

For anyone wishing to read more, I recommend this fine essay by R Nagaswamy in an old Vidya Dehejia edited Marg volume, Royal Patrons

Finally a BBC broadcast I did a few years back on Mahendra Pallava and Pallava art
bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06…

On Pallava influence in SE Asia:
nybooks.com/articles/2015/….

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More from @DalrympleWill

William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

18 Mar

Masterpieces from Rajasimha Pallava's Kailasanatha Temple at Kanchipuram
685-705 CE

1. Siva as Dakshinamurti,
South wall it sanctum

2. Dancing Siva
west wall of sanctum
Kailashanatha Temple, Kanchipuram

Siva as the Enchanting Mendicant
south wall of sanctum
Kailashanatha Temple, Kanchipuram

Read 10 tweets

William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

17 Mar

India's Oldest Surviving Portraits?

So this is very exciting. I just managed to get in to see what appears to have been the closed off Royal chapel of the Pallava kings, the Adi Varaha cave temple.

It's still in use, so not ASI, and usually locked; it took a bit of fixing in advance with the Pundit who had the key. Moreover its frustratingly badly lit. But it's still breathtaking- arguably the most interesting of all the Mamallapuram caves.

It contains taller than life size portrait sculptures of Mahendra and Mamalla Pallava, and the in many ways the closest we will ever get to the physicality of early India.

Read 8 tweets

William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

24 Feb

The world's earliest dated inscription of the circular symbol "O", to represent zero, though the Bakhshali manuscript, whose date is disputed, could be earlier. The Brahmi numerals, 2, 3, 4, 7 & 9 are already instantly recognisable.

(1/3)

The Chaturbhuj [The Four-armed God ie Vishnu] Temple just below Gwalior Fort, was excavated out of a rock face in c875 AD, by Alla, the son of Vaillabhatta, and the grandson of Nagarabhatta of the Gurjara-Pratihara dynasty, in present-day Madhya Pradesh.

The inscription states, among other things, that the community planted a garden of 187 hastas by 270 hastas (1 hasta = 1.5 feet) and that the garden yielded 50 garlands for the temple every day. The last digits of 270 and 50 are "O" shaped.

Read 4 tweets

William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

12 Dec 20

Some favourite masterpieces of early Buddhist art. Over the last week I have been researching the diffusion of early Buddhism. Here are some favourites I dug out from my travels.

1.The King of Varanasi hunting- illustration from Shyama Jataka.
Cave Ten, Ajanta 1stC BC

Detail of Standing Buddha in Abhaya mudra
Gupta, 5thC
Jamalpur Tila
Now in the Mathura Museum

The Fasting Buddha
Gandhara, 3rdC
Now in the Lahore Museum

Read 21 tweets

William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

2 Sep 20

The Diwani- the document that handed over the three richest provinces in India to the East India Company, 1765. Later, the British dignified the document by calling it the Treaty of Allahabad, though Clive had dictated the terms & a terrified Shah Alam simply waved them through.

As Ghulam Hussain Khan put it ‘A business of such magnitude & which at any other time would have required the sending of wise ambassadors & able negotiators, was done and finished in less time than would usually have been taken up for the sale of a jack-ass, or a beast of burden’

Before long the EIC was straddling the globe. Almost single-handedly it reversed the balance of trade, which from Roman times on had led to a continual drain of Western bullion eastwards.

Read 9 tweets

William Dalrymple

@DalrympleWill

28 Aug 20

India & the Ancient Ocean Trade World

My next book, The Golden Road, will be focusing on the diffusion of Indic culture in the early centuries AD, and this short video gives an idea of the richness of the archaeological material from the period.
livehistoryindia.com/tales-and-trai…

@nybooks

Here is an idea of some of the material I'll be covering, from a piece I wrote for the New York Review @nybooks in 2015

The Great & Beautiful Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist civilisations of Southeast Asia, Fifth to Eighth century CE

nybooks.com/articles/2015/…

There will also be a lot about the diffusion of Indic art forms and how the iconography of Ajanta diffused through Gandhara, Afghanistan and Central Asia

nybooks.com/articles/2014/…

Read 9 tweets

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