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William Dalrymple Profile picture
@DalrympleWill
Oct 14, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
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The Lord of the Dance

The Nataraja, Shiva as Lord of the Dance, is arguably the greatest artistic creation of the Chola dynasty. It is the perfect symbol of the way Chola sculptors managed to imbue their creations with both a raw sensual power & a profound theological complexity
The dancing figure of the god is not just a model of virile bodily perfection, but also an emblem of higher truths: on one level Shiva dances in triumph at his defeat of the demons of ignorance and darkness, and for the pleasure of his consort.
At another level- dreadlocks flying, haloed in fire- he is also dancing the world into extinction so as to bring it back into existence in order that it can be created and preserved anew.

Natraj- Chola,Tanjore 11thC
Now in the collection of the Guimet & Humboldt Forum
With one hand he is shown holding fire, signifying destruction, while with the other he bangs the damaru drum, whose sound denotes creation. Renewed & purified, the Nataraja is dancing the universe from perdition to regeneration in a symbol of the circular nature of time itself
(If anyone wants to read more I've written about the stpathy idol makers who continue the tradition of bronze casting in my 2010 book, Nine Lives.)

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More from @DalrympleWill

William Dalrymple Profile picture
Jan 2
New from @EmpirePodUK -

ZEBRAS & ZODIACS:
JAHANGIR & THE MUGHAL ART REVOLUTION Image
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The Emperor Jahangir was a true connoisseur of beauty. His reign witnessed a flourishing of art, particularly through his patronage of workshops of brilliant artists who between them created a series of extraordinary masterpieces. Image
The reigns of Jahangir saw the artistic highpoint of the Mughal atelier, and with it the moment of greatest celebrity for the masters at court. Jahangir awarded his two master artists, the brilliant animal painter Mansur and his rival Abu’l Hasan, the titles Nadir al-Zaman, ‘Wonder of the Age,’ and Nadir al-Zaman, “Wonder of the Times.”

Abu’l Hasan seems to have been a particular favourite of Jahangir. “I have always considered it my duty to give him much patronage,” wrote the Emperor in his own autobiography, the Jahangirnama, “and from his youth until now I have patronised him so that his work has reached the level it has.”Image
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Jan 1
The oldest surviving sculptures of the Buddha in Southeast Asia. Found at Oc Eo, now on the Vietnamese side of the Mekong Delta, and the presumed site of one the very first Indic-influenced courts in the region, known to the Chinese as Funan. Image
The Chinese called this city state Funan – the Indians, Vyadhapura. We do not know what it was called by its own inhabitants. A Chinese court envoy who came to Funan in the third century ce left the first eyewitness portrait of this nascent trading world. ‘This place is famous for precious rarities from afar,’ wrote the Chinese Xue Zong in the third century ce: ‘pearls, incense, elephant tusks, rhinoceros’ horn, tortoise shell, coral, lapis lazuli, parrots, kingfishers, peacocks, rare and abundant treasures enough to satisfy all desires.’Image
To 21stC eyes, the tall waterlogged wooden Buddhas found at the site are astonishingly beautiful- like Giacometti's Walking Man, and even more than that, the Etruscan bronze know as The Shadow of the Evening which inspired some of his best work Image
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William Dalrymple Profile picture
Dec 31, 2024
NEW FROM @EmpirePodUK

To close 2024 @tweeter_anita & I look at the chaotic first attempts of the English crown to open diplomatic relations with Mughal India

THE ROOTS OF THE RAJ-
Sir Thomas Roe at the Court of Jahangir Image
The East India Company realised that if it was to trade successfully with the Mughals, it would need both partners and permissions. This meant establishing a relationship with the Mughal Emperor himself. Image
The man chosen was a courtier, MP, diplomat, Amazon explorer, Ambassador to the Sublime Porte and self-described ‘man of quality’, Sir Thomas Roe. Image
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Dec 24, 2024
@EmpirePodUK Christmas 🎄 Special:

THE EMPIRE OF FRANKINCENSE & MYRRH Image
"The Nabateans are a silent partner in everything that goes on in the high summer of the Ancient period” - Bettany Hughes Image
By the time of Jesus’ birth, a mysterious empire had built its wealth through trading two of the gifts present at the Nativity: frankincense and myrrh.

Aromatic crystals harvested from the sap of gnarled trees, frankincense and myrrh were highly desirable commodities known as the tears or the breath of the gods.Image
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William Dalrymple Profile picture
Dec 17, 2024
New from @EmpirePodUK

We are proud to present the first episode of our Christmas mini-series-

WHO WERE THE THREE WISE MEN? Image
Featured in every Nativity scene in school plays, churches, and art around the world, the Three Wise Men are key characters in the Christmas story. But they are actually only mentioned once in the Bible, appearing in Matthew’s gospel. He describes them not as Kings, not as generalised Wise Men, but specifically as Magi.

So what exactly did he mean by that?Image
The word ‘magi’, derives from the Old Persian ‘magus’, and specifically refers to the Zoroastrian Persian high priesthood, who were renowned throughout the Middle East for their knowledge of the stars and for their expertise in astrology.

The name title stood out in the gospel for being one of the only words in Persian. It is also the root of the English word 'magic' for which the Magi were renowned.
Read 10 tweets
William Dalrymple Profile picture
Dec 13, 2024
New from @EmpirePodUK

Akbar the Aesthete

"Early in his reign, Akbar had made it clear that he had no time for ultra-Orthodox Muslim opinion which objected the depiction of the human form: “There are many that hate painting,” he wrote, but such men I dislike. It appears to me as if a painter had a quite peculiar means of recognising God; for a painter in sketching anything that has life, and in devising its limbs, one after the other, must come to feel that he cannot bestow individuality upon his work, and is thus forced to think of God, the giver of life."Image
As a child, Akbar was dislexic: no one was able to teach him how to read. But he still loved literature - the Indian and Persian epics and Ferdowsi poetry and were read to him by travelling picture showmen and discussed in detail. This seems to have inspired his love of visual arts: ‘one of the biggest paradoxes of art history: the prolific production of illustrated manuscripts was initiated by a man who could not read them himself’.Image
Akbar began the tradition by which the Mughals, perhaps more than any other Islamic dynasty, made their love of the arts and their aesthetic principles a central part of their identity as rulers.

They consciously used jewellery and jewelled objects as they used their architecture, art, poetry, historiography and the dazzling brilliance of their court ceremonial – to make visible and manifest their imperial ideal, to give it a properly imperial splendour, and even a sheen of divine legitimacy. As Abu’l Fazl put it, ‘Kings are fond of external splendour, because they consider it an image of the Divine glory.’Image
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