A Little Jewel Box
It was just the other day that I first heard about the Kadavil Thrikkovil Krishna temple at Udayamperoor, just 8 km from where I live - the source: 'Murals of Kerala' by M G Sasibhooshan.
The temple is quite unassuming and the inner sanctum is very small - barely fifteen feet square. On three of its walls were drawn, around 1780, nearly 40 images of gods, demons and others. And even in their present diminished - and damaged - state, they add up to quite a spectacle!
Sasibhooshan devotes an entire chapter to this temple in his book and notes several interesting minutiae - how at least some of the figures can be read as responses to the political upheavals that convulsed Kerala in the second half of the 18 century, especially, the invasions of Hyder Ali and Tipu. He observes:
Among the paintings here, the one of Kalki, horse-faced, sword drawn, ferocity personified, is the most memorable. The Puranas say that Kalki will appear and exterminate the Mlechchhas - and in those times, with the northern half of Kerala overrun and occupied by the mostly Muslim hordes of Mysore, the artists and their sponsors might have fervently prayed to this avatar of Vishnu for deliverance. And one of the goblins attending on Siva is shown in the uniform of a Mysore soldier.
And here is a selection of the images I did capture:
Goddess Matangi plays a lute:
Vettekkaran, the Kerala equivalent of Kirata, the hunter incarnation of Siva (in some versions Vettekkaran is Kirata's son)
Siva himself, as the cosmic dancer:
Awesome Kali watches, awestruck:
The severed head of an Asura in Kali's hand:
Vishnu, who is usually shown playing the Mizhavu drum when Siva dances, is here, a stiff devotee (remarkable, since this is a temple dedicated to Krishna!). Note those earrings, shaped like Makara beasts!
One of the weird/grotesque faces that sort of punctuate the sequences of puranic images:
A unique 'Holy Family'. Having assumed his usual male self, Vishnu, mother of new-born Ayyappa, hands over the infant to a green-skinned figure I can't identify, under the benign gaze of Siva, the father:
And finally two disturbing instances of what looks like perverse vandalism:
----------------------------
On a different note, let me record an encounter with a recent edition of 'Prarodanam', an elegy written over a century ago by Kumaran Asan, mourning the passing of Scholar-poet A R Rajaraja Varma. The poem itself is a difficult read - actually a lengthy and rather depressing meditation on mortality (Asan himself, for whom Death was a constant preoccupation, met with a tragic and untimely end). But I can't, for my life, see the connection between the poem and the cover chosen for it - 'Nude descending the staircase' by Duchamps!
It isn't only about the connection to Asan's elegy. I can't see anything much of a nude in Duchamps' work either. Indeed, I distinctly recall feeling, on my first encounter with the masterpiece "this looks more like a spread of 'chakkachakini' (jackfruit rags, the rough, striplike, fibrous and non-sweet stuff you find inside a jackfruit)!"
The temple is quite unassuming and the inner sanctum is very small - barely fifteen feet square. On three of its walls were drawn, around 1780, nearly 40 images of gods, demons and others. And even in their present diminished - and damaged - state, they add up to quite a spectacle!
Sasibhooshan devotes an entire chapter to this temple in his book and notes several interesting minutiae - how at least some of the figures can be read as responses to the political upheavals that convulsed Kerala in the second half of the 18 century, especially, the invasions of Hyder Ali and Tipu. He observes:
Among the paintings here, the one of Kalki, horse-faced, sword drawn, ferocity personified, is the most memorable. The Puranas say that Kalki will appear and exterminate the Mlechchhas - and in those times, with the northern half of Kerala overrun and occupied by the mostly Muslim hordes of Mysore, the artists and their sponsors might have fervently prayed to this avatar of Vishnu for deliverance. And one of the goblins attending on Siva is shown in the uniform of a Mysore soldier.
And here is a selection of the images I did capture:
Goddess Matangi plays a lute:
Vettekkaran, the Kerala equivalent of Kirata, the hunter incarnation of Siva (in some versions Vettekkaran is Kirata's son)
Siva himself, as the cosmic dancer:
Awesome Kali watches, awestruck:
The severed head of an Asura in Kali's hand:
Vishnu, who is usually shown playing the Mizhavu drum when Siva dances, is here, a stiff devotee (remarkable, since this is a temple dedicated to Krishna!). Note those earrings, shaped like Makara beasts!
One of the weird/grotesque faces that sort of punctuate the sequences of puranic images:
A unique 'Holy Family'. Having assumed his usual male self, Vishnu, mother of new-born Ayyappa, hands over the infant to a green-skinned figure I can't identify, under the benign gaze of Siva, the father:
And finally two disturbing instances of what looks like perverse vandalism:
----------------------------
On a different note, let me record an encounter with a recent edition of 'Prarodanam', an elegy written over a century ago by Kumaran Asan, mourning the passing of Scholar-poet A R Rajaraja Varma. The poem itself is a difficult read - actually a lengthy and rather depressing meditation on mortality (Asan himself, for whom Death was a constant preoccupation, met with a tragic and untimely end). But I can't, for my life, see the connection between the poem and the cover chosen for it - 'Nude descending the staircase' by Duchamps!
It isn't only about the connection to Asan's elegy. I can't see anything much of a nude in Duchamps' work either. Indeed, I distinctly recall feeling, on my first encounter with the masterpiece "this looks more like a spread of 'chakkachakini' (jackfruit rags, the rough, striplike, fibrous and non-sweet stuff you find inside a jackfruit)!"
posted by R.Nandakumar @ 8:00 AM
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