Karttikeya: Vardhana, 7th cent. AD, North India. height:
47 cm. Red sandstone. Chicago Museum of Art
The
sculpture is a bas-relief carved on an upright granite
stele with a semi-circular top and straight edges on
the other sides. The height of the stele is 108 cms,
width 62 cms and thickness 20 cms. The image is encased
with in a broad raised rim running along the edges of
the slab. The figure is finely carved and still in an
excellent state of preservation.
Gupta Age coins bearing peacock image
The
deity is seated on a lotus with his right leg folded
and left leg hanging down. Seated figures6 of Subrahmanya
on a lotus are rare, the present sculpture being probably
the earliest.7
The
deity is shown wearing a short conical basket-like head-gear
(karanda-makuta) with a thick giralet of flowers (kannl)
around the base. According to ancient Tamil tradition,
kannl was the attribute of the warrior.8 The deity also
wears the double shoulder-string (channavira), another
attribute of the warrior. Both the attributes, found
mostly in the earlier sculpture of the Pallava period,
emphasise the fact that Murukan was essentially a warrior-god.
The
deity is also adorned with large ear-rings (makara-kundala),
a close-fitting necklace (kantikai), bracelets (kataka)
around arms are wrists and anklets (kalal). He is also
wearing a waist-band (udarabandha) with the knot in
front. The folds of the dhoti are realistically depicted.
The
deity is shown with four arms. The upper right hand
holds a weapon with a short handle, the thunderbolt
(vajra or sakti) inherited from Indra when Subrahmanya
became the warrior-god par excellence.
The
upper left hand holds a rosary (aksamala) and the lower
right hand a lotus bud. The lower left hand is shown
resting on the left thigh. The rosary and the lotus
bud are the attributes of Brahma shared by Murukan in
his capacity as the god of knowledge (su-brahmanya).
The rosary is usually hold in the right hand, though
instances of its being held in the upper left hand as
in the present case are also known.9 All the three attributes,
viz., rosary and the lotus bud, are known to Tamil literary
tradition.10 It is however significant that three other
important attributes in Tamil tradition viz., ceval
koti and mayil murti are not depicted.11 These features
begin to appear in the iconography of Murukan in the
Tamil country only from a later period.
A
unique feature of the sculpture is the brief inscription
appearing on the also forming the background to the
sculpture in the narrow space below the armpits and
above the thighs. With the exception of hero stones
and Jain rock carvings, inscribed sculptures especially
of the BrahmAnical deities are rare in Tamilnadu.12
The
inscription is in four lines. The first two lines are
engraved below the right armpit of the deity and the
next two lines below the left. Two letters in the first
line are lost due to flaking of the rock surface. The
rest of the inscription is well-preserved and legible.
The inscription is in Tamil written in the Tamil script
of the early Pallava period, but with an admixture of
few vatteluttu letters. The inscription can be assigned
on palaeographical grounds to ca. 7th century AD.13
The iconographical features belong to the same period.
