Le crane et le glaive: representations de Bhairava en inde du sud ([VIII.sup.E]--[XIII.sup.e] siecles).

• Author: Schmid, Charlotte
• Position: Book review

By Karine Ladrech. Collection Indologie, vol. 112. Pondichery: Ecole Francaise D'extreme-Orient/Institut franais de Pondichery, 2010. Pp. 467.

This book presents and analyzes an abundant South-Indian corpus of sculpted representations concerned with Siva as a criminal, the Horrific Bhairava ("I'Effroyable") produced--or supposed to have been produced--between the eighth and the thirteenth centuries. The spatial and chronological frames of the study are determined by three main considerations. First, the importance of Bhairava in South India has not been taken into account until now; second, this deity was not represented before the eighth century; third, the sculptures carved under the dynasties of the Pallavas, the Calukyas of Badami, the Colas, the Nolambas, the Hoysalas, the Kakatiyas, and the Calukyas of Vengi and of Kalyana form an iconographic whole.

Ladrech has worked for years on Bhairava and defended a PhD thesis on the topic after mastering Sanskrit--most of the many translations of Sanskrit texts in the book are her own and she provides an edition of some of the relevant texts--and after carrying out a survey of South India where she lived for two years. This book is the final product of that study. With a CD-Rom published in the same collection (2005), she has already given access to the database she designed on the subject of Bhairava. This time she has divided her presentation into three parts. She presents first extensive textual documentation (narrative literature, technical treatises such as Silpagastras and certain parts of the Puranas, books of rituals [Agamas, Samhitas, Tantras], and Dhyanaglokas). The second and most important part of the book is devoted to stone images. These are illustrated in the CD-Rom accompanying the book, which also contains several very useful annexes, such as maps, texts, and a table synthesizing the attributes mentioned in Sanskrit technical treatises. The third part deals with the relationship between the texts and the sculptures.

The work carried out is immense, the erudition massive, and the exposition lucid. While treating important forms of Siva and dealing with two distinct domains of documents, this book asks fundamental questions about Hinduism and the way scholars try to think about it. The first issue addressed is Bhairava himself. It is one of the merits of this book that it opens the debate: What is Bhairava? That is, when and how did this deity come to be considered as existing...