A Study in Nayaka-period Social Life: Tiruppudaimarudur Paintings and Carvings.

• Author: Branfoot, Crispin
• Position: Book review

A Study in Nayaka-period Social Life: Tiruppudaimarudur Paintings and Carvings. By JEAN DELOCHE. Collection Indologie, vol. 116. Pondichery: INSTITUT FRANCAIS DE PONDICHERY and ECOLE FRAN-CAISE D'EXTREME-ORIENT, 2011. Pp. xii + 137, 206 color plates.

This slim, richly illustrated book contributes to the growing body of scholarship on the history, arts, and culture of the dynamic Nayaka period (ca. 1550-1730) in early modern South India that followed the gradual disintegration of the Vijayanagara Empire. The wall paintings that are the book's focus first came to public attention in 1979, and their exceptional scale and state of preservation have since resulted in their brief illustration in most discussions of South Indian temple painting. The paintings are located within the four ascending tiers of the middle of the three gopuras (pyramidal gateways) of the Narumpunatha (Shiva) temple at Tiruppudaimarudur, a small village in the far south of Tamilnadu near Tirunelveli.

The declared aim of the book is not the systematic presentation and identification of the various themes portrayed in this exceptional body of seventeenth-century mural paintings and carved wooden ceilings, columns, and figures, but an attempt to understand the society depicted (p. 9). The subjects displayed include both religious and secular scenes. It is the latter that have received the greatest attention in the past, and Deloche continues this fascination, structuring the book into chapters on (i) the most famous panel, of a ship disembarking horses at a Nayaka port; (ii) administration, including court scenes and ceremonial; (iii) military groups of infantry, cavalry, and elephants, together with Portuguese mercenaries; (iv) daily life, with scenes of temple ritual, fishing, musicians and dancers; and finally (v) technical details of musical instruments, palanquins, horse equipment, and weapons including bows, swords, and firearms.

Jean Deloche has made several previous studies of the history of technology based upon close studies of sculpture and archaeological remains, and this remains the strength of this book. He dates the paintings to the mid-seventeenth century on the basis of the firearms depicted, widespread from the late sixteenth century, and more specifically the s-shaped bits in the horses' bridles. Less effective straight "snaffles" across the horse's mouth had been used until then and depicted in other Nayaka-period sculptures, including the Pudu Mandapa...