Decoding a Hindu Temple: Royalty and Religion in the Iconographic Program of the Virupaksha Temple, Pattadakal by Cathleen Cummings

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS Cathleen Cummings. Decoding a Hindu Temple: Royalty and Religion in the Iconographic Program of the Virupaksha Temple, Pattadakal. Woodland Hills, CA: South Asia Studies Association, 2014. ISBN: 9780983447269 Paperback: 706 pages Cathleen Cummings' Decoding a Hindu Temple provides readers a thorough examination ofa Hindu temple's sculptural program. The author exposes the myriad forces involved in the decoration ofHindu sacred architecture, including patronage , religious sectarianism, and political exigencies, as well as provisions for images serving as foci for religious devotion and instruction in their requisite contexts. Although the topics she engages apply to a wide swath of Hindu temples, Cummings offers the Virupaksha Temple at Pattadakal as a case study for the interconnection of architecture and sculpted imagery. Her approach is iconographic and iconologic in that she seeks not only the accurate identification of divine forms, but also the underlying principles and motivations for their placement and inclusion. Pattadakal, the royal commemorative site of the early Chalukya dynasty (544-757), is located presently in Bagalkot district, Karnataka, India. The early Chalukyas, principally a South Indian dynasty, ruled a vast empire stretching at its fullest extent from Gujarat in the north to Odisha in the east and as far southward as Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Their period ofrule is acknowledged as a formative era for the development ofthe South Indian temple style, with rock-cut and structural temples from the well-known sites of Badami, Aihole, and Ellora dating to the reign of the early Chalukyas. While archaeological excavations indicate an importance to Pattadakal perhaps as early as the Satavahana era, this royal site features seven main temples from the early Chalukya period and a later Rashtrakuta temple. The Virupaksha Temple dates from the reign ofKing Vikramaditya II (733-745), the penultimate early Chalukyan ruler in control of the site. An inscription (although lacking a specific date) relates that Queen Lokama66 hadevi commissioned the Virupaksha Temple to celebrate the conquest of Kanchipuram by her husband, Vikramaditya II. This temple, the largest surviving early Chalukya monument and the most lavishly decorated, offers a glimpse into South Indian conceptions ofroyal identity and pious duty, in addition to providing a well-documented example of female patronage in pre-modern India. Cummings' book focuses predominantly on images carved in niches along the exterior surfaces ofthe VirupakshaTemple. As a microcosm of the Hindu pantheon, the temple displays stone reliefs ofShiva in his various forms, Vishnu, his avatars, and scenes from the Ramayana, as well as depictions ofloving couples and celestial females frequently represented in Hindu sacred architecture. These reliefs serve to emphasize and illustrate common themes that demonstrate - far from a haphazard collection ofloosely associated iconographic forms - a premeditated program ofdecoration to serve royal and religious constructions of meaning. For example, Shiva and Parvati Gaming with Dice relates to an analogous game of chance played as part ofa king's consecration, and Shiva Lingodbhavamurti , with the form ofthe god as an unfathomable cosmic pillar, compares with similar imagery evoked in consecration rituals. Cummings explains their presence on the temple in part through the concept ofrajadharma, or the righteous duty and manner ofthe king. Ofcourse, these images are polyvalent, and the author meticulously uncovers various layers ofmeaning in her analysis ofthe reliefs' iconographic peculiarities. A significant contribution of Cummings' analysis is her explanation ofthe Virupaksha Temple's iconographic parallels with images associated with the Pallavas, dynastic rivals to the earlyChalukyas, whose defeat byVikramaditya II the Virupaksha Temple commemorates. According to the author, the insertion ofthese features into the iconographic plan was deliberate and constituted a practice she terms "symbolic looting." In this case, the image ofShiva Gangadhara (or Descent ofthe Ganges) seems to appear first on the Virupaksha Temple among early Chalukya monuments. Perhaps its most famous depiction in South Asia, its precise interpretation still controversial, occurs with the Pallava-era rock-cut monuments at Mamallapuram (also known as Mahabalipuram). Cummings argues that the inclusion of the image symbolically appropriates the Ganga River valley into Chalukya domains and also stakes a claim over Pallava-held regions as a symbolic bounty of war. That the relief faces the Malaprabha River in Pattadakal further associates the Ganga River with Chalukya geography and King Vikramaditya II with Shiva...