During the Chola period, the most publicly visible expressions of devotion were the great annual festivals, or mahotsavas, which expanded in scale along with the growth of temples. While ritual guidelines change and vary across communities, similar versions of these festivals continue in the present-day. Photographs on display in this gallery depict the Brahmotsava festival, the primary festival of the Kapalishvara temple of Mylapore, a south Indian Shaiva temple located today in the historic quarter of Chennai. This ten-day festival, held during the full moon in the month of Panguni (March–April), is celebrated in this hymn by the Shaiva saint Sambandar: Pumpavai, O beautiful girl! Would you go without having seen on the streets of great Mayilai, always busy with festive crowds, the festival of Pankuni Uttiram with its great sound of celebration, at which beautiful women sing and distribute alms, at the Lord’s Kapaliccaram shrine, center of many festivals?¹ Among the many rites of this festival, the most important are the processions of deities embodied in bronze icons. These deities appear as living beings, elaborately dressed in silks, jewels, crowns, and flower garlands, which largely obscure their metal surfaces. Twice a day, in the morning and evening, images of the gods emerge from the temple compound and are paraded through the surrounding streets. During these processions devotees place fruit and other offerings before the images. Today the presiding deity of the festival is Shiva as Somaskanda (with Uma and Skanda). Shiva is locally known, however, as Kapalishvara (Lord of the Skull-Bowl), the form he takes at the dissolution of the cosmos. This earlier form of Shiva, which is now associated with Shiva as Bhikshatana (Enchanting Mendicant), emerges on the ninth day of the festival. In accordance with status, the presiding deities are typically carried on the animal mounts, or vahanas, with which they are associated—for example Shiva on the bull Nandi—or on chariot-temple cars. Chariot-temple cars, or rathas, have four or more wheels and are pulled with long bamboo poles and ropes. They are typically made of wood with towering superstructures that resemble the temple architecture itself. Lesser deities and poet-saints are transported on palanquins, or sibika, portable shrines secured to long bamboo poles that are carried on the shoulders of temple servants. Other appointees usually walk alongside the procession waving fly whisks or holding parasols to honor and shade the deities. Lugs and perforated holes at the bases of the bronze sculptures are used to tie and secure the bronzes to their vehicles. These vehicles conjure up images of royal palatial abodes, in which the deities are elevated high in the air for their audience to see.
The Hindu cyclical concept of time is spectacularly embodied in this form of Shiva as Nataraja—an icon of great symbolic importance during the Chola dynasty at numerous sites. Surrounded by a fiery aureole and wrapped in serpents, Shiva performs the dance of bliss, or ananda tandava, with an energy that sprays his matted locks outward. Entangled in his locks is the river goddess Ganga (Ganges). In his upper hands, Shiva holds a drum, which symbolizes the rhythm of creation, and fire, the destructive force of the universe. His open right palm signifies protection and his left hand points to his raised foot, signifying refuge and deliverance. Mushalagan, the dwarf demon of ignorance and illusion, lies prostrate below, and the kirttimukha, or face of glory, at the apex of the aureole both protects and terrifies. Bronze images of Shiva as Nataraja were usually installed in smaller shrines within the temple complex and were flanked by other images, often a standing image of his consort, Uma. In Tamil tradition today, the goddess is known as Shivakami, or Beloved of Shiva, when in the company of Nataraja. Although these two images were not originally part of the same assemblage, an image of Uma similar to this one would have been positioned to Shiva’s left as a witness to his divine dance. The pairing signifies the symbiotic nature of the god and his female consort, which is also expressed in androgynous representations of Shiva as Ardhanarisvara, in which his right half is male and his left is female.