Tamil Nadu, Kaveri delta region
Late twelfth or early thirteenth century CE
Bronze; 40.0 x 27.9 x 12.7 cm
(15-3/4 x 11 x 5 in.)
Gift of Clara T. and Gilbert J. Yager in honor of Charles Millard, 97.8
Provenance: Acquired 6 May 1997 from Clara T. and Gilbert J. Yager; purchased 11 October 1990 from Sotheby’s, London, lot 32.

Although it is not unusual for a seven-hundred-year-old sculpture to be missing extremities, in this case, the missing hands and foot hold information vital to its identity.1 The bronze depicts either the popular Hindu god Krishna in one of two guises, or the Shaiva Saint Sambandar (Figs. 56, 57a, 57b).2

The dancing Krishna was a very popular subject in the art produced in the Tamil region during the reign of the Chola dynasty.3 He appears either as the mischievous boy rejoicing in dance after stealing butter from his foster mother’s larder or churn, or, less frequently, as the victorious child who purged the River Yamuna from evil when he killed the giant serpent Kaliya.4 In the former guise, Krishna is shown with his left leg lifted and his left arm extended; in the latter he stands with his left foot atop the flared cobra-head of the serpent while holding Kaliya’s tail in his left hand. The missing foot would have helped determine if he stood on a serpent.

Alternatively, he could be the child saint Sambandar, who was depicted in bronze from the eleventh century. Sambandar was a devotee of Shiva, who was born into a Brahmin family in the district of Tanjore, probably in the seventh century.5 He is best known for a mystical experience that occurred when he was only three years old, when he was taken to the local Shiva temple by his father, who left the boy on the steps of the tank attached to the temple while he performed his religious duties. When the father returned, he found his son holding a golden cup with drops of milk dribbling down his chin, and he asked Sambandar where he had received the milk. The boy then pointed towards the image of Parvati seated next to Shiva on the temple tower.6

To commemorate this miraculous event, southern Indian artists typically depicted Sambandar with his left arm extended and his left leg raised, much like representations of the dancing Krishna. In modeling Sambandar on the already recognizable figure of Krishna, they not only provided him with a familiar form that held significance for the local community, but also validated the saint with the stature accorded to Krishna.7 A difference in the position of the right hand enabled the viewer to distinguish them: Sambandar typically points towards the deity while the dancing Krishna holds his right hand with the palm facing outward in a gesture of protection.8

This bronze was likely created in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. A comparison with two dated bronzes9 suggests that although he shares characteristics with thirteenth-century work, such as the larger head and headdress in proportion to the rest of the body, it more closely resembles the twelfth-century work.10 MCKB

1 I thank Padma Kaimal, 09/11/2001, for her invaluable assistance in helping me to conceptualize the iconographic questions raised by this piece.
2 For a discussion of the associations between Krishna and Saint Sambandar, see Vidya Dehejia, “Iconographic Transference Between Krishna and Three Shaiva Saints” in Indian Art and Connoisseurship: Essays in Honour of Douglas Barrett, ed. John Guy (New Delhi and Ahmedabad: Indira Gandhi National Centre and Chidambaram: Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd., 1995), 140–149.
3 Dehejia, 144, explains that Krishna had become so popular in south India in part because of poems that were dedicated to each moment in the divinity’s early life in the ninth century.
4 Dehejia, 144.
5 Dehejia, 142, indicates that Sambandar lived in the second half of the seventh century; however, J.E. van Lohuizen-de Leeuw, Indian Sculptures in the von der Heydt Collection (Zurich: Museum Rietberg, 1964), 201, suggests that he lived in the sixth or early seventh century.
6 On the narrative, see Dehejia, 142, and Lohuizen-de Leeuw, 201.
7 Dehejia, 142–45.
8 It is likely that the hands became detached through wear and tear; the absence of the left foot may suggest this as well. However, the possibility that the hands were removed intentionally cannot be discounted. It is less likely, but not impossible, that during this sculpture’s life in a temple, the hands, foot, and serpent (if there was one) were deliberately removed so that, without its specific iconographic marks, the figure could be made more malleable.
9 They are a Vinadhara Bhikshatana (Shiva as the Alluring Mendicant bearing a vina) from the Thanjavur district dated to 1178 CE and an Alingana Chandrashekhara from Thirthangari dated to 1265 CE. See Nagaswamy, “On dating South Indian bronzes,” figures 23 and 24. I thank Padma Kaimal for bringing to my attention the six firmly dated bronzes and visual criteria that I have used to date the Chola works in this catalogue.
10 The two display a similar tension in the musculature as well as a slight elegant curvature in the lower torso. Both sculptures also share an upward energy, suggesting that all of the figure’s force rises through his head. Likewise, the jewelry has become more jagged, particularly in the shoulder amulets, on both bronzes, and it is more sharply defined against the body. Details like the rolls of fat on the stomach and neck have become slightly more stylized so that they appear to be mere incised lines rather than fleshy folds. The Ackland bronze, however, has not been stylized to the extent of the 1265 group in which the ornamentation is even sharper and the articulation of bodily form even less naturalistic.