Proceedings of the 8th Session of Indian Art History Congress: Dharmasthala: November 1999

Preface It gives us great pleasure in presenting to the world of scholars the proceeding of the 8th Session of the Indian Art History Congress held at Dharmasthala (Karnataka) from 17th to 19th November, 1999. The general theme of the Conference was "Saivism in Art Culture".

The Congress was inaugurated by Padma Bhushana. Veerendra Heggade, Dharmadhikari of Dharmasthala in absence of Sri Anantha Kumar, Hon'ble Minister of Culture, Government of India who could not reach there due to unavoidable circumstances. Dharmadhikari requested art historians to came forward in preserving the objects lying in different corners of the country and our cultural heritage. Dr. S.P. Gupta, the General President of the session presented the presidential address on this occasion. In his address, he traced the history of Indian art in different period. Dr. M.L. Nigam, Chairman, IAHC, presided over the function. Dr. R.D. Chaudhury, General Secretary of IAHC traced the brief history of IAHC & Prof. S. Prabhara secretary S.D.M. Education Society welcomed the participants at the beginning and Dr. Choodamani Nandgopal, Joint Secretary, IAHC Proposed the vote of thanks.

Dr. Haripriya Rangarajan, the Lady Governor of Andhra Pradesh and a well known art- historian was kind enough to deliver the Prof. K. D. Bajpai Memorial Lecture during the Congress.

The Volume contains altogether 17 papers, though few more spoken extempore were also presented during the session. Unfortunately, even later, we could have their written version and as such they could not be incorporated in this volume. Some of the papers could not be included as they lacked proper references in them. In spite of these drawbacks, we note with satisfaction that the studies presented in this collection are very much important for the study of Saiva art in India.

We have tried our best make this volumes upto mark but we crave the indulgence of readers for errors of ommision and commission.

We are very grateful to the members for attending and presenting their papers in the Congress. In fact, it is the members who make such type of Congress successful.

We also take this opportunity to thank the Presidents of various session, who took the responsibility of running the session smoothly. We also thank Dr. Choodamani Nandgopal for her in organizing this session.

We are thankful to our host Sri D. Veerendra Heggade and International Centre for Indian Art and Cultural Studies, Banglore for their nice hospitality.

We would like to express our deep gratitude to Dr. M.L. Nigam, Chairman and Dr. R.D. Chaudhury, General Secretary of Indian Art History Congress for their keen interest in the publication of this volume.

Last but nor the least, we are thankful to Mr. Sundeep Singhal of Sundeep Prakashan, New Delhi for hard work in getting this volume printed within the scheduled date.

Contents

	Preface	v
	List of Plates	ix
	Inaugural Address- Veerendra Heggade	xi
	General President's Address - S.P. Gupta	xvii
1	What is Lingam in Saivism?	1
	Haripriya Rangarajan
2	Depictions of Siva with three faces and four hands	15
	N. P. Joshi
3	Influence of Saivism in epigraphs, art, iconography and architecture: A case study of the Doiyang- Dhasiri Valley in Assam	25
	Hemendranath Dutta
4	Nataraja, images from Assam	31
	N.C. Das
5	Early Saiva sects and temple art and architecture of Tamil Country	35
	T. Satyamurthy
6	Ardhanarisvara - Murti in the temple art of Andhra Pradesh: A Comparative iconographical study (early Chalukya to Vijayanagara)	40
	P.N. Naidu
7	Trissur Vatakkunathan temple: A study of its specialties	50
	T.P. Sankarankutty Nair
8	Siva temple at Prambanan Architecture and Sculpture: A review	56
	Tara Kashyap
9	Gaya: A potential center of Saivism and its art	63
	Arvind Mahajan
10	Svabhisekamurti, a rare image of Siva	81
	S.N. Shivarudraswamy
11	Siva as Bhairava worshipped in Varanasi	84
	Bhanu Agrawal
12	Bhikshatanamurti in South Indian art (with special reference to Viajayanagara period)	93
	D. Kiran Kranth Choudhary
13	Concept of Saivism among the Garo animists of Meghalaya	98
	Julius L.R. Marak
14	The worship of Siva among the Bodo- Kacharis of Assam	103
	Paramita Das
15	Influence of Saivism in the folk music of Assam	107
	Anima Choudhary
16	Landmarks of Bahubali Images in Karnataka	123
	Maruti Nandan Tiwari
	Prof. K.D. Bajpai Memorial Lecture: Varaha Images in Madhya Pradesh: An iconographic study	129
	Haripriya Rangarajan
	Report of the Indian Art History Congress, Dharmasthala, Karnataka	151
	Choodamani Nandgopal
	Report of the General Secretary	154
	R.D. Choudhury
	Office Bearers of the Indian Art History Congress	157