Chandikeshvara or Chandresh: The Legendary Shaivite Devotee

This bronze statue, cast in the exact classical idiom of Chola bronzes of early period, represents Chandikeshvara, also referred to as Chandresh, a legendary Shaivite saint, devotee and steward of Shiva’s household immensely popular as a theme of South Indian sculptures, especially metal cast and temple images. The tradition of Chandikeshvara icons is known to have begun in the tenth century when the Chola king Ramaraja, who ruled from 985 to 1014, commissioned his image to protect the Shiva temple that he had built. As the legend prevalent during Ramaraja’s reign, a cowherd boy, Chandresh used to worship a tall earthen Shiva-linga and offered to it a part of his cows’ milk. One day his father saw it and enraged by his act of wasting milk kicked the Shiva-linga and lashed him with a staff though it miraculously transformed into Shiva’s sacred axe. Impressed by the devotion of the boy Shiva and Parvati garlanded him and nominated him as the steward of their household. Correspondingly in earthly terms he emerged and was revered as the guardian of Shiva temples.

The Chandikeshvara image rendered for Ramaraja, and almost all subsequent ones were conceived with closed eyes, folded hands, the right leg flexed portraying a forward move, and the left, straightened as in stationary posture, and an axe carried under the right arm. Through its symbolic breadth this highly evolved iconography-anatomy of the figure represents a strange synthesis of two conflicting sets of icons which comprise the essence of Chandikeshvara’s legendary being also. The closed eyes, folded hands and straightened right leg, suggestive of a standing posture – a mode of penance, portray him as meditating with his mind fixed on his Master in full devotion, while his right leg depicting action and the sacred axe carried under his right arm are contrarily suggestive of his might, physical and spiritual, which as Shiva’s steward and guardian of temple were his essential features. Besides the above, his images, early as well as cotemporary, as this one, included ‘yajnopavit’, some kind of headdress, laces of beads around his neck, ‘tri-punda’ or ‘tri-netra’ mark on forehead and loincloth, more or less as their essential features.

A contemporary image, this metal cast from Swamimalai, the best known centre of bronze casting in Tamilnadu, registers some quite interesting and meaningful deviations such as were seen emerging in the Chandikeshvara images of the period slightly later to Ramaraja when under the influence of Shankaracharya and other saints and theologists both, Hindu thought and art, came forward to work for a synthesis of Vaishnavite and Shaivite factions of Hinduism using human icons on parallel with Harihara like divine forms. While retaining his Shaivite identity with a ‘tri-punda’ and ‘tri-netra’ marks on forehead and his overall anatomy, these images alternated with a ladle the sacred axe into which the staff of Chandikeshvara’s father had transformed by the grace of Shiva himself and was hence an attribute in which revealed his essential identity.

As in some later medieval images – the proto models on which this contemporary bronze cast seems to have been based, the shift from the axe to the ladle or to a ladle like looking object, is quite meaningful. Besides that the ladle is the essential instrument in the performance of ‘yajna’, the essence of Vedic ritual, it is also an attribute of Brahma having Vaishnava links. Thus, the image is symbolic of the unity of the Great Trinity. It also incorporates a few other features revealing such synthesis. Initial Chandikeshvara images had helmet-like taller headdresses as befitted a warrior; but his subsequent images, as this contemporary one, represented him usually as shaven headed with a string of beads tied around it, as did Vedic acolytes. The short loincloth worn close to groins in early images, a typical wear of Shaivite acolytes, was also alternated in these later images by a half ‘antariya’, a more characteristic feature of Vaishnava icons.

This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books.