Karaikkal Ammaiyar, Beauty Of A Devoted Ghoul

A Shaiva devotee of the highest order, Karaikkal Ammaiyar or the mother of Karaikkal (a territory of the Chola kingdom of yore) was the well-off wife of a significant merchant of their time. She is known for her profound, devotional poetry and is one of the Nayanmars, of which only three are women (there are sixty-three). In the bronze sculpture that you see on this page, She has the keen appearance of “female ghoul/has shriveled breasts/bulging veins/hollowed eyes/bared teeth/a bloated belly/copper-colored hair/fangs/knobby ankles and elongated shanks/…”.

These lines are famously Hers and, while She was a great beauty of Her time, She willingly disposed of it in order to be one with the ghoulish creatures that inhabit the sacred feet of Shiva. She is seated with Her legs folded, feet gathered afore Her, rudimentary cymbals in Her hands that lend music to Her poetry. There is very little about Her face or figure that is markedly feminine or so in a pleasing way; indeed She is known to have risen above the norms of Her time that applied to women and taken to a path - of bhakti - almost exclusively reserved for men

An elongated quadrilateral pedestal supports the seated figure of Karaikkal Ammaiyar. The upper tier is a simplistic one, while the slanting edges of the lower one is engraved with large lotus petals. Fashioned from pure bronze, the style of the work is distinctively Chola - from the long limbs, the androgynous facial features, and the washed-out colour of rose gold.