| Temples & Legends of Himachal Pradesh |
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| Temples & Legends Of India |
CHAMBA |
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already mentioned, another old idol exists at Chitrari, believed to represent Shakti Devi.
It is likewise a fine old brass image, but only a bust from the waist' upward emerging
from the usual copper pedestal. It cannot be an image of the Devi, as it is a male
figure, holding a lotus and a rosary in its hands. It wears a high mukuta of piled up
hair, while long ringlets float down on the shoulders; a diadem is placed on the forehead,
ending above the ears in two small flowers and rising above the temples in two high
pinnacles. The eyes are inlaid with silver. Probably this bust represents the same deity
as Balabhadra Varman's similar brass image at Harser near Brahmaur, i.e. Shiva. Its style is characteristically Kashmiri, and stands very near to the Surya relief’s of Martand. It must, therefore, belong to the reign of Ajai Varman, or soon after.Only slightly later we have to place two copper statuettes of Yoginis, attendants of the great goddess. They are rather short, stout figures, with excessively short legs and small feet, a fat body and big head, and with two large staring eyes and an awkward smile.And yet they do not belong to primitive art; on the contrary, they are representatives, though degenerated and provincial, of a highly refined tradition. The treatment of anatomy and postures, the beautifully chiseled costume, the hair style, the jewelry diadems, the silver inlaid eyes, the oval halo, the type of the pedestal, all this places them still in the late Gupta tradition, and yet the stout roundness of the figures already has all the rural earthiness of early Pala and Pratihara art. Moreover, the excessively short legs, small feet, big heads are characteristic features of the dissolution of every late style; the artist still knows how to do every individual part, but has lost the sense of the whole, and accentuates the various parts of the figure according to their interest, naturally emphasizing the head and eyes as the centres of expression. |
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