SOUTH INDIA, TAMIL NADU, VIJAYANAGARA PERIOD, 14TH CENTURY OR LATER

The sixty-three canonized nayanar are the Shaivite saint-poets of South India, immortalized in bronze sculpture from the eighth century. The present work depicts an unidentified nayanar, distinguished by his close-cropped hair, short dhoti and ritual accoutrements: holding a ghanta or bell in the proper right hand, and a damaru or drum (or possibly a diyya or lamp) in the proper left hand. Compare the snailshell curls and brief dhoti to a fourteenth-century bronze figure of nayanar Manikkavachakar, illustrated by R. Kannan in Manual on the Bronzes in the Government Museum, Chennai, Chennai, 2003, p 118-120, SI. no. 53.