Consider the following statements with reference to the Nataraj bronze sculpture of Chola period : 1. Shiva is shown balancing himself on his right leg representing tirobhava. 2. Shiva is shown raising his left leg in bhujangatrasita stance, representing kicking away the illusion from the devotee's mind. 3. The main right hand holds the damaru, Shiva's favourite musical instrument. Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?
- (a)1 only
- (b)2 only
- (c)2 and 3 only
- (d)1, 2 and 3
Correct — B, 2 only. Statement 2 is the one that survives, and it is almost word for word the standard NCERT description: Shiva raises his left leg in the bhujangatrasita stance, which represents tirobhava, the kicking away of the veil of maya or illusion from the devotee's mind. Statement 1 fails because it moves tirobhava onto the wrong leg. The right leg is the one Shiva balances on, and with the foot of that same leg he presses down the apasmara, the dwarf who stands for ignorance or forgetfulness; the veil-lifting meaning belongs to the raised left leg, not to the standing right one. Statement 3 fails on the hand. The main right hand is held in abhaya hasta, the gesture of reassurance; the damaru, the small hourglass drum that keeps the tala, is held in the upper right hand. The upper left carries a flame and the main left hand is held in dola hasta, reaching across towards the abhaya hand. So one statement of the three stands.
- (a)1 only — Keeps the one statement that swaps the legs' meanings and discards the one that is accurate. Balancing on the right leg is correct; calling that tirobhava is not, because tirobhava is what the raised left leg expresses.
- (c)2 and 3 only — Right about the leg, wrong about the hand. The damaru is real enough and is indeed Shiva's instrument, but it sits in the upper right hand; the main right hand is empty and raised in abhaya.
- (d)1, 2 and 3 — The all-of-them pick, defeated twice over — once by the misplaced tirobhava in statement 1 and once by the misplaced damaru in statement 3.
The dancing Shiva of the Chola bronzes is a piece of iconography in which every limb carries a fixed meaning. The god dances the ananda tandava inside a ring of flames, the jvala mala. He stands on the crushed apasmara with the right foot, raises the left leg across the body, holds the drum of creation in the upper right hand and fire, the agent of destruction, in the upper left, offers reassurance with the main right hand and sweeps the main left across the chest towards the raised foot. The images were cast by the lost-wax method, chiefly in Tamil Nadu from the tenth to the twelfth century, and the craft is still practised at Kumbakonam.
Iconography questions are won by fixing two or three anchors rather than by memorising a paragraph. Here the reliable anchors are that the standing leg is the one that crushes ignorance, and that the raised leg is the one that lifts the veil. Once those are in place, statement 1 is visibly reversed. For the hands, the useful rule is that the two upper hands hold objects — drum and fire — while the two lower hands make gestures, so any statement that puts an object in a main hand deserves suspicion. A note on the printed text: the spelling bhujangatrasita in statement 2 is exactly the spelling the standard textbook uses, so it is not a misprint but the term as taught.
- Shiva balances on the right leg and presses down the apasmara, the dwarf of ignorance, with the foot of that same leg.
- The raised left leg is in the bhujangatrasita stance and represents tirobhava, the kicking away of the veil of illusion.
- The upper right hand holds the damaru and the upper left holds agni, fire.
- The main right hand is in abhaya hasta and the main left in dola hasta, connecting with it.
- The flying locks touch the jvala mala, the circular garland of flames that rings the whole figure.
- Swapping the legs. The right leg stands and crushes; the left leg is raised and liberates.
- Putting the damaru in the main right hand. It belongs to the upper right hand.
- Reading tirobhava as the crushing of ignorance. The crushing of ignorance is what the foot on the apasmara does; tirobhava is the removal of the veil of illusion.
Either as a statements item on Nataraja iconography or as a short factual question on how many arms the Chola Nataraja has and what each holds.
Bronze icons of Nataraja cast during the Chola period invariably show the deity with
- (a) eight hands
- (b) six hands
- (c) four hands
- (d) two hands
Answer(c) four hands
The same bronze, asked at its simplest. Fixing the count at four is what makes the division of labour here readable — two upper hands holding the drum and the flame, two lower hands making gestures.
Which one of the following has been an important early Chola painting discovered at the Brihadisvara Temple, Thanjavur in 1931?
- (a) Buddha with Chauri-bearers on either side
- (b) Shiva as Yoga-Dakshinamurti
- (c) Yakshi Kali
- (d) Parshvanatha with snake-hood on a lion-throne
Answer(b) Shiva as Yoga-Dakshinamurti
Chola Shaiva art again, in paint rather than bronze. The Thanjavur murals include a Nataraja among their subjects, so the two questions draw on the same body of imagery and the same period of patronage.
- practice — not a real PYQ
In the Chola Nataraja bronze, the figure crushed beneath Shiva's right foot represents
- (a)the demon Mahisha
- (b)apasmara, ignorance or forgetfulness
- (c)the river goddess Ganga
- (d)the sage Patanjali
Answer(b) apasmara, ignorance or forgetfulness — pressed down by the foot of the leg Shiva balances on.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The circular garland of flames that surrounds the dancing Shiva in Chola bronzes is called
- (a)prabhavali of lotus petals
- (b)jvala mala
- (c)torana
- (d)kirtimukha
Answer(b) jvala mala — the ring of flames that the god's flying locks touch on either side.