CDS (I) 2024 General Knowledge · Question 49 of 120

Correct — B, Shiva as Yoga-Dakshinamurti. The Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur is Rajaraja I's Shaiva foundation of the early eleventh century, and the paintings the stem refers to were found in 1931 by S. K. Govindasami of Annamalai University, on the walls of the narrow circumambulatory passage that runs round the shrine, hidden under a later Nayaka layer of overpainting. Because the temple is dedicated to Shiva, the Chola layer is a Shaiva programme, and a seated yogic Shiva in the Dakshinamurti aspect — the teacher facing south — is the figure identified among them. Only option (b) is a Shaiva subject at all; the other three belong to Buddhist and Jaina art.

• (a)Buddha with Chauri-bearers on either side — A Buddhist composition of the Buddha flanked by fly-whisk attendants. It belongs to the world of Ajanta and the Gupta-period sites, not to a Shaiva royal temple built by Rajaraja I.
• (c)Yakshi Kali — A yakshi is an attendant nature deity of the Jaina and Buddhist pantheons. Such figures do appear in Indian painting and sculpture, but not as the subject of the Chola murals inside a Shiva temple's circumambulatory passage.
• (d)Parshvanatha with snake-hood on a lion-throne — Parshvanatha is the twenty-third Jaina Tirthankara, always shown with a serpent canopy over his head. That iconography belongs to Jaina sites such as Sittanavasal and Ellora, and has no place in a Shaiva temple programme.

Chola temple building peaked in the eleventh century, and the Brihadisvara or Rajarajesvara temple at Thanjavur, completed around 1010 under Rajaraja I, is its greatest surviving monument — a UNESCO World Heritage Site as one of the Great Living Chola Temples. Its murals are the most important body of Chola painting known. They were painted directly on the passage walls around the sanctum, then covered by Nayaka-period painting in the sixteenth century, and were revealed again when the surface layer was cleaned after the 1931 discovery. The subjects are Shaiva narratives and icons — Shiva in Kailash, Shiva as Tripurantaka, Shiva as Nataraja — together with a portrait of the royal patron Rajaraja with his teacher Karuvur Devar.

The route to the answer here is iconographic elimination rather than recall of a specific panel. A Shaiva temple carries Shaiva painting, so a Buddha, a yakshi and a Jaina Tirthankara are all out on principle, and only the Shiva option survives. One honest caveat is worth carrying: the NCERT account of these murals lists Shiva in Kailash, as Tripurantaka and as Nataraja and does not name a Yoga-Dakshinamurti panel, and recent scholarship has argued that a figure long read as Dakshinamurti is in fact a secular scene of a royal guru meditating under a banyan tree. UPSC's key follows the traditional identification, so that is the answer to give; but if you meet the panel in a reading list, expect the attribution itself to be discussed rather than settled.

• The Chola frescoes of the Brihadisvara temple were discovered in 1931 by S. K. Govindasami of Annamalai University.
• They line the narrow circumambulatory passage around the shrine and lay beneath a Nayaka-period overpainting of the sixteenth century.
• The temple was built under Rajaraja I around 1010 CE and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site among the Great Living Chola Temples.
• Recorded Chola subjects there include Shiva in Kailash, Shiva as Tripurantaka, Shiva as Nataraja and a portrait of Rajaraja with his teacher.

• Trying to recall a specific panel instead of eliminating by religion — three of the four options are Buddhist or Jaina subjects.
• Confusing the 1931 discovery of the Chola layer with the Nayaka paintings on top of it; the sixteenth-century layer was always visible.
• Assuming Dakshinamurti here refers to the small shrine of that name added to the temple complex later; the question is about a painting.

Asked as a single-line recall item anchored to a place, a period and a discovery year — CDS likes to tie art-history questions to a datable event.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Chola paintings of the Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur came to light because

  • (a)an earthquake exposed a sealed chamber
  • (b)a later layer of Nayaka-period painting over them was cleaned away
  • (c)they were removed from another temple and re-installed
  • (d)they were found in a manuscript collection

  Answer(b) a later layer of Nayaka-period painting over them was cleaned away — the Chola layer lay beneath sixteenth-century work in the circumambulatory passage.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Parshvanatha, shown with a serpent canopy over his head, belongs to the iconography of which tradition?

  • (a)Buddhist
  • (b)Jaina
  • (c)Shaiva
  • (d)Vaishnava

  Answer(b) Jaina — Parshvanatha is the twenty-third Tirthankara, and the snake hood is his identifying mark.