L’enfant-saint qui fait empaler les ennemis de Siva. La narration figurée d’un épisode de la vie de Campantar à Tirupputaimarutur et à Avutaiyarkovil (Tamilnadu)

This paper provides sculptural and pictorial evidence of a famous episode of the life of the Tamil Sivaite saint Campantar, whose exploits are known from such works as the Periyapura_am, which narrates the lives of the Nayanmars. An ordeal was held at the court of the pa__ya king Ne_umara_ which ended up with the Jain opponents of the saint being impaled. Early sculptural records of the episode are found in the Melakkatampur and Darasuram temples, while complex, later fresco cycles are observable in the temple of Tirupputaimarutur near Tirunelveli and, twice, at Avutaiyarkovil, near Pudukottai. The representations differ for many an aspect, and a close analysis of the scenes is provided. The author could not complete her work, which was to include the description of the fresco cycle in the temple in Madurai

La personnification du Meurtre de brahmane

There still are living traditions in Tamil Nadu about kings being persecuted by personified brahmahatyā. At Tiruvidaimarudur a ninth-century representation of this theme can be observed (pl. Ia) along with a unique, contemporary representation of a shivering male figure who is to be identified with the king who expiates his sin visiting temples after temples before obtaining forgiveness at Tribhuvanam (pls. Ib,c; II a,b). The submission of kings to Brahmans is implied. Later iconographies of Killing of Brahman like those at Senji (pl. VI) strictly adhere to the early Chola model. In Hoysaḷa temples of the eleventh-twelfth century the female figures accompanying halfnaked personages carrying a stick and a coiled snake ( pls. Ib,c; II a,b; III c,d: IV a,b; IVc) have also been identified with Brahmanhatyās persecuting Śiva after his cutting Brahmā’s fifth head, in accordance with Puranic literature, where Killing of Brahman is personified as a young woman. However, this interpretation cannot be shared. The male personage is not Śiva, but probably a Kāpālika ascetic accompanied by his female partner (often shown in yonimudrā, cf. pl. V a), who hurl bawdy insults at each other. In fact the stick held by the ascetic is that of a magician, and the snake represents kuṇḍalinī

Le gopura, pavillon d’entrée des temples sud-indiens

The gopura, the temple crowned by a tower, has always had only conjectural etymologies. With reference to descriptions in ancient texts, the latest attempt to find a definition considers that the word gopura is derived partly from the Dravidian and Sanskrit, making it a defensive work, a bastion on a rampart. An approach based on the comprehension of the sacred world, on the architecture of the gopura itself, as well as on the vocabulary, allows the assertion that the defensive works are in the likeness of the temple gopura. And, it also enables one to say that the gopura results from a transformation which never lost touch with primordial symbolism, and has no specific connection with defence