திருவாரூர் தேவாசிரியன் மண்டபம் ஓவியங்கள்

திருவாரூர் (அ) ஆரூர் தியாகராஜர் கோவில் வளாகத்தில் உள்ள தேவாசிரியன் மண்டபத்தின் விதானத்திலும்(உட்கூரை) சுவரிலும் கி.பி. 1700-ல் தஞ்சை மராத்தியர் ஆட்சிக் காலத்தில் தீட்டப்பட்ட ஓவியங்கள் உள்ளன. தேவாசிரிய மண்டப ஓவியங்களை வரைந்தவர் ஓவியன் சிங்காதனம் ஆவார்.

இடம்

சென்னையில்(பாண்டிச்சேரி, சிதம்பரம், மயிலாடுதுறை வழி) இருந்து 300 கி.மீ, தஞ்சாவூரில் இருந்து 61 கி.மீ, கும்பகோணத்தில் இருந்து 40 கி.மீ, காரைக்காலில் இருந்து 39 கி.மீ தூரத்தில் திருவாரூர் அமைந்துள்ளது. தேவாசிரிய மண்டபம் அமைந்திருக்கும் புகழ்பெற்ற தியாகராஜர் கோயில் திருவாரூர் சந்திப்பு ரயில் நிலையத்தில் இருந்து 2 கி.மீ தொலைவில் உள்ளது.

ஓவியக் காட்சிகள்

முசுகுந்த புராணம், மனுநீதி சோழன் புராணம் ஆகிய இரண்டு புராணங்கள் காட்சி விளக்கங்களோடு தேவாசிரிய மண்டபத்தின் விதானத்திலும்(உட்கூரை) சுவரிலும் வரையப்பட்டுள்ளது. கச்சியப்ப சிவாச்சாரியாரின் கந்தபுராணத்தில் கந்த விரதப் படலம் என்ற பகுதி உள்ளது. அதில் முசுகுந்தன் என்ற அரசன் எவ்வாறு விரதமிருந்து தியாகேச(தியாகராஜ) மூர்த்தியையும் பிற விடங்கர்களையும் விண்ணுலகிலிருந்து இவ்வுலகிற்கு கொண்டு வந்து திருவாரூரிலும் மற்ற ஆறு விடங்கத் தலங்களிலும் ஸ்தாபித்தார் என்பது கூறப்பட்டுள்ளது. முசுகுந்தன் இந்திரனுக்குப் போர் உதவி செய்வதற்காக நவவீரர்களுடன் தேவலோகம் சென்று வாரகலி அசுரனுடன் போரிடும் காட்சிகள், யானை, குதிரை, காலாட் படைகளின் அணிவகுப்பு, இந்திரனை வெற்றி பெறச்செய்து விட்டு தேவலோகத்தில் சில நாட்கள் தங்கியிருந்த போது இந்திரன் பூஜிக்கும் தியாகராஜ மூர்த்தியின் திருவுருவம் தனக்கு வேண்டும் என்று முசுகுந்தன் கேட்பது, இந்திரன் அதை கொடுக்க மனமில்லாமல் அது போன்ற ஆறு திருவுருவங்களை தேவதச்சன் உதவியுடன் செய்து ஏழு திருவுருவங்களையும் ஓரிடத்தில் வைத்து எந்த மூர்த்தியை வேண்டுமானாலும் எடுத்துச் செல்ல கூறுதல், ஈசன் அருளால் உண்மையான தியாகவிடங்கரை முசுகுந்தன் கண்டுபிடித்து எடுப்பது, ஏமாற்றமடைந்த இந்திரன் மற்ற ஆறு திருவுருவங்களையும் பூலோகத்திற்கு எடுத்துச் செல்லும்படி வேண்ட அதன்படி முசுகுந்தன் பூலோகம் எடுத்து வருதல், தேவதச்சன் உதவியுடன் திருவாரூரே மூல விடங்கர் வைக்க ஏற்ற தலம் என அறிய முசுகுந்தனும் தியாகேசரை திருவாரூரில் வைத்து தரிசித்து அம்மூர்த்திக்கு விழா எடுப்பது வரை தேவாசிரிய மண்டப உட்கூரையில் ஓவிய காட்சிகளாக தீட்டப்பட்டுள்ளது. இந்திரனும் முசுகுந்தனும் செலுத்தும் அம்புகளில் செயம் என்றும் வாரகலி அசுரன் செலுத்தும் அம்புகளில் அவஜெயம் என்றும் எழுதப்பட்டிருப்பது இந்திரனின் வெற்றியை காட்டுகிறது. இக்காட்சித் தொடருக்கு அருகே இந்திரனுக்கு தியாகராஜ மூர்த்தி எவ்வாறு கிடைத்தார் என்ற மற்றொரு புராணமும் தீட்டப்பட்டுள்ளது. திருமால் தியாகராஜர் திருவுருவத்தை படைத்து தன் மார்பில் வைத்து பூசித்ததாகவும் பின்பு இந்திரன் திருமாலிடம் இருந்து அந்த திருவுருவத்தை பெற்று பூசித்ததாகவும் சித்தரிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. ஒவ்வொரு காட்சிக்கு கீழாக ஓலையில் எழுதப்பட்டது போன்று காட்சி விளக்கம் எழுதப்பட்டுள்ளது. திருவாரூர் கோவிலில் உள்ள விக்கிரம சோழனின் கல்வெட்டில், சேக்கிழாரின் பெரிய புராணத்தில் விரிவாக உள்ள மனுநீதிச் சோழன் வரலாறு தேவாசிரிய மண்டப சுவரில் தீட்டப்பட்டிருந்தாலும் அவ்வோவியங்கள் பணி முடியாத நிலையிலேயே உள்ளது. காட்சி விளக்க குறிப்புகளும் குறைவாகவே காணப்படுகின்றன. ஓவிங்களில் இடம்பெற்றுள்ள தெய்வ உருவங்களும், மனிதர்களும் அணிந்துள்ள ஆடை ஆபரணங்களில் பல்வேறு வகையான நுட்பங்களும் வகைகளும் உள்ளது. ஆரூர் கோவிலின் அமைப்பு, மற்ற கோவில்கள், மண்டபங்கள் என பலவிதமான கட்டடங்களை தேவாசிரிய மண்டப ஓவியங்களில் காணமுடிகிறது. அரசவை நாட்டியக் காட்சிகள், இறைவன் வீதி உலா வரும் போது நிகழும் நாட்டியக் காட்சிகள், தேவலோகத்தில் நிகழும் நாட்டியக் காட்சிகள், வீதியில் நிகழும் ஶ்ரீ பலி பூசையின் போது நிகழும் நாட்டியம் என நாட்டியக் கலையின் பல்வேறு கூறுகள், திருவாரூர் கோவிலுக்குரிய பூத நிருத்தம் என்ற மத்தளம் இசைக்கும் மரபு, பஞ்சமுக வாத்தியம் இசைத்தல், திருவாரூர் கோவிலில் கொடியேற்று விழா துவங்கி நாள்தோறும் நிகழும் மகோஸ்தவ நிகழ்வுகள் இந்த ஓவியங்களில் சித்தரிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளன. வானத்தில் செல்லும் ராக்கெட் வாணம், தரையில் சுற்றும் வாணம், கோலில் சுற்றும் வாணம் என பல வகை வாணங்கள் இந்த ஓவியங்களில் குறிப்பாக விழாக் காட்சிகளில் இடம் பெற்றுள்ளன. ஒரு வாணத்தின் மீது நிலச்சக்கர வாணம் என எழுதியுள்ளது குறிப்பிடத்தக்கது.

வரலாற்றுச் சிறப்புகள்

18-ஆம் நூற்றாண்டில் தஞ்சையை மராத்திய மன்னர்களான சகஜியும் பின்னர் முதல் சரபோஜியும் ஆட்சி புரிந்தபோது திருவாரூரில் அம்மன்னர்களின் பிரதிநிதியாய் சாமந்தனர்(படைத்தலைவர்) ஒருவர் அரசு அலுவல்களை மேற்கொண்டு வந்தார். அவரது பிரதானியாய் பணிபுரிந்தவர் ஓவியன் சிங்காதனம். ராயசாமந்தனாரின் பிரதானியாய் அரசு அலுவல்களை பார்த்ததோடு ஓவியக் கலையிலும் நிபுணத்துவம் பெற்றிருந்தார் சிங்காதனம். திருவாரூர் தியாகராஜர் கோவில் வளாகத்தில் உள்ள தேவாசிரிய மண்டப ஓவியக் காட்சிகளை அன்றைய தஞ்சை மராத்திய அரசின் ஆதரவோடு ஓவியன் சிங்காதனம் வரைந்தார். அஜந்தா குகை ஓவியங்கள், தஞ்சை பெரிய கோவிலில் உள்ள சோழர்கால ஓவியங்கள் உட்பட பண்டைய இந்திய ஓவியங்கள் எதிலும் அந்த ஓவியங்களை வரைந்தவர் பற்றிய குறிப்புகள் இல்லை. தேவாசிரிய மண்டப ஓவியங்களை படைத்த ஓவியன் சிங்காதனம் தன் பெயரை மட்டுமல்லாமல் தன் உருவத்தையும் தான் தீட்டிய ஓவியங்களில் இடம்பெறச் செய்துள்ளார். புராண காட்சிகளுக்கு இடையூறாக இல்லாமல் தன் காலத்தில் நிகழ்ந்த ஆரூர் விழாக்களின் சித்தரிப்புகள் திருக்கோயில்கள் ஆகியவற்றில் தன் உருவத்தை இடம்பெறச் செய்து அருகே பெயரையும் விளக்கக் குறிப்பையும் எழுதியுள்ளார் சிங்காதனம். தலையில் முண்டாசு, முகத்தில் தாடி மீசை, இடுப்பில் வேஷ்டி, அதன் மேல் சுற்றப்பட்ட துண்டு, நெற்றியில் திருநீறு, காதுகளில் காதணி, இறைவனை வணங்கும் கூப்பிய கரங்கள் ஆகியவை சிங்காதனத்தின் தோற்றமாக உள்ளது. சில இடங்களில் சிங்காதனம் தரித்துள்ள துண்டில் சிங்காதனம் என்ற பெயர் எழுதப்பட்டிருக்கிறது. சில காட்சிகளில் சிங்காதனம் உருவத்தின் காலுக்கு கீழ் ராயசாமந்தனார் வாசல் பிரதானி சித்திர வேலை சிங்காதனம் என்றும் இந்த சித்திரம் எழுதுகிற சித்திர வேலை சிங்காதனம் சதா சேவை என்றும் எழுதப்பட்டுள்ளது. தன் உருவத்தை காட்டும் இடங்களிலெல்லாம் ஆரூரில் அவர் காலத்தில் வாழ்ந்த பலரின் உருவத்தையும் ஓவியமாக தீட்டி அருகே அவர்கள் யார் என்ற குறிப்புகளையும் சேர்த்துள்ளார் ஓவியன் சிங்காதனம்.

சிங்காதனம் தேவாசிரிய மண்டபத்து ஓவியங்களின் கீழ் எழுதியுள்ள புராண விளக்கங்களும் விழாக்கள் பற்றிய செய்திகளும் மக்களின் பேச்சு வழக்குகள் பற்றி ஆய்வு செய்பவர்களுக்கு பயனுடையதாக இருக்கும் என்று குடவாயில் பாலசுப்பிரமணியம் 'ஓவியன் சிங்காதனம்' என்ற தன் கட்டுரையில் குறிப்பிட்டுள்ளார்.

Painting from the late Nayaka or early Maratha period style among the finest to have survived fromlate medieval South India.

Mid seventeenth century- probably from the decade of the 1660's or 1670's

Mucukunda- the monkey faced Chola king

They cover four and a half long serial rows on the ceiling of the Tevaciriya mandapam located in the third prakara of the temple

This mandapais itself a site of unique cultural importance,  for it is here that the 9th century poet Sundaramurti Nayanar had a vision of all the assembled 63 nayanar, the tamil saints of Siva,  at the start of his pivotal career as the first major systemaiser of Tamil Saiva hagiography.

Two scenes show us the Tiruvarur temple itself. Both scenes are situated in the middle of a long panel. The first one comes right after a major climax in the narrative: Indira gaves Mucukunda the Tyagarajar icon.

unlike Valmikanatha, Tyagaraja os a mobile image. Twice a yearhe leaves his home inside the innermost domain of the temple to take up temporary residence in the Tevaciraya Mandapa in the outer prakara.

The paintings like the mandapa as a whole,  werewere, until recentlyrecently, in a state of extreme dilapidation. Decades of neglect have taken their toll. Damage from fire, water leakage, dust, mould, the predations of birds and insects, and other factors is severe. When we last saw these paintings in January 1988, they were in a much better state. On our visit to TiruvarurTiruvarur in March 2006, we were shocked to seethat whole panels are irreparably lost. Many of the 17th century inscriptions accompanying the painting are no longer legible. We are happy to note that these paintings have now been cleaned and preserved by the professional INTACH team headed by K.P. Madhu Rani- David Shulman and V.K. Rajamani in their book 'The Mucukunda murals in Tyagaraja Temple'.

About 10 years ago one of the priest requested me to do something about the paintings on the roof of the Devasaraya Mandapam,  since the authorities were going to whitewash them. It took me 8 years to convince the authorities that these were among the finest frescoes of their time.

Irresponsible digging up of the terrace on the pretext of water-proofing it and then abandoning work on the roof over the 10 years ago had caused leakage, fungus and irreparable damage. Something needed to be done. Neither the Trustees nor the government took any action for over 8 years. Prakriti foundation found support for the project from only two caring and sincere friends- S. Aravind, a college mate form 80's and now a successful Silicon Valley czarczar,  and Ramani Sivasothy, a Srilankan Tamil devotee of Tiruvarur who lived in London and cared so deeply about the paintings that on her own she got a photographer to document them before they were ruined further. My deepest thanks and gratitude for supoort on what has been a lonely journey.

Two years ago many difficulties later the entire ICKPAC team led by Madhurani and her deeply sincere associates have completed cleaning, restoring and reviving the magic of the story of Mucukunda and the prehistory of the temple of Tirucarir(as recorded in its Sthala Purana).

- Publishers Note(Ranvir R. Shah, Founder Trustee, Prakriti Foundation)

Red is identified as red ochre

Yellow is identified as yellow ochre

Green is identified as Malachite

White is identified as Calcium Carbonate(Chalk)

Black is identified as Lamp black

On the stylistic grounds, the paintings appear to belong to the late Nayaga period,  the figures bearing a strong resemblance to those of the Ramalingavilasam palace of Ramanathapuram, which were done in the early 18th century.There is a school of thought that these paintings were produced under the patronage of the Maratha rulers of the Tyanjavur, and if this were so, even then the early Nayaka influence seems to be strongstrong,  since these paintings are quite different from the Maratha period paintings in other temples.

The paintings depict the Sthalapurana, that is, the local legend of the mythical monkey-faced king,  Mucukunda,  who was a great devotee of Lord Shiva and was able to bring the image of Tyagarajaswamy from the abode of Indra.

It needs to be specially mentioned here that the project of conserving and restoring the valuable murals in this temple has been possible only due to the initiative and relentless effort of a single individualindividual, Ranvir Shah,  an industrialist of Chennai who has also kindly come forward to provide the necessary funding for the project.(The donor had actually to struggle for more than 7 years to overcome bureaucratic struggles and to obtain sanction feom the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments(HR & CE) and Dept. of Govt. Tamilnadu for the conservation project.)

Composition of the murals

The paintings appear to have been done on lime plaster applied to the stone surface of the ceiling,  which consists of a series of granite slabs placed in close juxtaposition. The technique is tempera, with a water-soluble binding medium like gum or glue. One notable feature is that the ground viz lime plaster is quite thin of the order of only 4 or 5 mmmm, in many places. It is a normal practice to first apply a lime plaster of some thickness, over which is applied a fine thin plaster consisting predominantly of lime (called intonaco),  on which the painting is carried out. But here the rough plaster seems to have been dispensed with,and the intonaco hasbeen directly applied on the rock surface.

Tamil Inscriptions: The Tamil inscriptions painted beneath and to the sides of the ceiling panels give us a coherent vision of the Mucukunda narrativenarrative,  which differs in certain interesting respects, from the canonical versions of Marainanacampantar and Campantamunivar. Here Indra goes to Cidamparam to ask Visnu/Govindaraja who has just defeated Varkali for the Tyagaraja icon (panels 15 & 16). Mucukunda reigns in Ayodhya (panels 30, 31). Aditi, Indra's mother welcomes the conquering Mucukunda to heaven (panel 44). Tyagaraja comes to Mucukunda in a dream to ask him to being him down to earth (to an unspecified location: panel 40). Mucukunda then sends Viswakarma to earth to locate the proper site for the God, and Viswakarma weighs the sacred places of the world against Thiruvarur - which outweighs them all(panel 47). Studying the paintings together with the inscriptions we cannot avoid the impression that they record a more consistent, fuller and the more archaic version than the ones available to us in the literary sources. We assume that these paintings faithfully reflects the living oral tradition of Tiruvarur in the mid to late 17th century.

The language of the inscriptions is a semi-formal Tamil heavily influenced by colloquial forms and thus provides remarkable evidence for the late 17th century dialect spoken in the Kaveri Delta. In lieu of a complete grammatical description,  a few observations in order. Sandhni usually follows colloquial pronunciation. Note the prevalence of the pannu verbalizer(as in modern speech); the shortened deictic i; general orthographic instability (including loss of vowel length in borrowed lexemes: kerutavakanarutaravi, 16); extensive Sanskrit borrowings; initial on-glides; present peyar eccam and verbal nouns in (k)kura(tu); and common collapsed morphemes (e.g.,  elided r,  etuttu < etirttu, pattu < parttu, etc.). Medial geminate - tt -, as in the vinaiyeccam, is often palatalized(kotuccu, cutticcu). Among unusual lexical items we note: kattiyakaran, "messenger"; muttukkarar,  "mattalam drummers." Standard features of 17th century Tamil epigraphy- the absence of pulli, unmarked long e & oo- are of course, in evidence throghout(In transcription I have followed the modern conventions, marking the pulli and the short e & o.

The inscriptions for the most part, be read with naked eye by spectators looking up from the mandapam floor. In many cases, they appear to embody instructions to the painters or to serve as markers of continuity in the painted text: once the panels were boxed off in outline,  their narrative content was explicated before sketching itself began. Hence the frequent pointers, meant also to maintain the narrative sequence: 'to the North of this panel(paint the Ocean of Milk)," and so on. Hence, also, the frequent redundancy and repetitions in these directions, as if the thematic and narrative arrangement of individual panels were only tentatively determined in advance. But Nayaka-period paintings usually include verbal texts as integral parts of the artistic enterprise. Thus the Tiruvarur panel seem to have double purpose- at once defining the sequence and spatial organization of the planned panels and identifying and labeling the narrative components one by one.

Sadly, perhaps 50 percentage of the original inscriptions have been damaged beyond legibility. I offer below tentative readings of those portions of the texts that can still be deciphered. The many lacunae are signalled by dots. Conjectured restoration is signaled by square brackets. Rounded bracketsbrackets {} mark scribal errors. Passages which allow for the decipherment of one or two graphemes or lexemes from a longer text are not referenced here. It is to be hoped that at some point infra-red photography or other technical means will allow for the restoration of the damaged portions of these captions.

Conservation of Mural Paintings in Tyagarajaswamy Temple, Tirivarur:

Sri Tyagarajaswamy temple at Tiruvarur in Nagapattinam District, avoit 60 km from Thanjavur, is one of the 7 most important Shivasthalas, that is shrines dedicated to Lord Shiva. It belongs to the early Chola period, the original shrine having been built in the 9th century ADAD(on inscriptional evidence, this temple antedates the Brihadhiswara Temple in Thanjavur, which belongs to the early 11th C. AD). Additions and expansions having been taken place in the subsequent Vijayanagara and Nayaka period. This temple also has the biggest temple chariot in the country(even bigger than the one at Puri Jagannath). There is a huge temple tank called Kamalalaya, in front of the temple. The main diety is kept in this mandapa on certain festive occasions, and all rituals are conducted in it.

Yet another distinguishing feature of this temple are beautiful mural paintings on the ceiling of the Devasiriya Mandapam(also known as the thousand pillared hall), situated in the corner of the temple.

Three primary modes have to be considered in terms of their effect up on the observers sensual perceptions and cognitive understanding.There are issues of spatial location, which determines how we see the paintings. There are issues of design, including matters of colour,  style, narrative sequence, placement, repetitions, intertextual echoes, all of which affects the observer. In addition, very crucially, there are problems of content.

Of the surviving murals two scenes show us the Tiruvarur temple itself. Both scenes are situated in the middle of a long panel. The first one comes right after a major climax in the narrative: Indra gives Mucukunda the Tyagaraja icon. As in any good story, just as the hero is about to get what he wanted, one last obstacle suddenly blocks his way. The sensitive Tiruvarur painter expresses that tension in the narrative with an intensity of scenes, a density of colours and compressed figures. It takes six panels for him to illistrate Mucukunda's dream,  then his puja to Lord Vishnu,the delivery of the Tyagaraja Murtiby Indra to Mucukunda,  the delivery of the other six vitanka images to representatives of the other six shrines, and finally Mucukunda's farewell to Indra and India's departure. These two panels contains a total of six different scenes, two contrasting states of consciousness(dreaming & waking), two cognitove states(false and true perceptions in the process of choosing the true Tyagaraja image),  23 active characters,  11 appearances of Tyagaraja(one of them as "real", one of them in a dream, twice as the original murti and all the rest as the replicas)

Then, a wide, light frame delimits a broad red square, the contour of the Tiruvarur temple as seen from some point far above.The main entrance is to the left and outside the main building are five small shrines. In three of them we see a lingam. Inside the temple there are three registers. A large figure is seated cross-legged in the lower register,  working with scales. He is Viswakarma, whose body expands to fill the entire space as he weighs Tiruvarur against all the other shrines on earth. In the upper register two shrines are silently present. One of them contains a lingam. The other one is empty, waiting for the Tyagaraja murti to arrive and take up residence within its walls.

There is a great silence in this scene. No figures, no murtis, no glittering candlelight. Rather,  there are blank areas,  clear squares and minimal colours. Most of the panel is empty and the empty garbha-griha at the centre of that emptiness assumes the form of an empty womb waiting to conceive. A new life is about to begin. The Kamalalayam, the great tank outside the temple marks it off from the outside world. Its quiet serene colours and squares also serve to distinguish it from the noisy reality of the preceding two panels. And here once again, outside reality suddenly dissolves. And where the innermost space is still empty,  the spectator finds himself or herself in a temporal limbo, right after the end, right before the beginning. And time, once agin loses its familiar meaning. The content of the painting reflects the cognitive experience of the encounter with Tyagaraja during his evening puja.

Later on, when the shrine of Tyagaraja is depicted(p. 97), the murti is already at home in it; outside, human beings and celestial beings are paying homage to him. The painting of the shrine echoes the sensual experience of encountering the temple: the long corridor leading to the garbha-griha,  the slow movement, the raising of ones eye towards the bright deity at the farthest end, rising out of darkness.

The powers of the Mandapa:

The sensitive delicacy of painting and observance is ascribed to the artist Cinkatanan, who worked under the patronage of Maratha king Sahaji of Tanjore, in 17th century. In painting the murals of a mandapa on a temple built during the rule of Raghunatha Nayaka[[1]]),  Cinkatanan was carrying on a great artistic tradition, one distinctively Nayaka, with a set of characteristic diagnostic features. For the Nayaka kings, the mandapa seems to have a special role. First and foremost it served as a special space inside the temple where these kings deliberately chose to display their regal splendour. The Nayakas were the military generals appointed by the Vijayanagar kings. Their capitals were located in Madurai, Vellore, Senji and Tanjavur. When the Vijayanagara centre was decimated in the battle of Talikonta in 1565, these generals become powerful and virtually autonomous monarchs. They ruled their kingdoms till the end of the 18th century, by which time they made a rich contribution to the art and architecture of Tamilnadu. The mandapas they built along with the very tall gopurams, are the most significant artistic expression of their strength. All these mandapas are characterized by massive pillars that carry life-size portraits of rulers, consorts and their retinue, or donor-chiefs. Other sculptures are also to be found on the pillars: these are of gods, women in graceful poses, and semi-tribal figures like the Kuravan and Kuratti hunter and huntress. We also find a rich collection of sculpted warriors and horses. In all these respects, Tirivarur's mandapa is a clear expression of Nayaka architectural innovation: the thousand pillared mandapa, along with the high raised gopurams.

In style, Nayaka paintings have a popular or folk quality. In contrast to the greater depth in volume of the Chola painting tradition, the Nayakas adopted a more realistic and people-feiendly technique. The human figures do not seem to follow classical proportions; they are characterized by pointed noses, fierce eyes, angular contours, and limbs and peculiar arrangements of garments on the body, with patterns charectetistic of the period. In a few paintings, the figures have their eyes extended in a special way, jutting out of the profile. Men appear with pot-bellies and are almost realistic. They are also conspicuously decked with ornaments, while the background remains minimal with simple, linear houses, trees and foliage. The layout of the panels looks like a filmstrips or a page from a modern comic; the narrative develops along rows of panels, separated from each other but set in sequence. Most of the paintings carry either Tamil or Telugu labels.

But Cinkatanan of Tiruvarur worked somewhat differently. On the mighty pillars he created figures that are both delicate and accurate. Though tribal in design and not answering the Indian proportions, they are realistic in expression and style. One can sense their genuine excitement during the abhiseka at the episode depicted on p. 106. The excitement is clearly observed by the diagonal design of the group of devotees, musicians, dancers and animals. The elephant in the middle actually stands on top of the people. Below him, people are marching in three terraces. Along with shrine carried on top of the elephant, the whole happy group assumes the structure of a gopuram. Diagonal are also evidence in the small group of that festival procession; swords and trumpets, arms and legs, flags and ribbons are all diagonal to each other, thus creating a sense of joyful disorder in the scene. That disorder contrasts clearly with other multi-figured scenes, such as the organized and frozen soldiers, facing a coming battle (pp. 80-81), or the silent reverent crowd attending the auspicious moment of disturbing the seven Tyagaraja murtis among the seven vitanka shrines(pp 94)

The design of the figures is another expression of the psychological subtlety in the artist's work. Each figure in the utsava is different; their colours differ from one another; their garments are variegated; their eyes turn in different directions. Their expressions are never the same. While most of the musicians are deeply involved in their music, a flautist on the right side is exchanging looks with a man next to him. In the right corner a man is leaning towards the man with an ambiguous smile. A child is lost in the crowd and stands frozen. If we llok at other Nayaka murals, such as those from Srirangam that are ascribed to the same style, we find similar figures, in conversation,  arranged in a tribal design. But the figures at Srirangam are highly decorative in style and schematic in motion, while those at Tiruvarur naturally move through space. Most enchanting are the monkeys hanging on the trees above the procession. Not less than fifteen monkeys appear, none of them copying the others, and all of them full of life.

Cinkatanam holds to the visual tradition; he unfolds the narrative by repeating the figures and attending to the consistency of the scenes; still, his figures seem almost to burst out of the stone.Thus the painter axhieves two goals in one artistic act: first he turns his art in to a performance of the story illustrates, iconicalky embodying the transitions among disparate domains; secondly, he creates the artistic conditions for transformation.

An awkward feeling slowly penetrates once consciousness soon after ones start following the murals of the Mucukunda story. As in most Nayaka murals, these paintings are accompanied by labels in Tamil, teeling the story that is being illustrated and, apparently offering instructions to the painter. Written labels are perhaps the most prominent, unique attribute of Nayaka painting and are considered by scholars to be a direct continuation of the conversational quality in art that began during the Vijayanagara era. That attempt to converse alongside and through the paintings is a substantial element of the Tiruvarur paintings. Its importance lose in the persistent, indeed unavoidable resistance that it generates. Interestingly, while Tamil itself runs from left to right, the painted sequences proceed from right to left. Reading the painting is at odds with reading the written text.

Upon entering the mandapa the spectator has to turn right and continue walking until he or she reaches the far eastern wall, then turn left and proceed north. On the far northern corner is the first mural: the Mucukunda story begins. To follow it correctly, the spectator has to proceed with his or her shoulder turned toward the paintings, while his or her eyes are turned upward. At times, the end of one panel feeds in to the start of the next through a 180-degree turn, so that to see the new panel clearly, the spectator must face in the opposite direction. One feels as if one were to follow a twisting snake. To put it differently: the heads of the figures in the one panel touch the heads of the figures in the following panel, whose legs touch the legs of the figures in a third panel, and so on. Moreover, the initial series, running north-south along the length of the window takes a different angle turn in to the second series(running east-west); the third series runs exactly parallel to the second before feeding back into the longer segment of the ceiling, where the fourth series flows to south to north. When the narrative reaches the far(northern wall), it again turns 180 degrees and proceeds, as the fifth series, halfway back toward the southern end of the mandapa.You begin with your back to the window, turn to face the window as you follow the central part(the climax of the narrative), and end with the window behind you again. It is a dizzying, disorienting experience; and this manner of telling a story  cannot have evolved by chance.

There is no easy way to explain this arrangement of the composition, just as there is no easy way to follow it while studying the murals. In fact, as a spectator one has to choose between taking a detailed look at the paintings or somehow "keeping grounded".One sometimes feel deliberately confused: while the labels along the paintings are trying to converse with you, the paintings act differently. They direct spectators back and forth along the rows of pillars, until any feeling of familiarity with the space around one is lost. This slightly twisted modeof walking and seeing, guided by the murals above, has an immediate effect on the observer. To begin with, he or she somehow splits in to two: one part converses fluently with the murals, while the other stives to keep track of directions. Is that a fair thing to ask? One could, of course, give up for a little while, a sense of direction, this renouncing once familiar, common sense orientation in space. Is this the necessary part of the visual experience triggered by a paintings? We have already discussed the dissolution of space in the mandapa, but now a new factor is added; the spectator, walking naturally along the length of the panels, always turns to the right in order to see the paintings clearly. When one reaches the end of a given series of panels, one again turns right to order to begin viewing the next. As if there were not enough rotations and twists, there also a few vertical compositions within the horizontal sequence. These demand that the spectator turn again, on the spot to capture them fully. That rotation around the murals reenacts the rotation inside the temple. The devotee in Tiruvarur reaches the murti only after making three full pradaksinas in the three wide prakaras surrounding the inner shrine. Adter receiving darshan, he or sheturns back with his right shoulder in and goes straight outside. For the spectator of the murals, the pradaksina motion is clear from the start. Recall the vertical sequences mentioned above: these are all depictions of God to whom, as the artist discovered, it is necessary to pay homage with a pradiksina. Of couse, once the pradiksina is accomplished these are no longer merely paintings. They become real temples inside the murals. The gods depicted in pigments and water have become real murtis.The echo is no more an echo. The painted images are a comprehensive creation of the imagination,  activated by any observer of the murals. In that imagination act, real things are created: real temples, real murtis and real time. So when the spectator walks around the murals in a pradiksina direction, losing track of common sense and outside reality, his experience of the God is also real.

The creative imagination awakened by the murals is an expression of a wider imagination, internal to the temple of Tiruvarur, a game of concepts, forms and associations played by the different components of this temple. Those who enter in to the game carried along by its inherent logic. As a result, though emerging from a long architectural and artistic tradition, the Tiruvarur murals are revealed as a subtle interplay of inner language and of local event. That event happens every night and has gone on for centuries, but it also happens only once, an irreplaceable cosmic moment : the arrival of Tyagaraja on earth preceded by Mucukunda story.

Echoes are a crucial part of this narrative. The face of the monkey from Indra's heaven is echoes in the face of the great warrior king he has become. The genuine Tyagaraja murti is echoed no less than six times, so as to cause both a crisis and a climax in the narrative. Layers of reality are echoed again and again: the murti installed on Vishnu heart is the murti appearing in Mucukunda's dream, the murti appearing seven times, the murti crossing worlds and hands. Within a unique local metaphysics, it is only logical that the murals that re-enact the experience of the garbha-griha turn the mandapa they inhabit in to the echo of the tirtha as a whole and of the divine world that condenses and makes present.

Tyagarja enjoys 6 annual abhisheka, two of them outside his shrine in Tevaciriya Mandapam.

None of the earlier references says anything about a monkeys face nor, is there any link to Tiruvarur. Only much later, in the post-Chola centuries did the Tiruvarur tradition fasten upon Mucukunda as the hero of Tyagaraja story as we now know it. No doubt the already existing narrative about an early, proto-Chopa Mucukunda, the protector of Amaravati who brought Indra's hall to earth served as a departure for the story of Tyagaraja's arrival on earth.

According to the tradition recorded in the Tiruvarur puranas, the Kandapuram, and many Tamil poetic works on the temple, it was the Chola king Mucukunda who brought Tyagaraja to this site. The story illustrated in the ceiling is the main focus of our essay. A Chola stratum is definitely fundamental to the evolution of the Tyagaraja cult. But we can go little further back with the help of Tamil canonical sources, which know this god by the puzzling name Vitivitankan. The title Tyagaraja itself appears only in works from the 16th century of onwards, if we put aside for now, an isolated metion in a work known as Ittiyelupatu, popularly ascribed to the Chola period poet Ottakuthar. The controversial dating of this later text is still unresolved.

Siva at Tiruvarur is Vitivitankan according to two verses in Appar's Tevaram.

இன்றைய நிலை

1988-ஆம் ஆண்டு திருவாரூர் தியாகராஜர் கோயில் குடமுழுக்கிற்காக திருப்பணிகள் நடந்த போது தேவாசிரியன் மண்டபம் ஓவியங்கள் பழுதடைந்தன. பின்னர் தனிநபர் ஒருவர் தற்போதைய வண்ணங்களை(color paint) கொண்டு பழுதடைந்த ஓவியங்களை சரி செய்ய முற்பட்டார். அதற்கு பக்தர்களும் பொதுமக்களும் கடும் எதிர்ப்பு தெரிவித்ததால் அந்த பணி பாதியில் நிறுத்தப்பட்டது. தமிழ்நாடு இந்து சமய அறநிலைத்துறை இந்த ஓவிங்களை 18-ஆம் நூற்றாண்டில் வரையப்பட்டது போன்று அதன் பழைமை மாறாமல் மூலிகை இயற்கை வண்ணங்களை பயன்படுத்தி வரைய வேண்டும் என்று பொதுமக்கள் கோரிக்கை விடுத்தனர். தற்போது வரை பணி முடிக்கப்படாமல் தேவாசிரியன் மண்டபம் ஓவியங்கள் பழுதடைந்தே உள்ளன.

உசாத்துணை

தமிழகக்‌ கோயிற்கலை மரபு, ஆசிரியா்‌: முனைவர்‌. குடவாயில்‌ பாலசுப்ரமணியன்‌, வெளியீட்டு மேலாளர்‌ மற்றும்‌ காப்பாளர்‌: சரசுவதி மகால்‌ நூலகம்‌, தஞ்சாவூர்‌.

கலையியல் ரசனைக் கட்டுரைகள், குடவாயில்‌ பாலசுப்ரமணியன்‌, அகரம் பதிப்பகம்

திருவாரூர்‌ மாவட்டத்‌ தொல்லியல்‌ வரலாறு, ஆசிரியர்கள்‌: பெச. இராசேந்திரண்‌, வெ. வேதாசலம்‌, செ. சாந்தலிங்கம்‌, க. நெடுஞ்செழியன்‌, பொதுப்‌ பதிப்பாசிரியர்‌: கு. தரமோதரன்‌, இயக்குநர்‌, தொல்லியல்‌ துறை, வெளியீடு: தமிழ்நாடு தொல்லியல் துறை

The Mucukunda Murals in the Tyagarajasvami Temple, Tiruvarur, V.K. Rajamani and David Shulman

https://tamil.abplive.com/news/thanjavur/request-to-restore-400-year-old-paintings-at-thiruvarur-thiyagaraja-swamy-temple-21961

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