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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[Mar, 1916
appears to be the finest and most ornate of the temples in Dravidian style to be found in Mysore (Report, 1913-14, pp. 12-15, Plates IV, V). It is a double temple, measuring 370 by 250 feet, and is crowded with magnificent sculptures, differing, of course, in style from those of the much later Hoysala period. Whenever the history of art in Mysore shall come to be written in detail, the discussion of the architecture and sculpture of the Nandi temple will require a chapter to itself. Mr. Narasimhachar observes that in the detached building, called Kalyana-Mantapa, built of black stone, the pillars (Plate IV, 4) are beautifully carved from top to bottom. The delicacy of work and the elaboration of details are simply marvellous. Nowhere else is such exquisite workmanship to be seen, not even in the fine Chalukyan [scil. Hoysala] temples of the State. Birds, beasts, foliage, and human figures are perfectly chiselled. Not even an inch of space is left vacant.'
A specially interesting statuette about three feet high is traditionally supposed to represent a Chola king seated bare headed in the posture of meditation (Pl. IV, 2). The temple would seem to deserve a monograph devoted to it alone.
I now leave the teinples and proceed to offer some remarks on the rich store of Hoysala sculpture.
All students of Indian art are familiar with the fact that, as a rule, the sculptures and paintings are anonymous, the artists being apparently indifferent to personal fame. But the Mysore sculptors, especially those of the Hoysala period in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, took great pains to preserve their own names by writing them in neat Kanarese characters below their several works. Even before the Hoysala age we find traces of the fame of individual artists. A newly discovered inscription on a rook at Sravana-Belgola mentions a sculptor named Bidigôja, with the honorary prefix Srimart, somewhere about A. D. 900 (Report, 1908-9, p. 15, para 60); and two other records at the same place, of date unspecified, mention Chandrâditya and Nagavarma as having carved Jinas, animals, and other figures for the Jains (Report 1912-13, p. 32).
The earliest records of the Hoysala sculptors seem to be those on the Amfitesvara temple at Ampitapura, built in A. D. 1196. The 15 signatures comprise Mallitamma or Malitama, and Mali, each four times; and Padumanna, Baluga, Malaya, Subujaga, Padumaya and Mulana, each once. The last named signs in the Nagari character, an indication that he came from the north.
The most prolife of the seulptors was Mallitamma II, perhaps grandson of the artist of the same name at Amțitápura. We find his work at the Lakshmi-narasimha temple of Nuggihalli A. D. 1249, where he did the figures on the north-wall; ten times at the Lakshmi-narasimha temple of Javagal; and 40 times at the Keśava temple of Sômnathpur. He does not assume any titles, but his colleague, Baichoja of Nandi, who executed the figures on the south wall at Nuggihalli, calls himself 'a thunder-bolt to the mountain of hostile titled sculptors' and a spear to the head of titled architects.' It would seem that in the thirteenth century there was much professional jealousy among the artistic architects. Of course, in India the architects have never formed a distinct profession. The temples, no matter how elaborate, were designed and built by headmen among the workers, and the same person, no doubt, often attended to both building and sculpture.
At the Hoysalesvara temple of Halebid we find no less than 36 names of sculptors recorded, 32 on the walls, and four more on the basement. Only two names, those of Dasõja and Birana, agree with those in the list of the Keśava Temple of Belar
