Title Susan Huntington_The Nayak Period ✅

THE NAYAK PERIOD jlSp 24.2. Subrahmanya (Karttikeya}, in niche on south side o f Subrahmanya temple, Tanjore, Tamil Nadu, India. Nayak period. Ca, seventeenth century. Stone. 24.3. Dvarapala flanking entrance on east, Subrah- manya temple. Tanjore, Tamil Nadu, India. N ayak period. Ca. seventeenth century. Black stone. H : ca. 150 cm. vara temple, by whose side it stands, and which must have influenced the later Nayak artists to some degree at least, this temple, also ornamented with niches and pilasters, appears more delicate in its treatment. While this effect may be due in part to its decidedly less massive scale, it is also due to the rows o f deeply carved moldings o f the base, the extremely slender pilasters, and the tidy arrangement o f vertical and horizontal elements into an easily discerned pattern covering the surface o f the structure. Instead o f the blockish pilasters and niches o f the older temple, here round pilasters and more slender propor- tions create a lighter appearance. Each o f the principal niches on the three sides o f the vimana contains an image o f Subrahmanya (Karttikeya), to whom the temple is dedicated (Fig. 24.2). As in the case o f the niche figures on the Rajaraj- esvara, these are carved o f a different type o f stone than the temple itself, and have been inserted into the niches. Above the niches on the exterior o f the temple are model temple roofs o f the barrel-vaulted (sala) type that occurs as the crowning element in the typical south Indian gopura. A pair o f black stone dvarapalas flanking the door leading into the interior o f the temple, one o f which is illustrated here (Fig, 24.3), may be compared to the Cola-period guardians on the Rajarajesvara temple (Fig. 21.25), Similar in pose, the figures share a number o f features, such as being full-bodied and animated. How-