Page:South-Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses.djvu/288

 The jewellery of images corresponds in most cases to the jewels of the present day worn by men as well as by women. Most of these have been mentioned in the above pages in the general descriptions of gods and goddesses. It has only to be noted that a very large number of them, such as necklaces, breast-plates, girdles, armlets, bracelets, wristlets, anklets, arm-rings, finger-rings, and toe-rings, made of gold and set with various gems, 1 are mentioned in the Tanjore inscriptions as having been presented to the images in the Brihadlsvara temple, by the great Chola king Rajaraja I, in the first quarter of the eleventh century A.D. The different fashions of making up the hair seem to have also occupied the attention of Indian artists. The jatds (matted hair) of Siva, arranged generally in the form known asjatamakuta (Plate I, No. 8), show other varieties such as jatamandala fPlate II, No. 6), jatdbhdra (No. 9) and jatabandha (No. /). The terrible form of Siva, known as Pasupatamurti, has the jatdmakuta with flames of fire surrounding it (Plate I, No. ll). Nataraja'sjatds, whether flying in the air or tied up in a knot have a bunch of peacock's feathers decorating them ^Plate I, No. 5). Vishnu has generally a kiritamakuta, i.e., a crown (Plate I, No. 7). The goddesses either wear the crown called karandamakuta (Plate II, No. 8) 2 or have their hair parted in the middle like the Indian women of to-day. In figures of Jyeshtha, is seen a peculiar fashion of dressing the hair known as vdsikdbandha (Plate I, No. 10). Other peculiar head-dresses, whose names are not known, also occur occasionally (see, e.g., Plate I, No. 9).

1 See above p. 8, fig. 4. One of the peculiar jewels worn by images of Siva such as Nataraja, Dakshinamurti, Bhikshatana, Kankala, etc., is the bhringipada (Plate II, Nos. 3 and 4). It may be noted that the priestly class among Lingayatas, called Jangams, wear such a jewel when they go out for receiving doles.

2 When represented independently and in a fighting or otherwise terrible attitude, they may wear the jatamaltuta like male deities.

Gandabherunda.