Architectural and Religious Heritage of South India

Objectives

The IFP disposes of an extremely rare collection of photographs dating back to 1956 and subsequently enhanced over the years, particularly in the long period when it was under the direction of Francoise L’Hernault (EFEO). This assorted collection (the only one of its kind), consists of about 1,30,000 photographs, mainly black and white. The collection focuses on South Indian religious art and iconography, and South Indian architecture (mostly religious). The photographs of the collection are classified in two ways, site-wise and subject-wise.

In order to highlight some remarkable features of its photo collection , the IFP and EFEO have been engaged in recent years in the preparation of thematic CD-ROMs.

Completed and ongoing projects :

• Bhairava: Iconography of the Terrible Form of Shiva in South India The Hindu God Shiva is an ambivalent divinity, benevolent at one time and then fearsome at another, adopting terrifying forms that express his destructive function. One such wild form has been given an exceptional importance in Indian sculpture: Bhairava "the horrifying one" which is doubtlessly the most violent and "impure" manifestation of Siva.This conception of the divine has given rise to a huge variety of iconographical types. A careful investigation of this very diverse iconography in the South Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka has resulted in the realization of a classified database of 1,000 images of Bhairava.

• Pondicherry: Past and Present The aim of this project is to show the urban development of Pondicherry from the origins to the present day . First, Pondicherry from its origins to 1824: a modest textile centre which became, for a short period, the capital of a potential empire, before being destroyed by the British. This development is illustrated with the magnificent watercolour plans and maps preserved in French archives. Second, Pondicherry from 1824 to the present day: a small colonial settlement now merged in the Indian Union. This section, illustrated with numerous photographs, old and new, shows the different aspects of the town, its streets, public buildings, private houses, and also the daily life of the people.

• Fortifications in India: After publishing his monumental work on Senji (Gingee), J. Deloche has brought together several essays on some prominent defensive works which have been constructed over many centuries across the Indian subcontinent, particularly South India. The first chapter, on the Harappan period and Early Historic Indian sites, is based mainly on archaeological reports; all the other chapters, covering South India from the 3rd to the 18th century A.D., draw on the available historical material, both documentary and epigraphic, as well as on intense field work and personal investigations carried out by the author over the past twenty years in numerous hill forts and fortified towns in India.

• Darasuram: Architecture and Iconography The temple of Airavatesvara in Darasuram (Tamil Nadu), dating from the second half of the twelfth century is one of the 4 largest temples erected by the Cola Dynasty. This CD-Rom provides a near exhaustive documentation on the architecture and iconography of the complex made-up by the temples of Shiva and of the Goddess, completing that of the book of Françoise L’Hernault published by the EFEO in 1987. It also includes plans and drawings of the buildings, information relating to photography (identification, site, description and miscellaneous information), as well as a search-engine for finding images that match the criteria defined by the user.

• Pondicherry Inscriptions: This project aims to publish all the inscriptions found in the Union territory of Pondicherry with an English translation, notes and a Glossary. The texts, most of them in Tamil, were compiled by the late Bahour S. Kuppusamy with the assistance of N.Venkatesan of Villianur and S. Appaswamy of Bahur. Dr. R. Nagaswamy of the State Department of Archaeology, Government of Tamil Nadu, took over the project for a period in the 1990s, followed by G. Vijayavenugopal, (formerly of Madurai Kamaraj Univeristy), who revisited all the places where the inscriptions are found, made corrections, some with the help of Y. Subbarayalu, and, in 2006, brought out the first volume (Collection Indologie 83.1), containing the text of all the inscriptions, with a preface by Leslie Orr (Concordia University). A final revision of the second volume, containing an English translation and glossaries, is now underway. Inscriptions found at Pondicherry reveal new historical information about political geography.

Materials and Methods

The photo collection of the IFP provides almost all the material for the analytical projects; it is complemented when necessary by references to other collections (EFEO, private collections,). Researchers and the IFP photographer go to the field to complete the available data if needed.

Partners

• Geomatics & Applied Informatics Laboratory (IFP)
• Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO)
• UMR CNRS-University Paris VII n°7528 (“Mondes Iranien et Indien”)
• Centre des archives d’outre-mer, Aix-en Provence

Funding

• IFP
• EFEO

Main Outputs

• CD-ROM “Bhairava: Iconography of the Terrible Form of Siva in South India”
• Books by Jean Deloche on the urban development of Pondicherry