A bronze figure of Sambandhar

Southern India, Tamil Nadu, Chola period, 10th century

17 ½ in. (45 cm) high

Art Loss No. S00156749

Provenance:

From an important Italian collection.

The child saint Sambandar stands here with his proper-left arm outstretched and leg lifted to represent his devotion to Shiva. Sambandar, who lived in the seventh century, is traditionally the favorite of sixty-three nayanar or Shaivite saints that were widely venerated in southern India. He came to be a nayanar when he was just three years old while visiting a temple with his brahmin father. The father left Sambandar in a courtyard to take a ritual bath when he heard the boy’s cries. When his father returned to him, the child was smiling and holding a golden cup with milk running from his mouth. When asked where it came from, Sambandar gestured toward the image of Shiva and Parvati in the temple, and burst into song and dance in adoration of the deities.

The right hand of the present image points upwards towards the heavens to show reverence to Shiva and his partner in an expression of bhakti or devotion. Sambandar is known for traveling far and wide praising Shiva, and is credited with writing thousands of hymns which came to form the beginning of the Tamil Shaivite cannon. Despite his prolific piety, he died at a young age and is thus celebrated in that form here.

The present sculpture is a wonderful example of the soft movement and musculature captured by Chola artists. The lightness of Sambandar’s pendant leg and fingertips are most apparent. His narrow face with a long nose and small lips is telling of the early time of its origin. Compare these facial features to a bronze image of Sukhasana at the Government Museum of Chennai (acc. 199) dated to the tenth century as well as an image of Nataraja at the Art Institute of Chicago (acc. 1965.1130).