Rolling back in time

Temple chariots are not just vehicles for god, they are artistic treasures, says Raju Kalidos

Photo: S. THANTHONI

TALKING HERITAGE Raju Kalidos

Raju Kalidos celebrates temple chariots on International Museum Day. "You know what would happen if you lined up all the temple cars in Tamil Nadu starting from this museum? They would stretch all the way to Tiruchirapalli."

Raju Kalidos, the head of the Department of Sculpture and Art History at the Tamil University, Thanjavur, was speaking on the occasion of International Museum Day at the invitation of the Prakriti Foundation and the Government Museum. The stage at the Museum Theatre had on one side a long floor rug, perhaps a kilim, which was placed in front of an antique looking chair and desk, on which a table lamp, microphone and a glass of water served as accessories. Slightly off centre, there was all the paraphernalia for a slide show, with overhead lights and an assistant who would dart forward to manually change the slides. There was a disarming simplicity with which Kalidos traced his journey. "When I began, I did not know a thing about art," he said, "But I was inspired by the beautiful temple chariots in my wife's town, Periyakulam in the Madurai district, I would look at them while going on my evening walks." This curiosity led to his taking up the study of temple chariots or "Ter" as he called them, using the Tamil name for his doctoral thesis.

Cherished treasure

There are more than 900 hundred massive wooden chariots in Tamil Nadu alone, he said, but with at least 250 individual carved pieces on each one of them, the wealth of iconography is not just immense, but as varied in their expression as the imagination of the people who made them. They are walking temples. They are vehicles on which the gods can go on a walkabout so that they can be seen by the common folk.

His book, "Temple Cars of Medieval Tamilaham" comments on the social aspects of the temple chariots — their ability to inspire different forms of artistic expression from wood carvers to carpenters and weavers and also their ability to forge a sense of communal pride, once a year, as everyone was invited to take part in the parade.

As if to illustrate his point, the moment Kalidos showed some of the carved images of intense erotic activity, that appear on the chariots, the audience sprang to life. The sad thing, however, as he pointed out is that temple chariots have been neglected so badly that they are now being used as public conveniences. "Why does the museum not have one of these temple chariots in its premises?" he asked.

GEETA DOCTOR

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