L.A. County Museum of Art

[Guest guest]

Friends,

 

I was fortunate to visit Los Angeles county museum of art

during the past weekend. A faboulous collection of World art,

and a true treat for art lovers. Having been to the Met

(Metropolitan Museum of art, New York), Philadelphia museum

of art, Oriental Inst. (Chicago), Cleveland museum of art,

must say that LACMA possesses priceless and beautiful art.

 

Th Indian and South East Asian collections have been for

years collected and catalogued by Dr. Prataapaaditya Pal

of Calcutta. Paala, is a famous dynasty of East India,

Rajendra Chola I encountered Mahipaala I.

 

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Please see a white marble icon of Sarasbvathi from

a Jaina temple:

http://www.lacma.org/art/perm_col/se_asian/asian.htm

 

 

 

A beautiful Chola Nataraja from Tanjore heartland too.

 

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Interestingly, found a big Dakshinamurti in granite

sitting in the (mahaa)raajaliilaasana posture.

Common for Avalokita bronzes of Ceylon inspired in

the Pallava idiom. (See Ananda Coomaraswamy collection,

Boston MFA, and in the Sri Lanka National museum, Colombo

(the gold-plated bronze dicovered just few years ago).

 

Buddhist texts talk of Potalaka. This is Potiyil mountains

near the sea (Cf. GaNDavyUhasUtra, translated into Chinese

in 2nd century AD & Huan Tsang describes Potalaka in the

Malaya country south of Kanchi.) The Viirachozhiyam grammar,

one of the 2 available buddhist works in tamil)

talks about Avalokita teaching tamil grammar to Agastya.

Saivaite texts talk of Agastya learning tamil from

Siva.

 

The Dakshinamurti(Saivaite) - Avalokita (Buddhist) competitions

centered in Potalaka(Potiyil) mountains narrated in

Tamil need to be studied in depth. In Sanskrit texts

also the competitions between Saivaites and Buddhists about

who teaches Panini need to be compared. These first century CE

legends will most likely have a Southern provenance.

 

Note that in China the Guan-yin statues situated on

Mt. Potalaka near the sea are also in the same posture

- mahaaraajaliilaasanam. My thinking is: Did the deity

situated on Potiyil/Potalaka represented many times

in this sitting posture represent a Southern Pallava

influence that went all the way to Cambodia and China?

We have avalokitas sitting in raajaliilaasana from

Khmer era as well (prof. Robert Brown, UCLA, informed).

Dakshinamurtis in raajaliilaasana are found in

TakkOlam, KaavEripAkkam, in LACMa, ...

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan