hi, i was always intrigued as to why of all jewels, gold, our kings brought back door arches, door guardians back as trophies... read below account.
Book: Lives of Indian Images By Richard H. Davis
this book talks of the concept of displaying captured door guardians and tries to explain the reasoning behind it
asper the book, rajaadhiraja's act of displaying a door guardians from the chalukyan capital was due to a past evening, which was well known to him - teh rastruktha's golden womb ( hiranya garbha) festival in ujjain.
as per rastrukta accounts, the great emperor of that clan dantidurga, started a dig vijaya ( conquest of all directions).. this brought him into contact with the gujara - pratihara kings ruling over malwa. danti defeated them in battle , occupied their capital and did a hiranya garba ceremony there...as per inscriptions, when dantidurga directed his warriors to perfrom the hiranya garba ceremony in ujjain,he made the gujara ruler and other kings serve as door keepers.. thereby enacting a powerful ritual statement of political subordination - forcing his captured opponent to act in a lowly capacity in this ritual ceremony, that too in his capital.
does this explain raja raja, rajendra and rajaadhiraja bringing back door gaurdians...
authors note futher goes as below:
the parallelism behind the captured door guardian and the chalukyan king was clear, just as the door guardian was not able to prevert the entry and destruction of his temple, someshwara was not able to prevent the chola armies from entering and destroying his capital. both had failed in their primary duties ( atleast the door gaurdian did not run away....) waiting in attendance in the chola court the looted door guardian would serve as a permament visibile homologue of the subjugated chalukya ruler....
Here are some of my collected belly-faces seem to all be quite early (10th century & earlier) Buddhist, too. I haven't read any further than this post. I sure will! Kathie
Hi, A snippet from "Tamil - 1800 years ago" - "Detachment of King's troops return to the city from their raids into enemy territories, bringing with them such booty as Horses, elephants, beautifully carved gates fromfortresses which they have stormed". So, the habit of the removing carved gates is older than the ageof Sivakamiyin sabadam as we know of.