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Sambandar (Shiva manifestation)

Sambandar is dancing on a lotus flower, left leg raised, left arm outstretched. He is wearing a belt with bells, and elaborate jewels adorn his ankles, arms, chest, neck and ears. He has a joyful expression and almond-shaped eyes, and is wearing a tall conical headdress. The statue is covered in a greenish patina, having been found during excavation work. In excellent overall condition.

According to legend, Sambandar often accompanied his father to the temple.

When his father left him to take the ritual bath, the child was left alone and began to cry.

Upon his return, Sambandar’s father found the child playing happily with a golden cup, and that he had fresh milk sweetmeats.

The child was looking down.

Interested, his father asked where the fresh milk sweetmeats had come from. Sambandar raised his hand and pointed towards the temple, to an image of the goddess seated next to Shiva.

After drinking the cup of heavenly milk, the child is said to have burst into song, and began to dance, praising Shiva and Parvati.

This bronze is an elegant Sambandar. He is wearing his traditional belt of bells (kinkini) and a sacred cord around both sides of his body. The iconography is very closely linked to the dance of Krishna, but one of Sambandar’s fingers is always pointing upwards, towards the divine couple.

This mix of representations is likely to be the evolution of conceptual similarity with Krishna.

This piece can be compared to another, housed in the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, in V. Dehejia, Sensual and Sacred, Chola Bronzes from South India,2002, p. 154, cat. no. 28t

Indian art & connoisseurship edited by John Guy p.142-143 fig. 3

ALC (Free Circulation)