Tourist City in Pudukottai

Breathing Life Into Stone: Not far from the bustling town of Pudukottai, on the periphery of the sleepy village of Annavasal, is a cluster of rock caves, which, on the one hand, show traces of the Iron Age and, on the other, can be termed as the Ajanta of the South.

Megalithic burial sites near the Sithannavasal caves testify their hoary past while the rich sculpture and painting adorning the caves are reminiscent of the famous Ajanta caves on the other side of the Indian peninsula.

Weather and vandals have taken their tool of the caves, which were used by Jain Tirtankara for meditation and penance, a fact borne out by the remains of granite beds carved out of rocks, and inscriptions in Asoka Brahmi script.

The sculpture, paintings, etching and inscription, as well as the Megalithic burial site, together make it an important archaeological site, not to speak of it being an art lovers delight. The meditation and penance caves are located on the southern side of the rock, as shown by the names of Jain leaders etched on the walls, while a temple has been carved into the western face. This cave in highly ornamental with sculptures and painting on the inner walls, making a work of art that, historians say, is paralleled only by the Ajanta caves. At the entrance to the cave temple stands a pillared structure brought from the nearby Kudimiyanmalai. The roof of the forecourt, archaeologists say, was brought from a quarry adjoining Panangudi.

Beyond the forecourt is situated the ardhamandapam façade, which comprises two pillars cubicled at the top and bottom and with an octagonal belt in between. And there are supporting corbels, with a highly carved beam and a cornice.

An almost life-size figure of a Jain saint in a seated posture of meditation in located under an umbrella. In another niche is the figure of Parsavanath, the 23rd Tirtankara, in a similar posture, under a canopy of a five-hooded snake and having an inscription at the base, which reads Thiruvasiriyan, meaning teacher. The sanctum sanctorum has a row of meditation Jain Tirtankaras, in bas-relief. The murals in the ceiling of the sanctum as well as the ardhamandapam are an artists dream come true.

Historian J Ramachandran, in his book Cave Temple Painting of Sithannavasal, describes them as a canopy of carpet pattern woven over the Parsavanath niche with lotus flowers and buds against back-ground of lotus leaves. The ceiling on the north face is again canopied similarly in a carpet pattern, with a background of circular floral design. In addition to these canopies there is the Dhama Chakra carving. A continuous and by far the most important theme of painting here features a tank with lotuses, lilies, fish, a crocodile, elephants, birds, buffaloes and three men (bhavyas) wading through it gathering flowers.

The cave temple and its artistic, religious and cultural treasures remained buried in the sands of time till it found mention in A General History of Pudukottai State, complied by S.Radhakrishnan Iyer who was commissioned by the Dewan Regent of Pudukottai State in 1899 to catalogue the archaeological wealth of the state.

In this book, Iyer has described in detail the caves, their structure and the sculptures and painting within. Detailing the painting, he wrote: On the ceiling of the hall are pictures in water colours of birds seated on lotuses in thank. These pictures, which are likely to be more than 10 centuries old, look as fresh as though they were painted only 10 or 20 years ago.

However, Iyers book, perhaps because of its insular character and limited readership, did not have the same impact as that of a later work and the monograph on Sithannavasal by a Frenchman, Jouveau Dubreuil, in 1920. Dubreuil, who collaborated with well-known iconographer Gopinath Reddy, was instrumental in placing Sithannavasal on the archaeological of India.