Kunjar - A Unique form of Art

This blog post is about a unique form of art called as 'Kunjar art form'. I am unable to get a clear period during which this art form started to take shape. It is suggested by some that it had its origin in Medieval India. Some literature also claims that it is influenced by Persian artists. 

This art form is identified by the name Kunjar - a Sanskrit word for The Elephant. This is because the

Elephant had a prominent place in every ancient Indian art form. 

This is a very unusual form of art and hence very rare to see! I have seen sculptures made of Kunjar art form in only two temples in South India and a painting in a fort in Orchha Madhya Pradesh! The reason is, to make a sculpture in Kunjar art form the sculptor should be extraordinarily skilled. It highlights the artist's skill of composition and assemblage, importantly within the parameters of a frame work. Animal frames were commonly used, elephant and horse being the most commonly used forms.

Kunjar or the elephant is the main composition of the art form. Elephant's shape is used as the shell within which figures of women are artistically intertwined and seated in a creative manner. The artist uses his creativity and employs various acrobatic postures of women to adjust them within the shell or the frame!  The composition typically followed a set pattern of nine women dressed ostentatiously and it is called Nava Nari Kunjar! When the number of women used is five it is called Pancha Nari Kunjar!

In place of women sculptors have also used birds and you can see one such sculpture from Vaishnava Nambi temple of Thirukurungudi Tamizh Nadu, India.

Panel sculptures of Thirukurungudi Temple tower.

Thirukurunkudi is a tiny village around 45.7 KMs from Tirunelveli, (See the Google Map below) Tamil Nadu. The main attraction of this village is Vaishnava Nambi Temple. In case you want to know more about the temple you can Google and you will get tons of information on this temple. This blog post is confined only to the Panel sculptures of this temple. 

This temple houses hundreds of outstanding sculptures from the  life sized to the ones to just a  few inches in size.  The temple offers a cocktail of Low relief, high relief and sunken relief! It is quite an exhibition of Dravidian style of architecture.

If you are interested in sculptures you can easily spend at least three hours in this temple! The temple tower (Gopuram) itself needs an hour as you need to observe very carefully every nook and corner of the lavishly decorated tower.

One thing which is quite unique to this tower is the Panel sculptures or Relief Panels! I have never seen so many Relief Panels anywhere in India (barring Khajuraho of course!) like it is in this temple. Luckily since these Relief Panels are sculpted on the tower, all the panels are  intact and they are not vandalised as they are difficult to reach! They are so intricately carved you can actually see the emotions in the face and the beauty of the jewellery the Gods are wearing!

Various scenes from Mahabharata and scenes from Vaishnava stories can be seen here. Interestingly there are panels of Shiva too despite this temple being a Vishnu temple! (Although in recent times because of the fight between Vaishnavites and Shaivaites they have uprooted a Shiva Lingam from this temple and installed it in a corner of this village! It seems a case is pending before the Supreme court regarding bringing back the lingam to this temple!)

The size of the panels would vary between two feet to three feet! You essentially need a zoom lens to shoot these panels. Although they are quite visible to the naked eye photographing them is not possible without a zoom lens. 

Photography inside the temple is not allowed but picturing the sculptures on the tower is not prohibited!

I will have another post on this temple shortly on other forms of its sculptures!