L.A. County Museum of Art

05-06-2002, 02:02 PM

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

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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