Gian Marco Matteuzzi

Horses in a village sanctuary of Mariamman Polanalur (Namakkal), Harry Holtzman (New York 1912 - Lyme Ct 1987), edited as Cover of the Catalogue "Unknown India Ritual Art in Tribe and Village" (Philadelphia 1968). Kindly Courtesy Madalena Holtzman

ethnoflorence.skynetblog [...] lord--ayanaar

The workship of South Indian village Gods or Grama Devatas represent still today an important key to understanding the basic model of thought of a part of South Indian population, still living the village way of life. These particular forms of image and worship have further the extraordinary characteristic of representing the most ancient tradition of the earliest past brought into the present. From the religious art view point, the village shrines represent an outstanding expression of forms and sites unique to India. Mr Stephen Inglis in his writing "Night Riders: Massive Temple Figures of Rural Tamil Nadu", about the terracotta horses of South Indian Shrines wrote that "... technically they are the most ambitiuous achievements in clay found in India and by any survey probably the largest hollow clay images to be created anywhere."