124 



DESCRIPTIVE REMARKS ON 



their floor, and very frequently a circle carved round it, much 

 like some of those in which the linga is still to be seen, 

 there seems reason to believe that they were nearly all, 

 whether monoliths, caves, or buildings, Siva (Linga) shrines. 



But besides the general displacement of the Bull and the 

 Linga, there are other evidences of iconoclastic activity on 

 the part of a more recent religious sect than that of the origi- 

 nal authors. For instance, we see in the Eamanuja excava- 

 tion No. 48, the central shrine cell has been completely cut 

 out, so as to lay open the three cells and render the cave a 

 single chamber. Moreover the three fine sculptured tableaux 

 which once adorned this shrine have been carefully obli- 

 terated, as also have the two dvdfapal warders. The only 

 emblems remaining unhurt are the cahkha and cakra, which 

 appear to have been subsequently scored or marked, rather 

 than carved, on the end walls of the (excavated) terrace in 

 front of the chamber. Again No. 52, the Koneri exca- 

 vation, has been treated much in the same way ; its five 

 linga ? shrines being vacant, and the cahkha and cakra 

 marked on the terrace walls outside. 



If the name of Eamanuja, the great anti-Saiva reformer 

 who strove for the Yaishnava faith in the twelfth century 

 A.D., is any indication, it would seem that his followers may 

 have been the iconoclasts who displaced the objects of Saiva 

 worship and destroyed its shrines, as has been done in the 

 Eamanuja, Koneri, and Dharmaraja's (No. 44) cave shrines, 

 and in the Olakkannesvara (No. 34) the built temple, which 

 has been completely eviscerated, and other cases. To pre- 

 vent there being any doubt as to who the desecrators were, 

 it would seem that they have intentionally left their mark 

 (the cahkha and cakra, the conch shell and discus) in No. 

 48 and No. 52. 



Had the Saivas destroyed the Yaishnava shrines and em- 

 blems in any Saiva revival, such as is said to have occurred in 



