Análisis de los resultados de los cuestionarios de satisfacción

kumarudaina, Nallamma Nayani kainkaryamu, Sreeranga Sthalamu).

We have not been able to locate the names of the donors inscribed in the Sreeranga Mahatmya murals, in the Srirangam inscriptions. Their names suggest that they belong to the Telugu Country. The interesting feature is that one of the donors is a lady Ramanujamma. Most probably, she might have been a woman of considerable means who had a special affection for Srirangam. We come across names such as Nayana, in a number of slabs on the floor in Srirangam both in the Tayar shrine and the Ranganatha shrine.

Many concepts inherent in the Sreeranga Mahatmya can be traced back to the songs of the Azhvars themselves. The Sreeranga Mahatmya which makes much of the quarrel between the rivers Ganga and Kaveri, has most probably drawn its inspiration from the words which describes one as purer than the other. This has been interwoven into a sthala-purana legend of not only Srirangam but also in the Kaveri Mahatmya.

In the post-azhvar period, the various concepts centering around Ranganatha were becoming crystallised into the nucleus for the Sreeranga Mahatmya. Certain iconographic details present in the songs of the azhvars are present in the paintings around the Tiruvannazhi.

The next reference is in the Amuktamal-yada of Krishnadevaraya who gives a vivid description of not only the Ranga Vimana

at Srirangam temple, the gopuras and general surroundings around the temple, but touches upon the origin of the Vimana itself.

“In the beginning Lord Brahma worshipped Ranganatha as a Guha Devatha. Then Sri Hari orders Brahma to give it to Ikshuvaku.

Rama belonging to the Ikshuvaku dynasty gifts it to Vibheeshana who then places this vigraha in the middle of the Kaveri where the river branches forming the island of Srirangam; there on the chandrapush-karanee, he places Ranganatha.”

By the 16th century, the sthala-purana legend was fairly well-established and quite popular with the Telugu kings. In the same period, a number of mahatmyas covering other temples were also written. The Sreeranga Mahatmya itself was rendered in Telugu by a number of poets between the 16th and 18th centuries A.D. In the Nayaka period, no less a poet than Vijayaranga Chokkanatha Nayak wrote the Sreeranga Mahatmya.

Besides the mahatmya written by the Nayaka king, a number of other versions are available either in manuscript form or as published texts.

The most popular version of the Mahatmya is the work of one Gowranna Bhairava who wrote it around 1565. He was a great Vishnu bhakta and in the Colophon of his work, he states that the Satadhyayi version of the Garuda purana was the nucleus of his mahatmya. In the preface to Bhairava’s mahatmya edition, the editor lists out other versions that were written in Telugu around that period. Srigiri is supposed to have written the earliest version of Sreeranga Mahatmya, but such a work no longer exists.

In the wake of Bhairava’s work, a number of versions were written mostly in prose rather than in the champu kavya style of the other mahatmyas. A fairly popular version was written by Katta Varadaraja, a disciple of Ethirajacharya between 1600 and 1650 A.D. In the 17th and 18th centuries, a number of versions were written by Kastoori Rangiah, Pulipaka Ramanna, Vella Narasimhachari, Sarasvari Venkata Subbaraya Sastri, Sriranganathudu, Varamalla Narasarnatyudu.

The artist in painting the Mahatmya panels has adopted a rapid narrative pace. He has been able to pack in all the sub-plots and minor incidents without losing track, of the central theme-the peregrination of the Ranga Vimana. His object has been to communicate the legends in an easy manner. Using the label captions to explain the contents of the conversations, the artist utilises the mural space to delineate the main characters of a scene.

The portrayal is static in most panels.

Occasionally, the artist infuses life to the mood of the story and draws an animated composition. He does so for example in portraying the arrival of Kama to distract Ikshuvaku in his penance and in depicting Rama’s battle with Ravana. The pattabhisheka scene, though colourful, large and filled with portraits and affording an appreciation of the artist’s repertory, is attempted more in the manner of a still-life composition.

The artist employs the technique of continuous narration effectively to maintain the story sequence and conveys the concept of movement. The artist has,

however, not used the techniques of shading or flexion to infuse vivacity into the individual characterisations in the composition.

The Srirangam Mahatmya painted in the Tiruvunnazhi and covering sthala purana legends of this temple could well have been influenced by a special interest taken up by Vijayaranga Chokkanatha, who was himself the author of a Telugu version.

Writing of such Mahatmyas was particularly popular in the Nayaka period. Just as the Thiruvunnazhi was appropriately utilized in Srirangam to exhibit the Sreeranga Mahatmya on its ceiling, similarly mahatmyas of a number of other temples were painted in their respective temples close to the sanctum. In the late 18th century, four interesting mahatmyas were translated into paintings in a similar style of Srirangam and these are Azhvar Tirunagari (covering the story of Tiruppuli Azhvar), Tirupadai-maradur on Karur Devar’s service to the temple;

Tirumangalakudi in Tanjavur district and Tirukkazhukundram.

The purpose of painting such mahatmyas in temples was to popularise the temple legends and to reach a wider audience.

Hence, we find that the Telugu labels in these murals do not exhibit the chaste Telugu literary tradition that we come across in the works of poets. The object of portraying the legends was to reach the common folk and keeping this object in view, the labels were expressed in colloquia idiom to convey the essence of the sthala purana legends.

Hampi, Karnataka

Marble Temple, Jaipur

Nageswaran Temple, Kumbakonam

Temples The Treasure