This bronze cast, a tough medium softened by skilled hands of Swamimalai artisans representing not merely some anthropomorphic figures but also such figures’ act – the bodies’ curves and rhythm, every movement revealing with great precision and accuracy, minute details and overall sophistication, represents goddess Saraswati playing on her ‘vina’ – stringed instrument, with two subordinate goddesses in attendance. The statue is one of the finest examples of the perfection and classicism that the bronze-casters of Swamimalai have matured over centuries through many generations of them. A centre of bronze casting with exceptional distinction, perhaps hardly any other centre of bronze casting in India to stand equal, still pursues the standards of great South Indian bronzes that had a centuries old tradition under many ruling dynasties. Bronzes from Swamimalai, a small town near Chennai in Tamil Nadu, breathe, as does this piece, a kind of classicism, divine aura, and beauty par excellence.
The statue represents Saraswati, the four-armed goddess of learning, arts and music, stringing her instrument ‘vina’ with two of her hands – the normal right and upper left. In her other two hands, the upper right, and normal left, she is carrying a rosary and book – the attributes she inherited from Brahma, her spouse. The book is symbolic of Vedas that Brahma is believed to have authored. ‘Vina’ is one of the late attributes emerging into the iconography of the goddess after she emerged as the patron deity also of arts, dance and music. Now instead of lotuses in two of her hands she was conceived as carrying ‘vina’– a stringed instrument, which symbolized music, and not lotus, or even a goose, but a peacock – the dancing bird that also symbolized arts by the colours of its feathers, comprised the seat of the goddess. Now her inseparable attribute, the ‘vina’ emerged as her identity symbol, and this Rig-Vedic deity Vak or Vag-devi – the goddess of speech, was more often represented as ‘Vina-vadini’ – the goddess playing on ‘vina’.
As if led by the divine melody emitting from her ‘vina’ – lyre, in the statue the figure of the goddess moves into ecstatic dance, and now except the toe of her right foot her entire figure looks like soaring into space and the unearthly divinity acquires greater unearthliness. A delightful anatomy, the entire figure has been conceived triply curving : the toe of the right leg fixed on the ground, the rest of the leg curves first from toe to heel, from heel to knee and from knee to thigh; lifted far above the knee-height the left leg of the goddess vibrates with far closer curves – the foot defining one curve, leg-part below the knee, another, and thigh part, yet another. Though mildly, with rhythm diffused into her entire figure, the rest of her body also reveals triply curving posture – an anatomy that under norms of Indian sculptural tradition has been most favoured kind of body-posture for divine icons. Not merely the figure of the goddess even her ‘vina’, which itself is the divine source of this ecstasy, too, seems to rhythmically vibrate.
The statue comprises three figures installed on a large rectangular base with elliptical projection in the centre for the goddess’s lotus seat. The figure of the goddess Saraswati occupies the central seat – a plain moulding raised over an inverted lotus. The two tinier icons of subordinate goddesses that attend upon the goddess Saraswati enshrine similar seats, though smaller in size, flanking the central seat on either side. The normal two-armed figures of the subordinate goddesses are holding a large ritual bowl each, though the figure on the left of the central also carries a coconut type object. The styles of their crowns, stana-patas – breast-band, and ‘antariya’ are different from that of the presiding deity. The image of goddess Saraswati adheres to basic parameters of a votive image as well as aestheticism as laid down in various texts. Her rounded face terminating in a pointed chin, meditative half shut lotus eyes, arched and prominently conceived eye-brows, sensuous lips, a well-proportioned neck, hair falling on the neck’s both sides, temptingly modeled breasts partially covered with beautifully worked ‘stana-pata’, further enhancing their magic, long arms, fine long fingers, subdued belly, besides her ornaments and ‘antariya’ – the garment worn below the waist, all are reminiscent of the golden era of India's sculptural art. In anatomical proportions, facial features and over-all modeling the statue is simply unique. The image, most accomplished by any parameters, is charged with intense emotionality and vibrates with life-vigour.
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