ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about the sacrificial images of self-decapitation in early periods of India namely Pallava Period, Pandya Period, Chola Period, Reddi-Vijayanagara Periods. The sculptural evidence from the Chola period indicates the ideal of self-sacrifice in the form of self-decapitation continued or was re-instituted at the shrine after Sankara's visit. The Hindu revival, which took place under the influence of the saints of the Pallava and Pandya periods continued during the Chola period, as is evident from a series of stories of the Saiva saints illustrated on the walls of the 12th-century CE Chola period temple at Darasuram. In Vijayanagara Periods the memorial stones to self-offerants are in a folk-art style and thus difficult to date, but they appear to be earlier than the 16th- and 17th-century CE temple construction. The Pallava, Chola and later Deccan sculptures reveal a great deal about the tenor of their times such as the merger of local deity cults into Hindu orthodoxy.
