Tamil Nadu is the southern state of India.  In this land of antique temples, their towers of brick and mortar weathering poorly and so rehabilitated from time to time, their stone sculpture still innovative and not permanent spoiled by passionate restoration, classic stone is at its best in Mahabalipuram near Chennai, in Madurai and the Chola sculpture almost everywhere.  Most of the temples have a temple car (made out of wood to carry Gods and Goddesses) and a temple tank and have annual festivals when God goes out to sanctify the people, heralded by great music on the Tamil instruments of Nadhaswaram and the associated fervent Thavil, by caparisoned elephants, camels and horses, by a innumerable lights and parties chanting the Vedas and Tamil Hymns.

Tamil sculpture, though renowned and at length studied by savants, is spotted over thousands of shrines, some of them uncared for and little known.  Because it has been assayed, not by artists who could capture its dynamism and intelligence, but by art critics who were, and are really archaeologists, iconographers, epigraphists and historians, quite a few masterpieces remain in dimness. No deep research is needed to recognize them – their beauty and flamboyance are understandable.

The term Pallava, Chola, Vijayanagar and Nayak schools are used merely as terms of expediency to point out period and affinities and not as ultimate metaphors.  Many hands were employed for the work on a shrine or a part of it, and additions were made to old shrines much later, in a different style-shown by the many outer halls and courtyards supplementary to Pallava and Chola shrines by sculptors of the Vijayanagar and post-Vijayanagar schools- so that the artistic quality of the carvings in a shrine is often very rough.

There are few places in Tamil Nadu where there are no old, feeble shrines, and visitors to the State will find it worthwhile to go round these small shrines as well.  The less incomprehensible shrines can still revelation one with the delight and charm o meticulous carvings – like the temples at the foot of the hill at Tirukalukunndram and near Panruti, the Ramaswami and Ezhai Someswarar temples in Kumbakonam and Tirubhuvanam, and Darasuram, Narthamalai and Moovarkoil in Pudukottai, the less important shrines around Madurai, the moderately recent temple at Nattarasankottai near Sivaganga and the shrines in Brahmadesam in the Tirunelveli District.

The towering gopurams and large halls of even the smaller temples will make an impression on visitors to Tamil Nadu.  Many shrines enclose depictions of Kolattam and more classical dances, and of course the god of dance-Nataraja.  Nataraja belongs very much to the region.  Thanjavur and its surroundings are noted for the outstanding bronzes of Nataraja and other gods and goddesses.

‘Stone and metal last, but wood decays’. The engraved panels of the Ther (temple cars) and the Doors of temples are the survivals of an old and almost archaic art, and the finest examples have a limited life-some are already dissolution. The great wooden door of the Kailasantha temple in Brahmadesam carries many fine Vaishnavite motifs though it guards a Saivite shrine. The door or the Patteeswarar temple near Kumbakonam and the Ther of the Shiva Temple at Nedungadi are among the finest examples of the art

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