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216 K. R. RAJAGOPAIAN

(iv)    Marble image at Tiruppullani Ramnad District (PI. IV). The dale and origin of this image are not known. From the materiał used, it must have been very late in origin. The fealures do not strictly confonn to the iconographic norms rclaling to Agastya and hence it is dilTicuIl to agree to the identification of the image as Agastya.

(v)    Bronze image of Agastya, Tenkasi Tirunnelveli District, (PI. III A). Dcptt. has kepi the photograph of this image alongwith those of the Pandyan king, Kańkalamurli, and Sundaramurti. The features of this image do not exaclly conform to the iconographical descriptions available to us. It is a standing image in a leaning posturę. The hair on the head and the beard are set in a different style, perhaps showing later inlluences. For a contrast the bronze image of Nallur (k in b). is also reproduced in this article to have a comparative study.

4.3. Incidentally, it is relevant to mcntion the work of Dr. Lesya Poerbatjaraka in Dutch - Agastya in den Archipel (1926). Prof. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri in his article on Agastya has madę extcnsive references to this work. So far as the iconography of Agastya is concerncd, there are interesting discussions about the identification

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of BhatSraguru or Sivaguru images as they are callcd in Java as those of Agastya. To quole Prof. Sastri “For many years till 1926,

a fairly well-established tradilion among the archacologisls working

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in Java idcntified as Bhalaraguru or Sivaguru images morę or less corresponding to the typc of Agastya images of India. Thcn Poerbatjaraka pointed out, I think, in a convincing manner, that the so-callcd Guru images were the representations neilher of the highest God of the Indonesians nor of Siva as teacher, not yet of a mixture of these idcas, but in reality of a rsi and that the rsi was Agastya.”³¹ At the same time while dealing wilh images which are not having short stature or pot-belly, but yet identifying them as of Agastya, Poerbatjaraka thinks that in the earlier stages, Agastya was represented as a normal human rpi, that the dwarfish pot-bcllicd form of the image arose out of a later attempt to give sculptural expression to the name Kundodara that came to be applied to Agastya. Prof. Sastri rightly crilicises this stand and says that there is no salisfactory evidcnce for the view that Agastya images were represented by normal figures of rsis without the markcdly short stature and pot-belly and, therefore, the explanalion offered by Poerbatjaraka is untcnable. Suffice to conclude here that a study of Sivaguru or BhalSraguru images of Indonesia and their linkage to Agastya in the contcxt of the expansion of cultural trends in early limes from India to Soulh-East Asia is yet anolher fascinaling one.