This paper attempts to throw new light on certain peculiar and lesser-known aspects of religious and artistic expression under the Nāyaka kingdoms, in the wake of the fall of the Vijayanagar empire (1565 CE), particularly in what is Tamil Nadu today.1

As is well-known, the Nāyakas, originally governors on behalf of the Vijayanagar kings,2 became autonomous rulers and patrons of the arts and letters after the dissolution of the empire. From this point onwards, their artistic production (whether architectural, sculptural, or pictorial), which had previously drawn upon trends both of the Vijayanagar school and influences prevalent in the localities where they ruled, begins to show original and innovative models. However, the long-standing inspiration from Vijayanagar never entirely disappears. 

These new tendencies were caused, in part, by the complex historical background of the period, under the pressure of the Islamic sultanates and the increasing presence of European merchants and missionaries. However, by and large, these trends were part of a major programme of religious and cultural innovations, deliberately promoted and perpetuated by the Nāyakas, who, driven by the necessity to unify and reinforce their autonomous rule, made use of religio-artistic motifs to further their political objectives.

It is a particularly complex and interesting subject which awaits in-depth study. Indeed, although, after a long eclipse, the art of the Nāyaka kingdoms has recently been rediscovered,3 its importance as an aspect of statecraft has received only limited attention.4 This paper will identify a number of architectural and iconographic elements, and variations thereof, as well as ritualistic innovations employed by the Nāyakas of Tamil Nadu as instruments to advance their political agenda. 

• 1. Nāyaka kingdoms were situated in parts of modern-day Maharashtra, Karnataka, Orissa and Tamil Nadu. The most famous were the kingdoms of Madurai and Tañjāvūr.
• 2. Epigraphic and literary sources attest that the Nāyakas, under the Vijayanagar empire, were entitled to hold various posts, often linked together by a hierarchic system. For further details cf. Noboru Karashima, ‘Nāyaka Rule in North and South Arcot Districts in South India during the Sixteenth Century’, Acta Asiatica, 48 (1985), pp.1-26; Noboru Karashima, ‘Vijayanagar Nāyakas in Tamil Nadu and the King’, in Kingship in Indian History, ed. by. Noboru Karashima (Delhi: Manohar, 1999), pp. 143-162; Noboru Karashima, A Concordance of Nāyakas, The Vijayanagar Inscriptions in South India (Oxford-Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002); Burton Stein, Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 396-415.
• 3. Amongst the most recent works cf. Crispin Branfoot, ‘Bhīma and Puruṣamirukam in the Nāyaka-period Sculpture of Tamilnadu’, South Asian Studies, 18 (2002), pp. 77-82; Crispin Branfoot, ‘Approaching the Temple in Nāyaka- Period Madurai: The Kūṭal Aḻakar Temple’, Artibus Asiae, 60.2 (2000), pp. 197-221; R.K.K. Rajarajan, Art of the Vijayanagara-Nāyakas: Architecture & Iconography, 2 Vols. (New Delhi: Sharada Publishing House, 2006); M. Ragunath, Nāyaka Temples, History, Architecture and Iconography (New Delhi: Sharada Publishing House, 2014).
• 4. Cf. David Shulman and Velcheru Narayana Rao, ‘Marriage-Broker for the God. The Tanjavur Nāyakas and the Maṉṉārkuṭi Temple’, in The Sacred Centre as Focus of Political Interest, ed. by Hans Bakker (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1992), pp. 179-203; Branfoot, Approaching the Temple, pp. 97-221; Crispin Branfoot, Gods on the Move: Architectural and Ritual Space in the South Indian Temple (London: The Society for South Asian Studies, 2007); Crispin Branfoot, ‘Imperial Frontiers: Building Sacred Space in Sixteenth-Century South India’, The Art Bulletin, 90.2 (2008), pp. 171-194; Tiziana Lorenzetti, ‘Peculiar and Unknown Iconographies of the Nāyaka Period in Tamil Nadu’, in South Asian Archaeology 2007, Vol. II: Historic Periods, ed. by Pierfrancesco Callieri and Luca Colliva (Oxford: Archeo press, 2010), pp. 191-200.