I came across the word ‘palimpsest’ when I was reading Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh. I was fascinated by the word; it could suggest so much both literally and philosophically. Originally the meaning of palimpsest suggested a parchment with a text that is wiped away, incompletely or totally, so that the parchment can be used again. Rushdie uses the word to refer to a painting that has been painted over another one and the disappearance of the previous one. His reference is rather poetic and I wish to use it in the same manner and perhaps go beyond it.I connected the word with the Chola wall paintings in the Brihadisvara temple in Tanjavur, which I first saw about fifteen years ago. Rajaraja I, the greatest of the Chola kings made this temple in the eleventh century. In the sixteenth century the Nayaka kings took over Tanjavur. They made many changes, renovations and additions to the many temples made by the Cholas. Unfortunately, they also painted over the exquisite Chola paintings at Brihadisvara. The paintings disappeared under the ones the Nayakas made, which sadly, are crude, almost amateurish.The idea of palimpsest first starts to operate with the obliteration of the Chola paintings, not through wiping or erasing, but through their disappearance under an inferior layer of paintings. Gone then, were the doe- eyed beauties, the magnificent visualisation of the human form, of elephants and horses and of a glorious white skinned Nataraja, probably the first of its kind in southern wall paintings.Ours is not to reason why the Nayakas did this. They were the conquerors, the rulers, and it was theirs to do what they wished. Anyone who is the possessor does his will with what he possesses. Perhaps, the owner does not feel secure until his stamp is not on what he has made his own. And so it is with human nature, always and always. In a similar fashion, the Nayakas painted the carvings on the outer walls of the Iravateswara temple in Darasuram, which was built by Rajaraja II in the twelfth century. These carvings of the Chola period were first covered with stucco before being painted. The same thing happened in Gangaikondacholapuram, which was built by the son of Rajaraja I, Rajendra Chola, in the eleventh century and painted over in the eighteenth century by local chieftains. The colours have partially disappeared, revealing the original stone, a palimpsest created by time.In all these instances, the first kind of manmade palimpsest occurred when certain players in history tampered with what was exquisitely created before they came along and covered the original with their own.The second kind takes place in the twentieth century when the Archaeological Survey of India—the new owners—decided to remove the Nayaka paintings and display the Chola ones. The method they adopted was extremely rough, with the result that they seem to have destroyed both sets of paintings. The Chola ones, while still retaining their beauty, can only suggest what they must have once been, so wiped away and scraped off they are. They are the palimpsests of indifferenceand apathy.
