Large Than Life: The Terra Cotta Sculptures of India
Article by Ron du Bois

Massive terracotta horses have been built by Tamil villagers in south India for thousands of years. Stephen Inglis states that "technically they are the most ambitious achievements in clay found in India and by any survey probably the largest hollow clay images to be created anywhere" ⁽¹⁾.

The methods used to construct and to fire images nine to fifteen feet or more in height are unique in ceramic history and of unusual interest to clay specialists. They differ dramatically from the images of horses and soldiers recently excavated in China, in that they are larger than life-size and fired in situ. Not only is the size impressive, but the proportions and embellishment are superb. These works are created by a caste of hereditary potter/priests who are products and heirs of an ancient tradition in which clay and religion are inseparably linked.

Yet because the images are built in remote village shrines they have been virtually ignored by scholars. As Inglis observes, "visitors to Tamil Nadu may catch a glimpse of such images from the window of a bus or train yet an interest once aroused is difficult to pursue.

Tamil people of the cities know little of them and for the ordinary village people, work on such images involves skills and a sacred ritual of which they have little knowledge. The work is almost never seen in big towns or cities, sold in fairs, or otherwise displayed. Although some attention has been given by scholars to the religious complex in which they playa part, information about massive images and the craftsmen who build them is not to be found in the literature on south India" ⁽²⁾.

In May, 1980, as an Indo-American Fellow, I was able to observe at first hand, in remote and abandoned village shrines, ancient examples of these massive terracotta horses "with fiercely noble heads standing ready to carry god or demon" ⁽³⁾. As I looked at them, numerous questions came to mind: How old were they? Who made them? What was their purpose? Were they still being made? How could such huge clay images be fired? How could passages of clay varying in thickness from two to sixteen inches be dried and fired without mishap of any kind?

The answers to these questions would shed new light on the methods used in the past by the Etruscans, the Chinese, and pre-Columbian peoples to create such larger-than-life terracotta images. The craftsmen who made them clearly used methods of construction and firing outside the spectrum of Western ceramic skills and processes. Few, if any clay specialists in the Western world would attempt to build and fire on-site ceramic sculpture of such monumental scale.

Through the unfailing support of Ray Meeker and Deborah Smith of the Golden Bridge Pottery in Pondicherry, I found some important answers. Former students of Susan Peterson, they are the only American potters successfully producing hand-thrown stoneware in India at present.

Their plan of organization made the documentation possible. Intrigued with the projected filming of the construction of an Aiyanar horse, they offered me the use of their recently purchased jeep to search for Aiyanar shrines and potters. The three of us, together with Ray's assistant, Ratchagar, to serve as translator, set out on a four-wheel drive field trip.

On a single day's outing, we sighted five Aiyanar shrines in the outskirts of Chidambaram. Each of the sites held one or more terracotta horses, each ten to twelve feet high constructed within the last one hundred years. The surface decoration, in most cases, had weathered away and the patina indicated considerable age. There was nothing to indicate the date or the names of either the potters or donors. Such facts were never recorded.

Were such horses still being built? Thanks to my friends' fluency in Tamil we soon found a pottery community reputed to have horse- building skills in the village of Puthur, sixteen kilometers from Chidambaram. When we found the earth and thatch dwellings of the potters, we discovered an Aiyanar shrine nearby complete with a huge standing terracotta horse, which the potters claimed was more than one hundred years old. Near the older form was a more recent horse built of cement, a material that has now almost completely replaced clay as the medium for shaping ritual images. To the west stood a large cement image of Aiyanar and to the south, a shrine housed a much smaller image flanked by two consorts. The shrine is in active use. Each evening some forty villagers worship there, the women touching their foreheads to the ground and the men prostrating themselves completely.

The indigenous religious system, involving the belief in a male deity, at once hero, protector, companion, and councilor, is Dravidian. It predates by centuries the Aryan introduction of Hinduism with its complex pantheon of deities in the second millennium B.C. During the Middle Ages, in order to upgrade and legitimize Aiyanar through association with mainline Hinduism, devotees evolved the story of his birth as a son of Shiva and Vishnu (in the form of a beautiful woman). Aiyanar helps on many important occasions in life -to choose a bride or groom, to cure sickness, or to punish a wrongdoer. He holds a metal sword in his hand on which devotees thrust paper messages stating their various problems. Often the solutions are revealed in dreams.

V. Mutha Swamy, member of the five-man
team which constructs the massive ritual horses

We learned that the last large Aiyanar horse was commissioned more than twenty years ago. But the potters assured us they still knew how to build one. Would they do it? Would they accept a commission from a non-Hindu - a foreigner? I was impressed with the potters and had a genuine sympathy and liking for Aiyanar and his shrines. Unlike Hindu temples, his shrines were always located in secluded country areas in which trees were a necessary and auspicious component. They were restrained-the sculptural quality of the clay or cement images was stable and impressive. Perhaps the potters were moved by my positive attitude and interest in Aiyanar; at any rate, they decided to accept the commission. They agreed to build a horse nine feet high in twenty days; it was to be situated next to the existing horses. They quoted a price of 500 rupees. After haggling, they reduced the figure to 400 rupees- ($48.00) - a good price by Indian standards but by Western standards extremely low when one considers that four or five men would work for twenty days to complete the commission.

Day One:
They knew their business. On Monday, May 26, 1980, a puja (ritual) was held to ensure the success of the project. To consecrate the ground on which the horse was to be built, the potters encircled the area using the blood streaming from the neck of a decapitated rooster. Coconut halves were placed to each side of the area. Liquor, an essential ritualistic ingredient, was present although Tamil Nadu is a "dry" state. Technically, liquor is illegal but this was "home brew," which escaped official scrutiny. Food offerings to Aiyanar completed the ritual. Secure in the assurance that Aiyanar was now companion to the project, the potters began construction.

The preparation of the clay had taken place the day before. A circular earth pit about four feet in diameter served as a mixing trough. One part sedimentary earthenware is mixed with one part earthenware topsoil. Although fine-grained, it contains silt. To this enough water is added to produce a medium-viscosity slurry. The potters knew this clay would fail as a medium for building large sculpture. Large quantities of non-plastic ingredients are essential to prevent shrinkage and hence cracking, as well as to permit thick passages of clay. The non-plastic ingredients consist of three parts rice hulls and approximately one part (by volume) of three-to-four-inch lengths of rice straw. The potters added this to the earthenware slurry and mixed it by foot to produce a medium soft mixture possessing all the qualities of a "castable."

Large coils of this material were used to form rings around previously inscribed twelve-inch circles on the ground marking the four "hoofs" of the horse. A second coil of clay joined to the initial ring extended the diameter to sixteen inches. Four of these clay rings were formed to establish the four "hoofs" of the horse's legs. This accomplished, a potter, using a metal excavating tool, dug holes approximately twelve inches deep inside each ring of clay. A potter set a wooden pole about six feet high inside one hole and held it while a colleague quickly filled the entire hole with clay thus supporting the pole in a vertical position. In a similar fashion, vertical poles were set in the three remaining holes. Each wooden pole, therefore, was supported by a solid mass of clay mixture about sixteen inches across and twelve inches deep. Without the use of rice hulls and straw such passages would shrink and crack.

These ingredients are the major part of the mixture by volume and are essential to this type of monumental clay construction. The last part to be constructed was a clay base for the central rectangular support, 24" x 24". This completed the first day's work. Nothing further could be done until the moist clay mixture stiffened.

The potters spent their time in the afternoon preparing ropes made of rice straw. Wrapped around the wooden uprights these ropes create a compressible internal support system for the application of about a four-inch wall of clay thereby eliminating any possibility of the clay cracking as it dries and contracts.

Day Two:
On the morning of the second day of construction the potters completed the task of winding the straw ropes around the four wooden uprights. They then applied a four-inch wall of clay so that four large tubes about 40 inches tall were formed, each serving as a metaphorical leg. Next, four vertical uprights were fixed at the inside comer of the base of the central rectangular support previously completed. Straw ropes were wound around them to create an armature for a thick application of clay. The potters worked surely and quickly in spite of a 112 degree Fahrenheit temperature. Descendants of generations of clay craftsmen, they have learned the skills from childhood and are concerned only with the work at hand, In the afternoon they completed the front and rear legs and the central rectangular support. The front legs now stood as a single unit 44 inches high, 38 inches wide, and 17 inches across, measured at the top center. By fixing wooden supports to the wooden uprights, the potters created a horizontal passage of clay that bridged the two front and rear legs. The clay mixture was laid over and under these supports to create a level horizontal surface. This completed, nothing more could be done until the horizontal passages of clay stiffened.

Day Three:
On the morning of the third day, additional wood supports were placed horizontally to connect the front legs to the central support and. then to the rear legs' unit. The potters molded the horse's under-belly by laying "gobs" of the clay directly on the wood supports (both above and underneath); this process produced a slab four inches thick, seven feet, ten inches long, and thirty-four inches wide! Such a feat was possible only because of the wooden internal support system.

After the burning rays of the sun had stiffened the slab, the potters next added coils of clay to form the curve of the belly, a process which added seven inches to the height. They tapered the edge of the final coil. When the clay was stiff, the diagonal slant provided a broader surface and hence a good join for the next application of clay.

Day Four: In the afternoon the potters, using thick gobs of the basic clay mixture, modeled the figure of the guardian (or groom) of Aiyanar's horse directly on the surface of the central support form.

Katrvil models images symbolizing Aiyanar's groom, working with thick gobs of clay.
Right, he poses beside the completed form which took two hours to complete.

Day Six: lengths of bamboo are placed inside the figure to complement exterior supports.

Some of the passages were four inches thick, attesting to the non-plastic nature of the basic clay mixture. An application of pure clay over the coarse basic clay followed, and detailing was done with fingers and a wooden modeling tool. The modeling skills are of a high order and result in a figure with remarkable spring and incipient energy.

The basic clay mixture is similar to what, in the West, is considered to be a "castable" -a clay body suitable for bricks, refractory linings, or kiln construction but rarely considered as suitable for ceramic sculpture. Again, to the Western craftsman, a kiln for firing ceramic sculpture would appear essential. As a result he limits himself to forms that can be lifted and moved into a kiln. The idea of firing "in situ" at the site of construction rather than in a studio/workshop has never been the practice. Permanent kilns, plumbing and wiring for gas, oil, or electricity have all been part of the Western paradigm - yet the Etruscans, pre-Columbians, Africans, and the potter-priests of India as well all constructed temporary clay walls for on-site firing of monumental ceramic forms.

Day Nine: The entire neck, saddle and tail are complete.

Day Twelve: Moist earth carried to the site forms the wall for 'open field' firing.

The fire is started through a firehole igniting the layers of straw, dung and wood that surround and support the figure.

Day Fourteen: The firing is completed within three hours.

The potters brought the project to a conclusion with a final puja (religious ceremony) and a "bringing to life" of the successfully fired and decorated horse. It is hoped that these notes and photographs will benefit Western craftsmen and serve to enhance internationally the most impressive but little-known skills of Indian potters.

Download a one minute video of the pre-construction puja ceremony. Warning - this video contains footage of an animal sacrifice that may be distressing to some viewers. Dowload video (7 Mb, avi format).

Footnotes:
• 1-2 Stephen R. Inglis, "Night Riders: Massive Temple Figures of Rural Tamil Nadu, in V. Vijayavenugopala (ed.) A Festschrift for Prof. M. Shanmugam Pillai, Madurai University Press, 1980.
• 3 Stella Kramrisch, Unknown India: Ritual Art in Tribe and Village. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Ron du Bois, an emeritus professor of art, taught ceramics and studio art at Oklahoma State University, USA. He was Fulbright professor to Korea in 1973-74, where he taught ceramics at three Korean universities. His award winning documentary, The Working Processes of the Korean Folk Potter, was filmed at that time. In 1979-80, du Bois traveled extensively in India as a 1979-80 Indo-American fellow to research and document the work of Indian potters. Among other projects he filmed the entire construction of perhaps the last massive terra- cotta horse to be built in India. The documentary, "The Working Processes of the Potters of India: Massive Terra-Cotta Horse Construction" was completed under the auspices of the National Endowment for the Humanities and deals with the subject matter of this article. In 1987, du Bois was awarded a 10 month Fulbright Senior Research Scholar grant, African Regional Research program, to research and document Nigerian potters. For information on his POTTERS OF THE WORLD FILM/VIDEO SERIES contact: Ron du Bois, Professor Emeritus, http://www.angelfire.com/ok2/dubois, 612 S. Kings St., Stillwater, OK 74074, (405) 377-2524, email: duboisr@sbcglobal.net, fax: 1-405-372-5023

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