Dr.R.Nagaswamy #4682B4 [About six months ago, a gold signet ring of truly remarkable artistic merit, and assignable on stylistic grounds to the First Century CE., was found in the dry bed of the river Amaravathi near Karur in Tamil Nadu. Dr.R.Nagaswamy, former Director of the TamilNadu State Department of Archaelogy, discusses the historic as well as artistic importance of this find. Editor] {A photograph of this beautiful and historic gold ring from Karur was given to me by Sri.IRAVATHAM MAHADEVAN, editor, Dinamani, who kindly invited me to write an article on the historic and aesthetic importance of the ring. I express my profound thanks to him for this rare opportunity. The article was published in Indian Express under the title "A ring of rare beauty". I never had the opportunity to see the original ring. R.N} A Chance find of a gold signet ring from the dry bed of the Amaravathi river in Karur (Tiruchirapalli District, Tamilnadu), the ancient capital of the Cheras, comes not only as a revelation to art connoisseurs of the south, but also opens up new vistas in the history of Tamil art. Now in the hands of a private collector, the ring weighs 15.6 grams, with an oval face measuring 25 mm length and 15 mm across. On the face of the ring is engraved an amorous couple (mithuna), of extraordinary grace and beauty. The amorous couple portrayed on the face of the ring is truly one of the finest expressions of Indian art. The figures are slim and elongated. The lady in her youth stands with her arm thrown around the shoulders of her lover. Her face turned to the right, tilted down a little, and her hairdo in the Tamil fashion are expressive of bashfulness at the approach of her lover. Her rounded and prominent breasts, adorn her graceful, sinuous body. Her legs - the left firm and steady and the right gently bent and across the left - enhance the feminine stance. She is dressed with a thin and fine silken cloth suggested by a flowing thin line, but for which she would almost appear nude. She is not heavily ornamented. There is a beauty in her simplicity, but she does wear bangles, one being pronouncedly big. The supple limbs, delightful pose, the gentle turn of legs, body, neck and face, picturise this lady with perfect feminine modesty. Her lover stands in a dignified pose with his left arm hugging the shoulders of his love, while the other arm offers what seems to be a flower. He is obviously delighted at the charm of his love. His right leg is planted straight while the left, slightly bent, is placed at the back. His physical stature portrays him as a man of classical taste and civility. The absolutely perfect proportions of the figures, the concept of symmetry as delineated in the legs, face and body, the flowing limbs and the remarkably agreeable contours, the composition and the use of space, marks this as one of the most outstanding pieces of Indian art. Above all, the emotional content - the intensity of feeling the lovers display, so vividly brought out by the artist would place him among the ranks of the foremost of creative geniuses of ancient India. There could be no doubt that the ring is a work of the First Century A.D. TWO other rings of great significance have been recovered from the same river bed in Karur in recent times - one is a gold ring with a legend in Tamil-Brahmi, reading Upaa(s)an i.e. a lay devotee, and - the second a silver ring also with a legend in Tamil-Brahmi characters reading Tittan. The former suggests that it belonged to a merchant who was, judging from the contemporary records, a lay disciple of a Jain monk. In recent times Karur has been throwing up remarkable artefacts, especially coins. The first of such finds is the copper coin of Kolli-Purai, the Chera ruler, published by me. The coin is not only important on account of the identification of the king with help of the Tamil-Brahmi legend found on the coin, but also for the portrayal of the royal standing figure. Two gems with figures inscribed on them have been found at Arikamedu, again collected as surface finds. One is reported to bear the head of Augustus. This intaglio was sent to the French Museum at Hanoi. The other intaglio bears the figure of Cupid and the eagle and is now in the Bibiliotheque, Pondicherry. According to Sir Mortimer Wheeler this gem, a quartz intaglio, is of Graeco-Roman workmanship. The untrimmed nature of the gem made Wheeler suggest that it may have been made locally by a Mediterranean craftsman. This would confirm that Graeco-Roman artists were working in Tamil soil, a fact mentioned in early Tamil literature. That the artists of Arikamedu were in their leisure time executing such carvings is brought to light by two potsherds, both of the imported rouletted variety. In one, a figure of a standing lady holding a metallic mirror is shown within an oval. The female figure resembles the Karur figure in delineation and is obviously by a local artist. Another sherd carries two figures, one a lion shown within an oval standing in an animated pose and, nearby an outline of a lady standing. The find of such potsherds prove atleast two significant points.a) both Indian and Graeco-Roman artists were working side by side and b) the artists made use of potsherds to carve such intaglios either as models or to use them as moulds to cast their signet rings. The Arikamedu finds are assigned to the First Century A.D. Another important find of gold jewellery and coins comes from a hoard found at Vellalur in Coimbatore district in 1932. The hoard yielded gold jewellery along with 121 denarii of Augustus, the Ro-man Emperor. Four gold rings found here are of great interest. Two of them were made by Indian artists and the other two by Graeco-Roman artists. The first one depicts a lion with lifted paw and the other a fish (makara). Both the rings were obviously carved by Indian artists. Among the other two, one represents a lady dressing her hair and the other a dragon, also revealing a head of a Graeco-Roman soldier with elaborate headgear. The latter two, are distinctly by Mediterranean artists, but it is not known whether they were carved here or were imported. Along with them, a Carnelian stone intaglio with the figure of a horse has also been found. That this was also intended for a ring is quite evident. Among other jewels found in this hoard may be mentioned pendants in the form of inverted, triratnas made of gold, showing indigenous workmanship. Thus the Vellalur hoard, like the Arikamedu finds - indicate that Graeco-Roman artists and Indian artists were working together in Tamil Nadu in the First Century A.D. Another gold jewel revealing Roman contact comes from Kari-valam-vanda Nallur in Tirunelveli District of Tamil Nadu. It is a circular pendant with two discs welded together, carrying on one side the head of Ptolemy of Egypt and on the other a jar and cornucopia with a legend on the periphery, badly mutilated. It was in a hoard with a coin of the Roman ruler Hadrian (118 A.D.). It had reached Indian shores only in the Second Century A.D. According to the British Museum experts who have examined the find, the figures were carved by local craftsmen. The find of this remarkable signet ring at Karur should be viewed not only against the finds of Roman jewellery in other other parts of Tamil Nadu but also against Roman contacts with Karur itself indicated by the lage number of Roman coins found here and also the archaeological context.Among the sites that have yielded hoards of Roman coins in India it is Karur that has yielded the maximum number. The Roman emperors represented by their coins are Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius and Marcus Aurelius. Several thousand coins have thus been found in Karur alone, among which the majority belong to Tiberius (37 A.D.), A statitical analysis of Roman coins found in South India reveals that most of the coins found in Tamil nadu belong to the First Century A.D., whereas most of the Roman coins found in Andhra were issues of the Second Century A.D. It seems thatRoman trade at Karur was at its peak in the First A.D. Mention must also be made of the early Chera inscriptions at Pugalur near Karur. The inscriptions assignable to the First century A,D. are in characters of Tamil-brahmi and refer to three generations of Chera rulers of the Sangam age. Sangam literature mentions that the Chera rulers were very fond of jewelery and that Kodumanal served as the place for supplying jewels to Cheras. This village, not very far from Karur, unmistakably establishes the Roman contact with the jewel making industry. Excavations here have yeilded an enormous amount of beads and inscribed potery. It also known from classical accounts of the Western geographers that Romans used to visit Padiyur near this site for beryl. Roman contact with the Chera capital Karur was at its height in the First'Century A.D. The present ring also belongs to this period. The nearest comparision to the present figures in the ring are the Amaravathi sculptures carved in lime-stone under the petronage of the Satavahana emperos. A majority of these sculptures are now housed in the Madras Museum and a few in the British Museum. The Karur intaglio has much in common In form, flexion and treatment with the middle phase of Amaravathi sculptural art. (First Century A.D,). The amaravathi Sculptures are Buddhist in nature and they abound in the portrayal of human figures. The Karur intaglio has close similarity and yet has an individuality of its own, which may be termed its regional character. Judging from the highly sophisticated portrayal of the forms in gold it sees that the gold ring from Karur is the work of a royal artist working for the Chera rulers. Do the figure in the ring thus represent the Chera and his queen? It is any body's guess. But that it represents a unique early tradition in Tamil art is unmistakable. INDIAN EXPRESS