Iconography of Southern India
by G. Gouveau-Dubreuil and A.C. Martin (Tr.)

Iconography in Southern India is entirely religious, and as liturgical subjects cannot be treated according the fancy of the artist, extremely strict rules always govern the method of representing the gods and sculptors chisel is invariably guided with exact precision.Southern India denotes in this book as the stretch of country along the Cooromandel coast, from the mouth of the Northern Pennar river to cape Comorin. More specifically it is concerned with the iconography of Dravidian Architecture and the Tamil language, which comprise the ten districts of N.Arcot, Madras, Chingleput, S.Arcot, Salem, Coimbatore, Trichinopoly, Tanjore, Madura and Tinnevelly.