I visited Villa Maya when I was in Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) and found loads of amazing animal inspired pieces around the small 'palace'. Villa Maya goes back many years to a time 'when Arumana ammaveedu held a prestigious place in the hearts of the kings of Travancore. Its tryst with royalty delves far beyond its 18th century avatar as a Dutch manor, dating back probably to the time when Maharajah Karthika Thirunal Dharma Raja shifted his capital from Padmanabhapuram to Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) taking along with him his four wives one of whom belonged to the Arumana Ammaveedu.' http://villamaya.in/people.php
The creature above was actually bought over for the 'palace' from Indonesia. It combines various animal elements in order to create a 'monster'; the fear comes from depicting 'the other' as I mention in my dissertation. This other worldly creature is impossible for us to categorise, as well as having fearsome traits such as large mouth, sharp teeth and claws and wings for flight; which all impact on the fear factor for the audience. Think about how threatening and scary this would have been back in a time when there was no such thing as special effects or horror films.
I was told that the reason the outer walls were built so thick was to stop the force of elephants, which were the animals of choice for kings etc to ride on when invading. This is also evidenced in the wall paintings that I talk about in my dissertation.
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