Durga Slaying the Buffalo-Demon Mahisha (Mahishasuramardini, "Slayer of Mahishasura")

Place CreatedRajasthan, India, Asia

CultureIndia, Rajasthan

Dateca. 900 CE

MediumSandstone

Credit LineThe Ester R. Portnow Collection of Asian Art, a gift of the Nathan Rubin-Ida Ladd Family Foundation

Dimensions4" (10.2 cm)

Object number2001.001.006

Label TextThis stone relief, likely from the exterior of a temple, depicts the goddess Durga killing Mahisha, the buffalo-demon. One story relates that Mahisha was granted a boon that he could not be killed by man or god. Feeling invincible, he wreaked havoc on Earth and in heaven. In response, the collective energies (shakti) of the gods coalesced into a single being, the powerful goddess Durga. Her voluptuous body conveys auspiciousness. She holds Mahisha by the throat with one of her six arms and weapons gifted by the gods in the others. She draws an arrow from the quiver on her right side to nock the bow, a gift of the wind god Maruta, in her middle-left hand. In her upper-left hand, she holds Vishnu’s discus and in her upper-right, Shiva’s trident. Durga’s vehicle (vahana), a lion, bites Mahisha from behind as she spears the demon with the trident.

At the height of battle and violent death being portrayed, Durga herself has a faint smile and pacific gaze, the buffalo, too, is in still repose. The image simultaneously conveys energy and movement and balance and grace.
Exhibition HistoryMCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, September 2004 - April 4, 2021
MCCM Permanent Collection Reinstallation, August 28, 2021 - Present
Published ReferencesJanet Kamphorst, In Praise of Death: History and Poetry in Medieval Marwar (South Asia) (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008), 240.
Michael C. Carlos Museum: Highlights of the Collections (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2011), 123.
Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger, Everyday Hinduism (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell, 2015), 29, Figure 1.2.

ProvenancePurchased for MCCM by Robert Walzer [Nathan Rubin - Ida Ladd Family Foundation], Georgetown, Connecticut, July 2000, possibly from Kapoor Galleries, New York, New York.

Status

On view

Collections