Railing Pillar with a Yakshi (Female Nature Divinity)
Unknown Artist
c. 125–50 CE
Medium
red sandstone
Dimensions
70.5 × 17.5 cm
Classification
Sculpture
Department
Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
Accession Number
1965.250
About this artwork
This pillar would have been an upright of a stair banister, probably leading to an upper circumambulatory path of a Buddhist or Jain sacred monument known as a stupa. It has the image of a nature divinity grasping the branch of an ashoka tree with one hand and touching her breast full of nourishing milk with the other. The reverse side of the pillar is decorated with a stupa at the top and a partially damaged scene set in the architectural framework below.