Varahi
Unknown Artist
c. 1300s
Medium
bronze
Dimensions
h. 21 cm
Classification
Sculpture
Department
Indian and Southeast Asian Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
Accession Number
1978.70
About this artwork
This Hindu goddess has the body of a young mother and the head of a female boar, which is the meaning of the Sanskrit word varahi, with the third eye of true knowledge. This sculpture was one of a set of seven goddesses associated with worship of the Hindu god Shiva or the mother goddess. The objects in three of her four hands reference the countercultural tantric Hindu practices of drinking revolting liquids from a bowl made from a skull. The fish implies the consumption of illicit food, and th...