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IndIan Sculpture 234
A BLACK STONE STELE OF DURGA MAHISHASURAMARDINI

NORTHEASTERN INDIA, PALA PERIOD, 11TH CENTURY
19Ω in. (49.5 cm.) high
$20,000-30,000

PROVENANCE

Christie’s New York, Towards Enlightenment: Indian and Southeast Asian Art,
17 September 1998, lot 34.
Acquired by the current owner from the New York Art Market in 2000.
印度東北部 帕拉時期 十一世紀 黑石屠牛魔形難近母石碑

Mahishasura was a pious devotee of Brahma and was rewarded with a boon
that no man or god would be able to conquer him. Thus invincible, he battled
the gods and took over the heavens. Helpless against Brahma’s boon, the
gods appealed to the goddess Parvati, who agreed to harness the shakti of
all female celestial beings to fght Mahishasura. She assumed the form of
Durga and borrowed weapons from each god. After nine days of fghting, she
vanquished Mahishasura and his army and restored the heavens to the gods.

This sculpture depicts the fnal moments of the duel between Durga and
Mahishasura, the bull demon. Mahishasura’s animal incarnation shows his
war wounds – an arrow is imbedded in his side and his severed head lies next
to his lifeless body. Durga braces her foot against the back of the bull as she
grasps Mahishasura by his hair and drags him from the neck of the animal, her
sword raised to dispatch him to the netherworlds - thus earning her moniker,
Mahishasuramardini, “the slayer of Mahishasura.” Her lion bites the demon’s
foot for a tasty morsel.

The worship of a mother goddess as the source of life and fertility has
ancient roots, but the composition of the text Devi Mahatmya (Glory of the
Goddess) during the ffth to sixth century led to the dramatic transformation
of the female principle into a Great goddess of cosmic powers. Durga is
the cosmic Magna Mater, and this popular iconic type encapsulates the
struggle between the goddess and the demon Mahishasura, who symbolizes
ignorance, disorder, chaos, and evil. Later textual sources generally refer to the
subject as Mahishasuramardini. She remains the most important and popular
form of the great goddess known generically as Devi or Shakti.

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