figure
- Museum number
- 1955,1018.2
- Description
-
Figure of a mother goddess (matrika) carrying a skull topped staff and skull cup. Made of stone (granite).
- Production date
- 900 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 108 centimetres
-
Width: 63.40 centimetres
-
Depth: 34.20 centimetres
- Curator's comments
-
This object is part of a large set of such images ("exceeding the canonical seven" [ie for matrikas], says Harle), some, at least, in the Madras Museum. By reason of the large size of this set these pieces are usually referred to as Yoginis, Harle continues.
-
Blurton 1992:
Our knowledge of Pallava religion is still not sufficient to name and exactly characterise this deity. Her wild ascetic's hair, skull-topped staff and skull-cup all suggest an horrific rather than a pacific personality. The uncluttered background and the large areas of the image which bear no decoration are typical of the directness and power of early South Indian sculpture.
-
This sculpture is published in Vidya Dehejia, Yogini Cult and Temples: A Tantric Tradition, National Museum, Delhi, 1986, p. 180. Here it is identified as a yogini from the Chola period.
- Location
- On display (G33/od)
- Exhibition history
-
Sep 2020 - Jan 2021, BM, Room 35, "Tantra: enlightenment to revolution"
- Acquisition date
- 1955
- Acquisition notes
- According to a letter from J C Harle of the Ashmolean Museum to W Zwalf (BM) in Dec. 1983, this object was found by Jouveau-Dubreuil in Kanchipuram in 1926 (information given to Harle by a daughter of C T Loo, the Paris dealer in Asian art)
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1955,1018.2
