Durga Slaying Mahisha

Unknown artist, c. 1700–1710

Download3349 × 2405 px View on a wall Edit

Medium: Gum tempera and gold on paper
Size: Overall: 15.5 x 21.2 cm (6 1/8 x 8 3/8 in.)
Culture: Northern India, Pahari kingdoms
Museum: Cleveland Museum of Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Durga is the name of the goddess who personifies the sum total of the powers of all the male gods combined. When she vanquishes the fierce buffalo demon named Mahisha, she is described as having many arms, each holding a different weapon: bow and arrow, trident, discus, shield, sword, mace, and the conch shell that sounds the start of battle. The horizontal lines on her arms are sectarian markings.

At the moment depicted in this painting, she has succeeded in beheading the buffalo demon and shooting arrows into his true form that climbs from its neck. Artists in the foothills of the western Himalayas, where this work was made, depicted Durga’s mount as a tiger—lions and tigers had synonymous meaning throughout India as emblems of shakti, or divine creative energy.