Shiva as Virabhadra

bronze
Southern India, ca. 16th cent.
high: 16,5 cm.

Shiva is depicted with four arms, holding the lance, sword, shield and bow. At his right, small, stand his father-in-law, the priest Daksha, with a goathead; at his left his wife Sati, who, full of shame, jumped in the offering fire and started the tradition of `sutee’: widows join their husbands in death by being cremated with them. Besides his head the symbols of the moon and the sun.

A.L. Dallapiccola, Kult und Alltag – Gelbguss in der Volkskunst Indiens, p. 112-113, nrs. 106-108.