Durga Destroying the Buffalo Demon

800s–900s

Northern India, Kashmir or Himachal Pradesh, 9th-10th Century

Medium

schist

Measurements

Overall: 76.2 cm (30 in.)

Credit Line

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1982.45

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Location

244 Indian and Southeast Asian

Did You Know?

She uses Shiva's trident to pin down the demon.

Description

IIn Hindu traditions, the goddess Durga is sometimes understood as a form of Shiva's wife Parvati, the personification of his female energies. This female creative energy, called shakti, has a powerful side that is personified as the warrior goddess Durga, capable of destroying arrogance and other mental vices, personified as the demon. Her main feat in the mythic literature is the slaying of the Buffalo Demon, Mahishasura. He had been ravaging the universe until the warrior goddess Durga decapitated him. His more vulnerable demonic form emerges from the neck, and she, calm but powerful, slays him with her sword.