Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum | Busch-Reisinger Museum | Arthur M. Sackler Museum

Numerous attributes identify this crowned figure as the great Hindu god Shiva: the vertical third eye, linked snakes across the chest, tiger skin draped across the thigh, and an erect phallus, symbol of both potency and control. The three heads express different aspects of this manifold deity. A smiling female, a benign male, and a violent male perhaps correspond to Shiva’s powers as creator, protector, and destroyer. The now missing arms would have held additional emblems to communicate the god’s cosmic powers.

Sacred texts describe Shiva’s complex and paradoxical character. Probably developing around 200 BCE, Shaivism, or the worship of Shiva, had become widespread in India by the late sixth century. A multitude of visual forms—abstract and anthropomorphic—arose to represent Shiva’s grace, energy, and mythic exploits. The rounded forms, well-modeled musculature, and controlled exuberance of this figure characterize the sculptural style that developed in late ninth-century Kashmir, during the reign of the Karkota dynasty (625–1003).

Object Number

1990.1

Title

Standing Three-Headed Shiva

Classification

Sculpture

Work Type

figure, sculpture

Date

Karakota period, circa 700-900

Places

Creation Place: South Asia, India, Kashmir

Period

Karakota period, c. 7th-9th centuries

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/200467

Medium

Dark gray chlorite

Dimensions

66.7 x 25.2 x 11.4 cm (26 1/4 x 9 15/16 x 4 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Acquired with a fund established by Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane for the purchase of Asian art

Accession Year

1990

Object Number

1990.1

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

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Commentary

Label text from exhibition “Re-View,” an overview of objects drawn from the collections of Harvard Art Museums, 26 April 2008 – 1 July 2013; label text written by Kim Masteller, Assistant Curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art, Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art:

Standing Three-Headed Shiva
India, Kashmir, Karakota period, 8th–9th century
Dark gray chlorite
Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane Fund for the Acquisition of Oriental Art, 1990.1

In the early centuries of the medieval period, Kashmir was a flourishing center of Hindu and Buddhist practices where several cults developed, including localized forms of Shaivism, the worship of the Hindu god Shiva. This work depicts a common icon in the Kashmiri Shaivite tradition, a three-headed form of Shiva known as Maheshvara (great lord). His smooth, rounded form, squat proportions, and flattened features closely resemble the artistic style that developed just before and during the rule of the Kashmiri king Avantivarman (r. c. 855–83). Kashmir was at the cross¬roads between India and the provincial Hellenistic region of Gandhara to the north. The suggestion of musculature in Shiva’s torso reveals the lingering influence of Gandharan styles upon Kashmiri art.

James Cuno, ed., A Decade of Collecting: Recent Acquisitions by the Harvard University Art Museums, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, Mass., Spring 2000), p. 7

Re-View: Arts of India & the Islamic Lands, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 04/26/2008 - 06/01/2013

32Q: 2590 South and Southeast Asia, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Google Art Project

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu