Cleveland Museum of Art

Durga Destroying the Buffalo Demon

Date

800s–900s

Medium

schist

Culture

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

Department

Indian and Southeast Asian Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

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

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