Cleveland Museum of Art

A night scene of Shiva puja (recto); Calligraphy (verso)

Muhammad Rizavi Hindi

Date

c. 1760–70

Medium

Gum tempera and gold on paper

Culture

Mughal India, Lucknow

Department

Indian and Southeast Asian Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Under golden stars and a crescent moon, a royal woman offers a flower garland at an open-air shrine to the Hindu god Shiva. Installed on a platform under a sapling, the stone linga believed to contain Shiva’s presence bears the bright orange traces of devotional anointments. Orange kumkum (red turmeric powder) and yellow saffron are in tiny trays before her, and she has used them to mark her forehead with the signs of her piety. The small brass ewer would contain purified water to bathe the linga. On the platform are offerings of fragrant blossoms and the light of clarified butter lamps. The linga is a stylized phallic symbol denoting the creative capacities of Shiva.

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