This bronze-cast represents four-armed Narasimha seated in ‘lalitasana’, the left leg laid horizontally over the seat, and right, suspending below, inside a ‘prabhavali’ – fire-arch, on a double lotus pedestal more like Vishnu himself. He carries in his upper right hand Vishnu’s most characteristic attribute disc, and in upper left, conch, another cardinal feature of his iconography. His lower right hand is held in the gesture of ‘abhaya’, while with the lower left, he is holding his consort Narasimhi. He is wearing a towering Vaishnava crown and, besides a ‘yajnopavit’ and a few ornaments, a well plaited ‘antariya’. Except his face, a lion-like protruded and wide open mouth with fearful fangs bursting out, style of ears, and ring of hair around his neck, the figure of Narasimha has been cast pursuing norms of human anatomy and iconography.
His consort, the normal two-armed Narasimhi carrying in one of them a lotus bud linking her with Lakshmi, Vishnu’s consort, is also clad in an ‘antariya’ with a decorative ‘patta’ – plait in the centre, and a stan-pata around her breasts, besides a towering crown identical to that of Narasimha. Narasimhi, one of the Matrikas – Mothers, that, as per Devi-Mahatmya, the Devi invokes to emerge and assist her in her battle, first against Chand and Munda, and later, against Rakta-bija, has not been conceived initially as Narasimha’s consort. Like other Matrikas Narasimhi too was conceived as Narasimha’s ‘shakti’, his inherent power manifested in a form to assist Devi, and thereby gods’ cause for which the Devi fought. Rakta-bija had sought from Devi the commitment that she would fight against him singly. On seeing Matrikas assisting her, he challenged Devi’s fairness. But Devi appeased him by saying that they were only her own ‘shaktis’ – aspects, and instantly absorbed all Matrikas into her own form. Thus, at least under Devi-Mahatmya, Matrikas weren’t conceived as consorts of concerned male gods. It was only subsequently that that such relationship between Matrikas and male gods was created.
This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books.
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