Description

This sculpture from the Hoysala period, ca. 1150 - 1350 depicts Bhairava, the terrifying manifestation of Shiva, standing in tribhanga in front of two pilars surmounted by a pointed arch.

Holding the trident/trishul and the battledrum/damaru in his upper hands, the lower right featuring the sword/kadga and the left scull the cup/kapala and the depactivated head of a demon. In this ascetic form Shiva is completely naked exept his scull garland and the typical Hoysala sumptuous ornaments. His round youthful face his adorned with huge circular earrings and crowned by a serpent keeping his curly coiffure together.

Bhairava is guided by two emaciated attendants/ghanas, the one on the right playing the drum and his dog licking the blood from the suspended demon head.

The sculpture shows some minor damage particularly in the lower area but all in all the condition is fine and most important the facial features of Bhairava remained damage free.We find most of the pieces like this in situ that are damaged by locals and various invaders. Compared to other periods Hoysala sculptures are extremly rare and only very few are displayed outside India in famous collections such as the British Museum, the LA County Museum or in Copenhagen. This piece would require some more investigations/research as we are not sure that it represents a somewhat provincial art form or is from an early period with Chalukya influence. Actually the kind of stone navigates us away from the Mysore area towards the north of Karnataka and therefor into the Chalukya realm.

This piece comes from an old german collection. We would welcome any further information.