Coaxing a sculpted form out of stone is never easy, especially when the medium is granite, one of the hardest sculpting mediums, but consequently also the most durable and long lasting.
This carving comes from the temple city of Mahabalipuram in the state of Tamil Nadu, one of a few celebrated centres of stone carving in India. It represents goddess Pratyangira also spelt as Prathyangira.
Pratyangira, though a goddess of Shakti group manifesting eternal energy, the source of entire creation as also the instrument of dissolution, is the South Indian transform of Narasimhi, the consort of Vishnu in his Narasimha incarnation and thus is a goddess in Vaishnava line.
However, as Narasimhi or otherwise, Pratyangira is more often venerated as a manifestation of Kali. Besides her iconographic vision: awful appearance with a lion-like face or rather the entire anatomy conceived on fierce line, prominent cheek-bones and muscles, wide open mouth, horrible fangs, flames of fire rising from back of head; the attributes her image has been conceived with – serpents, flames of fire, bowl and even noose are more akin to Kali’s imagery.
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