Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c7.217

c7.217

Hindu sculpture has produced a masterpiece in the great stone alto-relievo of Durgâ slaying the demon Mahisha, found at Singasari, in Java, and now in the Ethnographic Museum, Leyden. It belongs to the period of Brahmanical ascendancy in Java which lasted from about A.D. 950 to 1500. The goddess is striding over the prostrate carcass of the buffalo, in which disguise Mahisha had concealed himself, and, seizing the real dwarf-like form of the demon, she is preparing to deal him his death-blow. Judged by any standard it is a wonderful work of art, grandly composed, splendidly thorough in technique, expressing with extraordinary power and concentrated passion the wrath and might of the Supreme Beneficence roused to warfare with the Spirit of Evil.