Indian Sculpture c8.17

c8.17

3. Torso of a statuette of grey slate, Harappa; fourth or fifth stratum.¹⁷¹ This is more summary in treatment than the red stone statuette. The slender body, with a rounded and screwing suppleness of the three-dimensional movement around the vertical axis, is suggestive of images of the dancing Śiva. The male-female ambiguity, moreover, of the entire physique has an equivalent in the tāntric knowledge of the female element within the male, and anticipates such visualisation as Ardhanārīśvara—Śiva, half male, half female along the vertical axis—and Umāliṅganamūrti, a hypostasis of the female principle. Umā and Maheśvara, i.e. Śiva, constitute the latter and unfolded type of the image of Śiva. The thick neck, with holes screwed in (but such a hole is also in the raised leg), makes it probable that the figure had two or more heads. The red torso has a certain sleekness of treatment; the slate torso is decadent in its purposeful contortion.