This granite sculpture is an intriguing illustration of how art in ancient South Asia was sometimes recast in the service of a new religious orientation. It was originally carved in the 9th century during the Chola Dynasty (848–1279) as an image of the goddess Durga, an important deity primarily affiliated with the god Shiva. Around the 12th century, during the rise of Vaishnavism (the worship of Vishnu) in southern India, it was recarved as the goddess Lakshmi, the wife of the god Vishnu. This was accomplished iconographically by shearing off the plane of the upper throneback in order to remove the identifying attributes of the four-armed Durga (presumably the discus and conch), which resulted in the Lakshmi’s upper arms having these unusual hand gestures devoid of attributes. Her lower right hand is held in the position of reassurance and her lower left hand rests on her inner thigh. To bring the image up to the then current stylistic fashion, the figure was also altered by recarving the face and narrowing the abdomen (as evidenced by the lines of demarcation and change in surface textures).