- Title
- The Hindu God Agni
- Date Made
- 11th century
- Medium
- Copper alloy
- Dimensions
- 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 x 2 in. (11.43 x 6.35 x 5.08 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.79.189.8
- Collecting Area
- South and Southeast Asian Art
- Curatorial Notes
Agni, the Vedic (proto-Hindu) and later Hindu God of Fire, is represented here with a beard and an ascetic’s piled hair, copious jewelry, and four arms. His upper right hand likely held sacrificial ladle (sruk; now damaged), which was used to pour clarified butter in rituals. His lower right hand holds a rosary. His upper left hand holds a pair of tongs used in metalworking. His lower left hand once held an ascetic’s waterpot. He sits on a lotus base with one leg pendant and supported by a lotus. His goat mount may have once been depicted on the projection in the center of the Lotus base.
Agni served an auxiliary function as a directional guardian (dikpala) in which he was the Divine Regent of the Southeast. He is also the presiding deity of the month Jyeshtha (May-June).
See also M.81.275 and M.87.272.1.
- Selected Bibliography
- Markel, Stephen. "Hindu Cosmology and Mythology." Orientations 55, no.6 (2024): 39-47.