A GILT COPPER SHRINE TO SHRIKANTHA KAMAKALA

NEPAL, DATED 1818

Footnotes

尼泊爾 1818 年 銅鎏金濕婆雙身神龕

This shrine invokes a rarely found form of the Hindu god Shiva named Shrikantha, or 'the one with the beautiful throat'. He dances with his consort Guhyakali, their bodies combined, forming an image known as 'kamakala' in Nepal. Cosmic and tantric motifs weave throughout the sculpture, adorning the deities with many heads and arms, permeating it with fierce and erotic symbolism, and the convergence of elements.

Shiva is a powerful, unpredictable god of paradoxes. Here the encircling skulls around his mandorla, his many weapons, and the prone figures crushed underfoot evoke his role as the Lord of Destruction engaged in a cosmic dance that both creates and destroys worlds. But he is not the source of his own power, rather it his consort Guhyakali – the ultimate goddess – with whom he dances in perfect interpenetrative union.

The five figures seated on the base in between the divine couple and their bull and lion mounts personify the five elements in Hindu cosmology: earth, fire, water, air, and space. At the same time, they remind us of the five activities of Shiva's cosmic dance: of creation, preservation, destruction, illusion, and emancipation.

From the extensive inscription featured across the base it is clear that the deity also served in a tutelary capacity, protecting the devotees that commissioned the sculpture:

"In the year of 938 [Samvat] (1818 CE), on the second day of the dark half of the Vaishakha month, Anuradha nashatra, Friday, Bhaju Dham, Baju Narasim, and Tejanaram commissioned and perfected this image of their tutelary deities (Siva and his consort). Two priests Kureshvara and Acarya consecrated the image. Jasadhana was in charge of all these activities."

We are grateful to Dr. Gautama Vajracharya for his assistance with the translation.

In subject matter and composition, the present lot compares favorably to the best-known direct comparisons. One is held in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (25.481), the other published in Pal, Nepal: Where the Gods are Young, 1975, no.68. Meanwhile another dated shrine image of Sukhavati Lokeshvara produced within the same month as the present lot is held in the Newark Museum, published in Reynolds, Tibetan Collection: III/Sculpture and Painting, 1986, pp.121-2, no.S45.

Provenance:
Private English Collection
Bonhams, Hong Kong, 29 November 2016, lot 142
Private Asian Collection