Descent of the Ganges (c. 1700–1710): Art, History and Details

Descent of the Ganges (c. 1700–1710) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In the upper left, Shiva sits with his wife Parvati on Mount Kailash in the Himalayas. She offers him a cup of wine, but Shiva looks down intently at the holy man Bhagiratha. He has stood on one leg for 1,001 years to obtain the gift of the Ganges River, which flows from Shiva’s topknot of hair. A dedicated devotee can divert the god’s attention, even from his beautiful wife and a cup of wine. By Mount Kailash is the icy Lake Manasarowar, still a major pilgrimage place for followers of Shiva. Hoping to earn the god’s favor, devoted practitioners perform acts of rigorous physical discipline.

Object facts

• Title: Descent of the Ganges
• Date: c. 1700–1710
• Culture: Northern India, Pahari kingdoms
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Gum tempera and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Page: 20.8 x 29.8 cm (8 3/16 x 11 3/4 in.); Image: 17.6 x 26.9 cm (6 15/16 x 10 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.111

A detail from the museum

Shiva and the other sages rest on tiger hides.

Collection credit

Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection; Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Griswold, William, Cameron Kitchin, Chase F. Robinson, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cincinnati Art Museum, and National Museum of Asian Art (Smithsonian Institution). Pahari Paintings: Art and Stories, edited by Sonya Rhie Mace, Sarang Sharma, and Vijay Sharma. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2026.
• Cameron, Ainsley M. “Considering Painting from the Pahari Kingdoms through Sight, Sound, Smell and Touch.” Arts of Asia, (Spring 2026): 79-91.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.