Shiva and His Followers Return to Mount Kailash (verso), from a Romance of Chandrabhanu and Lavanyavati of Upendra Bhanja (1670–1740) (1700s): Art, History and Details

Shiva and His Followers Return to Mount Kailash (verso), from a Romance of Chandrabhanu and Lavanyavati of Upendra Bhanja (1670–1740) (1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

At left is a multicolored mountain, labeled by an inscription in the local language of Oriya as a “cave on Kailash,” the Himalayan abode of the god Shiva and his wife Parvati. The cave with its bed and bolsters is empty, but the god is returning home on his bull, Nandi. The wilderness is indicated by the variety of trees, birds, and spotted deer. This illustrated leaf is from a book that would have been stacked and bound by a string through the hole in the center. The lines were etched with a stylus into the palm leaf. Black soot from butter lamps was rubbed over the page and wiped off, leaving only the grooves black. Afterward, artists added color using a brush.

Object facts

• Title: Shiva and His Followers Return to Mount Kailash (verso), from a Romance of Chandrabhanu and Lavanyavati of Upendra Bhanja (1670–1740)
• Date: 1700s
• Culture: Eastern India, Odisha (formerly Orissa)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera and lampblack on palm leaf
• Dimensions: Leaf: 5.1 x 41 cm (2 x 16 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 2018.175.b

A detail from the museum

There is a three-legged yogi.

Collection credit

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

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.