Shiva as Slayer of the Elephant Demon (1000s): Art, History and Details

Shiva as Slayer of the Elephant Demon (1000s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

In an exuberant dance posture with eight arms, Shiva is shown here in his wrathful aspect, with disheveled hair, bulging eyes, and fangs. He has just successfully flayed the skin of an elephant demon and triumphantly stretches it out behind him, its two hind feet sticking up at the right corner of the panel. The elephant in rut, in its demonic form, was used as a metaphor for uncontrolled passions that Shiva helps to conquer in the mind of the devotee, so that the devotee can better focus his attentions on the god himself. In the lower left corner, a dwarfish member of Shiva's entourage beats the rhythm of the dance on his drum. His wife, the goddess Parvati, looks on with admiration.

Object facts

• Title: Shiva as Slayer of the Elephant Demon
• Date: 1000s
• Culture: South India, Tamil Nadu, early Chola Period, 11th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: granite
• Dimensions: Overall: 72.4 x 48.3 x 20.3 cm (28 1/2 x 19 x 8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1962.164

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

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.