Trident with Shiva as Half-Woman (Ardhanarishvara) (c. 1050): Art, History and Details

Trident with Shiva as Half-Woman (Ardhanarishvara) (c. 1050) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The form of the trident—the main weapon of the Hindu god Shiva—dramatically and elegantly encircles his form in which the left side is female and the right side is male. The male side has the matted locks of a yogi piled high on his head; he holds an ax and leans on his mount, the bull. The female side has a jeweled crown, earring, full breast, broad hips, long skirt, and only one arm. The lower hands probably held a stringed instrument. This particular iconic form of Shiva visually indicates that he embodies all phenomena, even if they seem contradictory. He is male and female, destructive and creative, yogi and royal sovereign, hunter and musician.

Object facts

• Title: Trident with Shiva as Half-Woman (Ardhanarishvara)
• Date: c. 1050
• Culture: South India, Tamil Nadu, Chola period (900-13th Century)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 39.6 cm (15 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1969.117

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Pal, Pratapaditya. Krishna: the Cowherd King. [Los Angeles]: [Los Angeles County Museum of Art], 1972.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• Cunningham, Michael R., Stanislaw J. Czuma, Anne E. Wardwell, and J. Keith Wilson. Masterworks of Asian Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1998.

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.