Yoga Narashimha, Vishnu in his Man-Lion Avatar (c. 1250): Art, History and Details

Yoga Narashimha, Vishnu in his Man-Lion Avatar (c. 1250) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

Narasimha means “man-lion” in Sanskrit, and is the name of one of the ten main avatars, or incarnations, of the Hindu god Vishnu. For devotees, the man-lion form recalls a myth that describes his superhuman defeat of a seemingly invincible demonic foe. This rare iconic form also embodies royal power and yogic discipline. The intensity of his concentration is apparent in the expression of his face over the ruff of mane, the taut posture, symmetry, and perfect proportions of his four-armed body. The yoga band holds the crossed legs up in equilibrium. In his upper right hand he holds the flaming discus that, when thrown, cuts through ignorance and its demonic personifications.

Object facts

• Title: Yoga Narashimha, Vishnu in his Man-Lion Avatar
• Date: c. 1250
• Culture: South India, late Chola period (900–1200s)
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 57 x 31 x 23 cm (22 7/16 x 12 3/16 x 9 1/16 in.); Base: 18.8 x 32 x 22.5 cm (7 3/8 x 12 5/8 x 8 7/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1973.187

A detail from the museum

The two posts on either side are for holding a halo that once encircled the figure.

Collection credit

Gift of Dr. Norman Zaworski

Further reading listed by the museum

• "The Year in Review for 1973." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 2 (February 1974): 31–78.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• Connell, Timothy C., and Jackson J. Spielvogel. World Art Transparencies, to accompany World History The Human Odyssey and Modern World History by Jackson J. Spielvogel. Cincinnati: West Educational Pub, 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.