Browse Items in Women in Sri Lankan Sculpture and Painting (166 total)

Description: Reflecting the Ardhanarisvara concept is this bronze, shown with the male and female halves facing opposite directions. It was originally found in a Buddhist temple at Veragala in the Anuradhapura district, Sri Lanka, The statue exhibited in the Colombo National Museum, may belong to the Anuradhapura period.

Contributor: Co-Author: Seneviratna, Harsha

Collection: Women in Sri Lankan Sculpture and Painting

Description: Attendant goddesses, both male and female, occupying subordinate positions are a familiar occurrence in early Sri Lankan sculpture. Divine maidens bearing chamaras or fly whisks and sometimes fans, as well as female dwarfs fall into this category.

Contributor: Co-Author: Seneviratna, Harsha

Collection: Women in Sri Lankan Sculpture and Painting

Description: This is the upper section of a hero-stone where an image in the mind’s eye of the hero is shown flanked by two divine maidens or apsaras with chamaras. Ascribed to a period between the 10th and 12th centuries, this relief sculpture, seen at the Archaeological Museum in Anuradhapura, was originally found at a place known as Velanadamana, in the Vilacchi Korale of the North Central Province, Sri Lanka.

Contributor: Co-Author: Seneviratna, Harsha

Collection: Women in Sri Lankan Sculpture and Painting

Description: At the Archaeological Museum, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka is this hero stone from Polonnaruva. Here the hero appears in the divine world attended by a female bearing a fan.

Contributor: Co-Author: Seneviratna, Harsha

Collection: Women in Sri Lankan Sculpture and Painting

Description: Placed in a palace context, this life-size sculpture of a chamara bearer of the 18th century. It is one of four brick and stucco reliefs carved on the walls of the entrance hall at the royal palace in Kandy, Sri Lanka. They may represent a realistic picture of the type of attendant of royalty during this time, or they may even represent apsaras, for divine status was an attribute of kingship.

Contributor: Co-Author: Seneviratna, Harsha

Collection: Women in Sri Lankan Sculpture and Painting

Description: The bahiravas in Sri Lankan art are mythical in character, dwarfish in size and grotesque in appearance. A unique example of a bahirava, this stone figure, which appears to be in a kneeling posture, is placed in the compound of the Vave devalaya at Minneriya, Sri Lanka. It was originally associated with images of other male and female goddesses which are now housed in the inner sanctuary of the develaya. Her dress and ornaments suggest a date in the 3rd or 4th century A.D.

Contributor: Co-Author: Seneviratna, Harsha

Collection: Women in Sri Lankan Sculpture and Painting

Description: This female bahirava, with a cobra twirling round her hair-do, is a naga attendant of the nagaraja carved on a guardstone at the Vatadage in Polonnaruva, Sri Lanka. A date between the 10th and 12th centuries A.D. may be suggested for this sculpture.

Contributor: Co-Author: Seneviratna, Harsha

Collection: Women in Sri Lankan Sculpture and Painting

Description: This female bahirava, with a cobra twirling round her hair-do, is a naga attendant of the nagaraja carved on a guardstone at the Vatadage in Polonnaruva, Sri Lanka. A date between the 10th and 12th centuries A.D. may be suggested for this sculpture.

Contributor: Co-Author: Seneviratna, Harsha

Collection: Women in Sri Lankan Sculpture and Painting

Description: Belonging to about the 12th century A.D. is this female bahirava, bearing a chamara. She attends on the nagi guardian on the balustrade of the Lankatilaka Vihare at Polonnaruva, Sri Lanka.

Contributor: Co-Author: Seneviratna, Harsha

Collection: Women in Sri Lankan Sculpture and Painting

Description: The female as religious devotee: Women, both supernatural and human, carrying offerings to or worshipping at shrines, form a popular theme in early Sri Lankan sculpture and painting.

Contributor: Co-Author: Seneviratna, Harsha

Collection: Women in Sri Lankan Sculpture and Painting