Possibly western Orissa or Chattisgarh
Mid-tenth century CE or later
Probably khondalite; 42.4 x 8.9 x 12.7 cm
(16-11/16 x 3-1/2 x 5 in.)
Gift of Ruth and Sherman Lee, 98.30.2
Provenance: Acquired 31 December 1998 from Alice Boney.

This small, elegant dancing figure bears a sword and a cup, attributes that suggest her role as an attendant to a ferocious deity such as the goddesses Kali1 or Chamunda. They provide a necessary complement to such benevolent and nurturing goddesses as Parvati or Lakshmi, the consorts of Shiva and Vishnu respectively (compare with Consort Goddess, Plate 22).2 Associated with destruction and death, often depicted in violent dance, trampling corpses in battlegrounds or cremation sites, these goddesses purge the world of evil. Buddhist deities such as Mahakala and the goddesses Marichi, Katyayani, and Vajravarahi also wield weapons, step on bodies, and perform terrifying dances, typically to cut through ignorance and illusion.3

The Ackland’s Female Attendant with Sword balances carefully on one leg, raising the other to her bent knee. In her left hand she holds a cup under her breasts, likely a skull cup (kapala) filled with blood. With the other she brandishes a sword overhead. Like the terrifying goddesses themselves, attendants may share their lolling tongues, fang-like teeth, and garland of human heads. They drink intoxicating blood from their skull cups and eat raw flesh while dancing in the battleground.4

These goddesses are sometimes associated with esoteric (tantric) practices that involve substances and activities typically forbidden in more mainstream worship, including the use of human bones, corpses, blood, alcohol, consumption of meat, and sexual intercourse as paths to attaining spiritual liberation. With the rise of Tantrism, temples were dedicated to these violent goddesses in the regions of Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, and such attendant figures were introduced on temple walls.5

Although the figure is too worn to allow for a careful study of the treatment of the stone, the distinctively striated, metamorphosed sandstone helps attribute a general region where she was likely to have been created. Khondalite occurs in limited areas of the upper Eastern Ghats, thus locating her in a temple context in western Orissa or Chattisgarh.6 PG

1 Although her identity is debated by scholars, Kali is likely an indigenous deity who was absorbed into the Brahmanical corpus as a malevolent manifestation of the Great Goddess. According to one origin narrative, Kali is said to have sprung forth from the brow of Durga in order to battle demons. See David R. Kinsley, The Sword and the Flute: Kali and Krishna, Dark Visions of the Terrible and the Sublime in Hindu Mythology (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1975), 83–91.
2 More esoteric goddesses called yoginis are also depicted with skull cups and swords. See, for example, the cat-faced yogini at Ranipur Jharial, illustrated in Vidya Dehejia, Yogini Cult and Temples (New Delhi: National Museum, 1986), 107.
3 For a discussion of these figures on Orissan temples, see Thomas E. Donaldson, Iconography of the Buddhist Sculpture of Orissa (New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, 2001). For an illustration of a dakini from Dharmashala, Orissa standing on corpses with a leg raised above her shoulder, perhaps in dance, and displaying a skull cup and a sword, see K. S. Behera and Thomas Donaldson, Sculpture Masterpieces from Orissa: Style and Iconography, (New Delhi: Aryan Books, Int., 1996), plate 79.
4 On Orissan images of these deities on Hindu temples, see Thomas E. Donaldson, Hindu Temple Art of Orissa, vol. 3 (Leiden, the Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1986), 1152.
5 See for example, the goddesses on the tenth-century yogini temple at Ranipur Jharial in western Orissa. For an attendant bearing a skull cup below her breasts and holding a sword above her head on the famous thirteenth-century Sun Temple at Konarak, see K. S. Behera, Konarak: The Heritage of Mankind (New Delhi: Aryan Books, Int., 1996), 283.
6 I thank Dr. Paul Fullager, Geology Department, UNC, for his assessment of the stone. See also Richard Newman, The Stone Sculpture of India: A Study of the Materials Used by Indian Sculptors from ca. 2nd century BC to the 16th century (Cambridge: Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, Harvard University Art Museums, 1984).