Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Stele with Shiva Trident, Ax, and Vase of Plenty
Not on view
This stele evokes the presence of the supreme Hindu deity Shiva by devoting the entire composition to his attribute par excellence, the trident (trishula), depicted emerging from a bulbous vase of plenty (purnaghata), with Shiva’s wide-bladed ax projecting from one side. The association of the woodsman’s ax with Shiva is a particularly south Indian trait. The dedicatory inscription identifies the donor as an eighty-year-old member of the Pasupata sect of ascetic Brahmans. They emerged as the dominant Shaiva group in early Cambodia and are named in two early seventh-century inscriptions as the recipient of royal grants.
cat. no. 84
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