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Kalkin, Visnu's Future Avatar
Not on view
Kalkin is the future world savior, understood as the tenth avatar of Vishnu, who will appear in the form of a white horse to judge mankind. Vishnu appears in a number of early legends with a horse’s head, linking him to Vedic horse sacrifice. It is clear from the size and authority of this sculpture that it was worshipped as an important cult deity. It is perhaps not a coincidence that Kalkin Vishnu appears in early seventh-century Cambodia at precisely the same time as the bodhisattva Maitreya, his conceptual counterpart in Buddhism: both are worshipped as messianic saviors.
cat. no. 74
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