Kamala and Bhairavi

This is a double-image print of two Tantric goddesses, Kamala and Bhairavi, named at the bottom in Bengali, English, and Hindi. Kamala, “She of the Lotus,” sits on a lotus bloom rising from a pond; four richly adorned white elephants lustrate her from golden pitchers. Kamala is understood as an expression of Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, and belongs to an ancient tradition of goddess worship that long predates the Mahavidyas. Indeed, she can be regarded as the oldest of the ten. Bhairavi, on the right, is similarly seated on a lotus above water. A skull garland alludes to her terrible nature as an aspect of Bhairava, the ferocious form of Shiva. She embodies the principle of destruction—an essential element in the cosmic order over which Shiva presides.