Queen Sembiyan Mahadevi as the Goddess Uma

Title: Queen Sembiyan MahadeviClose TooltipMahadevi[MA-huh-DAY-vee]the Great Goddess, who has many different names and many different forms. as the Goddess UmaClose TooltipUma[OOM-uh]alternate name for the goddess Parvati.

Type: Sculpture

Associated Religious Tradition: Hinduism

Origins

• Geography: India, Tamil Nadu state
• Date: 10th century
• Period: Chola dynastyClose TooltipChola dynasty[CHO-luh]the family that dominated the region of Tamil-speaking southern India and built an empire that lasted from the ninth to the thirteenth century CE through networks of regional rulers., Reign of Queen Sembiyan Mahadevi

Physical Properties

• Material: Bronze
• Dimensions: H × W × D: 107.3 × 33.4 × 25.7 cm (42 1/4 × 13 1/8 × 10 1/8 in)

Crediting Information

• Collection: Freer Gallery of Art
• Credit Line: Purchase—Charles Lang Freer Endowment
• Accession Number: F1929.84

A masterful sculptor cast this spectacular bronze figure during the Chola dynastyClose TooltipChola dynasty[CHO-luh]the family that dominated the region of Tamil-speaking southern India and built an empire that lasted from the ninth to the thirteenth century CE through networks of regional rulers. in southern India. In the mid-ninth century, the Chola family came to dominate the Tamil-speaking region, building an empire that would last more than four hundred years through networks of regional rulers. Based in the present-day Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the Chola dynasty—at its height in the eleventh century—ruled much of southern India and the islands of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Diplomatic missions reached Myanmar (Burma), Malaysia, and China.

As avid patrons of the arts, the Cholas created a cultural legacy. The family’s religious life—interwoven with its political and military aspirations—was evident in the monumental temples and powerful artwork that still exist today. Queen Sembiyan MahadeviClose TooltipMahadevi[MA-huh-DAY-vee]the Great Goddess, who has many different names and many different forms., active during the tenth century, initiated the building of large stone temples and fostered local communities of devotees with regional rulers. It was during the queen’s reign that ShivaClose TooltipShiva[SHI-vuh]one of the most important and widely revered Hindu deities. Nataraja, the representation of Shiva dancing, became an iconic religious image.

Chola-period Tamil Nadu also gave rise to the now widespread practice of festival processions featuring images of gods and goddesses cast in bronze. Although weighty, festival images were designed for portability, their bases sporting holes and loops through which to fit poles that devotees and priests carried on their shoulders. Such processions expanded the sacred space, bringing worship to people who could not necessarily enter the temple.

The goddess’s figure displays poetic paradigms of beauty, including a nose shaped like a parrot’s beak, breasts like mangoes, and arms like pliant plantain stems. She raises one hand as if delicately plucking a flower blossom. Her face, perfectly oval-shaped and crowned with an ornament that secures her hair in a mountain-like tower, smiles generously and pitches slightly forward as if she is about to take a step. This swaying, almost walking, posture is typical of deity images from India.

However, unlike most deities, she wears no earrings and has shoulders that are sloped rather than squared. Such features, together with her exceptionally long legs, slender torso, and heavy breasts, suggest this sculpture may well be a portrait of the powerful queen Sembiyan MahadeviClose TooltipMahadevi[MA-huh-DAY-vee]the Great Goddess, who has many different names and many different forms. rather than a goddess. Because Hindu deities have the guise of idealized humans, they lend themselves to such slippage of identity.

Goddess or queen, this sculpture surely resulted from a royal commission. Created during Sembiyan Mahadevi’s reign and likely sponsored by her heirs, the festival image would have been carried through the streets in resplendent processions, so that the goddess-queen could survey her domain and give blessings to its constituents.

Called UmaClose TooltipUma[OOM-uh]alternate name for the goddess Parvati. in Tamil Nadu, where this sculpture was made, the goddess ParvatiClose TooltipParvati[PAR-vuh-tee]a Hindu goddess; wife of Shiva and mother of Ganesha. is worshiped throughout the Hindu world. She is known as a model devotee and wife to ShivaClose TooltipShiva[SHI-vuh]one of the most important and widely revered Hindu deities., and she is the Great Goddess (MahadeviClose TooltipMahadevi[MA-huh-DAY-vee]the Great Goddess, who has many different names and many different forms.) in a beneficent form. For some Hindus, the goddess is the supreme being, higher even than Shiva.

Temple processions continue as regular parts of daily worship in Tamil Nadu. Bronze images, called utsavar murti in Tamil, are designed for portability, in contrast to the stone images (mulavar) that are immobile, residing permanently in temple sanctums. An entire industry of accouterments for festival images continues to thrive. As technologies of production have developed in recent times, it is possible that festival images are far more adorned today than they were one thousand years ago. Often, multiple deities are carried together, such as the divine couple, Uma (Parvati) and Shiva. Hindus in many parts of India and Nepal honor the marriage of Shiva and Parvati with a special festival or shrine within a temple.

1. Why does the figure have long earlobes?
2. What is the purpose of the holes on the corners of the base?
3. What is she doing with her right hand?
4. Do you think she is a goddess or a queen? What do you see that makes you think that?

1. Who is ParvatiClose TooltipParvati[PAR-vuh-tee]a Hindu goddess; wife of Shiva and mother of Ganesha.? Why is this goddess important to some Hindus?
2. Why are processional objects an important part of the religious and cultural lives of communities?
3. How is this goddess represented, performed, or commemorated across different parts of the world?

Dehejia, Vidya. The Thief Who Stole My Heart: The Material Life of Sacred Bronzes from Chola India, 855–1280. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2021. Pp. 88, 90, 283, fig. 4.1 a-e.

Hawley, John Stratton, and Donna Marie Wulff. Devi: The Goddesses of India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Ideals of Beauty: Asian and American Art in the Freer and Sackler Galleries. London: Thames and Hudson World of Art, 2010. Pp. 100–101.

Kinsley, David. Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

Menon, Arathi. “Rajarajesvara Temple, Tanjavur.” Smarthistory. https://smarthistory.org/temple-tanjavur/

Stein, Emma Natalya, and Beth Harris. “Queen or Goddess.” Smarthistory. https://smarthistory.org/queen-or-goddess/