Durga as the Slayer of the Buffalo Demon (Cleveland Museum of Art)

Durga as the Slayer of the Buffalo Demon is a Cambodian bronze statue of the goddess Durga, dated to the 900s and held by the Cleveland Museum of Art. The museum gives its culture as Cambodia, probably Koh Ker.

Durga as the Slayer of the Buffalo Demon, 10th century, in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Cultural object details
Object type	Sculpture
Material	bronze
Period	900s
Holding institution	Cleveland Museum of Art
Catalog reference	1996.27
Subjects	Religion & Spiritual Life; Visual Arts & Design

The object

The statue measures 52 by 18.4 by 12.5 centimeters (20 1/2 by 7 1/4 by 4 15/16 inches) overall, and 44.8 centimeters (17 5/8 inches) without its tang. The museum calls it rare and important because it shows the goddess in bronze on a large scale.

Durga stands triumphant with four arms. In her hands are a wheel, a conch shell, a mace and a clod of earth. The cut-off head of the buffalo demon lies at her feet and marks her victory over it. She wears a headdress the museum names kirita-makuta, a diadem tied at the back and pointed at the top. The museum's accession number is 1996.27.

Durga in Khmer stone sculpture

Piphal Heng and Paul A. Lavy describe a stone image of the same subject, a Durga Mahishasuramardini (Slayer of the Buffalo Demon) from Sambor Prei Kuk, which they date to the 7th century. Pieces of the statue came from the site's main temple (N1) and from a shrine close by (N9). Their figure caption gives it as sandstone, 165 centimeters high, in the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. They write that it likely belongs to the first half of that century, probably to the time when Ishanavarman I or Bhavavarman II reigned.

Heng and Lavy write that the goddess's head has not been recovered, and that the pedestal, which shows the defeated buffalo demon's cut-off head, is badly damaged. Even so, they count it among the most impressive pre-Angkorian sculptures.

Date and style

The museum dates the bronze to the 900s.

UNESCO's World Heritage listing names the site "Koh Ker: Archaeological Site of Ancient Lingapura or Chok Gargyar." UNESCO writes that King Jayavarman IV founded Koh Ker in 921. From 921 to 928 the Khmer Empire had two competing capitals, Koh Ker and Angkor, and Koh Ker was the only capital until 944. After that, the empire's seat of power returned to Angkor. UNESCO describes Koh Ker Style sculpture as bold and expressive, with a lively sense of movement. UNESCO's text is about the site and its style; it does not name this bronze, whose culture the museum gives as Cambodia, probably Koh Ker.

Provenance

The museum's record lists no owner before Natasha Eilenberg of Cornwall, Connecticut. The record gives no start date for Eilenberg's ownership, and Eilenberg sold the bronze to the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1996. The museum accessioned it on June 3, 1996, and its credit line reads "John L. Severance Fund." The museum's object page carries a note that its information on the object, including its provenance, "may not be currently accurate."

Literature

The museum's record cites an item titled "Cleveland Museum of Art Acquires Rare Egyptian Sculpture, Old Master Painting, Important Cambodian Bronze," dated June 13, 1996, in the Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. It also cites an article by Stanislaw J. Czuma, "Slayer of the Buffalo Demon," in the museum's members magazine of April 1997, which mentions and reproduces the bronze on pages 8 and 9.

Display

The museum showed the bronze in its Reinstallation of "Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan", from October 12, 2024, to November 2, 2025. The museum's record gives its location as "244 Indian and Southeast Asian." Under the museum's Open Access Initiative, the work may be copied, changed and shared without asking permission, and the record marks it CC0.

References