Lakshmi

Lakshmi is a goddess regarded as the consort of Vishnu and associated with fortune, prosperity and beauty, shown in Khmer temples and sculpture.

Lakshmi seated on a lotus while two elephants shower her with water, a lintel at the East Mebon, 2014. Photo: Michael Gunther, CC BY-SA 4.0

Deity details
Also known as	Shri
Religion	Hinduism
Figure type	Goddess
Sites	Angkor Wat, Bayon, East Mebon, Beng Mealea, Kbal Spean
Subjects	Religion & Spiritual Life; Visual Arts & Design

Lakshmi is a goddess regarded as the consort of Vishnu, one of the supreme Hindu gods, and associated with fortune, prosperity and beauty. In Khmer art she rises from the Churning of the Sea of Milk, appears beside Vishnu in reliefs, and sits between two elephants on temple lintels.

Iconography

Maurice Glaize called Lakshmi the goddess of beauty, and a bulletin of the Angkor National Museum calls her the goddess of wealth. Glaize's glossary defines Shri as the sakti of Vishnu, and gives Lakshmi as another name for her.

The form called Gajalakshmi, "Lakshmi with elephants", is the subject of a Bengal painting of about 1890 in the Cleveland Museum of Art. In it she sits on a lotus while elephants bathe her with water from a pot raised in their trunks. Glaize wrote that she is often seen this way, between two elephants whose lifted trunks spray lustral water over her.

The Churning of the Sea of Milk

In the story of the Churning of the Sea of Milk, gods and demons churn the ocean to obtain amrita, the nectar of immortality. Many wonders appear from the waters, among them Lakshmi, who is regarded as a treasure of Vishnu.

At Angkor Wat, a relief nearly 50 meters (about 164 feet) long in the southern part of the east gallery shows the scene, with Vishnu, in a four-armed human form, overseeing the work. In the story, hundreds of beings rise one after another, among them Airavana, the white elephant that carries the god Indra; the horse Uccaihshravas; countless apsaras, carved on the relief as a frieze along the panel; and Lakshmi.

Andy Brouwer visited the Guimet Museum in Paris in November 2004. He described a lintel fragment there from Phnom Da that shows the churning, with Brahma seated at the top of the pole and Lakshmi looking out over the turtle.

In temples

At Prasat Kravan, a row of five brick towers, the door jambs of the central tower record a statue of Vishnu set up in 921, in the reign of Harshavarman I. Figures are carved into the brickwork inside the central tower. Glaize wrote that the northernmost tower, also carved inside with figures, was perhaps dedicated to Lakshmi.

At Kbal Spean (ក្បាលស្ពាន), carvings near a natural stone bridge over the river show Vishnu reclining on a hooded naga with Lakshmi at his feet. In most of them, Brahma sits on a lotus that rises from Vishnu's belly.

At the East Mebon, a lintel on the building at the northeast corner of the first enclosure, on its west side, shows Lakshmi flanked by two elephants that shower her with lustral water. In the inner galleries of the Bayon, a relief shows a palace with three towers: its central throne is empty, and the sanctuaries on either side hold statues of Vishnu and Lakshmi. Among the lintels at Beng Mealea, one shows Lakshmi with two elephants holding up lotuses in their trunks rather than water jars.

In museum collections

A 12th-century relief in the Angkor Wat style shows Vishnu standing between his two consorts, the three figures carved from a single stone panel. Lakshmi stands on his left and holds a lotus. Bhumi-devi, the goddess of the earth, stands on his right with a small ball that stands for the earth. The October 2016 bulletin of the Angkor National Museum describes the relief on display in the museum's gallery D.

The Tokyo National Museum in Japan holds an 11th-century sandstone lintel that Andy Brouwer gives as coming from Prasat Ta Sel. An undated photograph by the École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO) labels it "Gajalaksmi" and records it as collected at Prasat Anant, or Prasat Anon, at Pongro Leu in Chikreng district. Brouwer lists it with the Khmer works that went to Tokyo through an exchange that George Coedès, head of the EFEO, agreed to in 1941; the objects arrived at the start of 1944.

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