069:EPISODE 69 - Sculpture of Huastec Goddess瓦斯特克女神雕像 Sculpture of Huastec goddess (made between tenth and fifteenth century). Stone statue; from Mexico If you want to test the old clich that an act of translation is always an act o...
Stuart spoke out strongly against missionary attempts to convert Hindus to Christianity. He thought it simply impertinent, and his intention always was that his collection should be seen in England to persuade the British to honour this great world r...
It was Hinduism's generous capacity to embrace all aspects of life, not least sexuality, that enthused and beguiled the man who collected our sculpture - Charles Stuart, an officer in the East India Company, who so vigorously embraced the values and...
It's the presence of Parvati, the female aspect of God, that's perhaps most disconcerting to a non-Hindu viewer, especially to one raised in monotheism, because this is a very particular view of the divine. A monotheistic god is, by definition, alone...
Parvati is a very good wife, who doesn't like people making fun of her husband. So worshippers have to be a little bit careful always to give respect to Parvati first, and then approach Shiva. That's considered to be the respectable thing to do, and...
But in our sculpture, Shiva is not alone. Nestling in his lap, and lovingly encircled by one of his four arms, is his wife Parvati. Both are similarly dressed, with decorated loin cloths, naked torsos, and heavy necklaces and head-dresses. Husband an...
Our sculpture was certainly made for a temple, a very public place, but it is very much about a one-to-one contact with God, and the experience of encountering this sculpture would be only part of a relationship with the divine, a conversation, as it...
It's a stone slab of about six feet (180 cm) high and three feet (90 cm) wide and, although it would originally have been brightly coloured, it is now a deep gleaming black. We don't know which temple it's from, but it was clearly from a very highly...
This week we're looking at the world around seven hundred years ago, and how different religious traditions tried, through objects, to bring people directly into contact with the divine. In this programme we're in Orissa, a densely populated rice-pro...
068:EPISODE 68 - Shiva and Parvati Sculpture湿婆与雪山女神像 Shiva and Parvati sculpture (made in twelfth or thirteenth century). Stone statue; from Orissa, IndiaThere are many surprises about working in the British Museum, and one of them...