Cultural object
Devi (National Museum of Cambodia)
Devi is a sandstone statue of a Hindu goddess from the seventh century, held by the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh.[1] She was found at Koh Krieng, in the Sambor area on the Mekong in Kratie province.[1]
The object
The goddess stands 127 centimeters (50 inches) high.[2] She has a large pelvis, round, closely set breasts, soft folds at the belly and neck, round cheeks, full lips, a narrow nose and long earlobes.[1] Her long skirt, the sampot, has a large knot in front and a long central pleat that reaches the ankles, and its lower edge splays outward. A belt of five cords closes with a large, finely worked clasp.[1][2]
Her hair rises in a high jata, a coiffure of piled tresses, divided in two, with five strands falling at the back. This style is called bokor, a Cambodian word for a bull's hump.[1][2]
Sculptors of the pre-Angkorian period, the sixth to eighth centuries, often steadied stone figures with supports. They used horseshoe-shaped arcs, the lower edges of garments or tenons projecting from the base. Such supports were given up later, in the Angkor period.[3] The museum's catalog references for the statue are B.45, B.71.1 and Ka.1621.[1]
Iconography
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are the principal Hindu gods in Khmer art.[3] The Khmer of this era honored both the principal gods and their consorts. Because the statue carries no attributes, the objects that identify a deity, she cannot be named as the consort of either Vishnu or Shiva.[2] The museum sees in her a close likeness to Cambodian women today, and a possible personification of Khmer womanhood.[2]
Date and origin
The museum dates the statue to the first half of the seventh century.[1] It has also been dated to the middle of that century and placed in the Sambor Prei Kuk style.[2] In this period Isanavarman, one of the powerful kings of Chenla, founded the city of Isanapura at the site now called Sambor Prei Kuk, in Kampong Thom province. Many brick temples still stand there.[2]