Cultural object
Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan
Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan is a sandstone sculpture of about 600 CE from Phnom Da, Cambodia, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.[1] It is one of eight monumental figures, each carved from a single block, recovered from the two-peaked hill of Phnom Da on the Mekong floodplain outside Angkor Borei.[1][2]
The object
The Hindu god Krishna stands holding a mountain aloft to shelter the villagers and their herds from a storm.[1] The figure measures 203.1 by 68 by 55.5 centimeters (80 by 26.8 by 21.9 inches). Small holes in the earlobes once held gold earrings.[3] The museum's catalog reference is 1973.106.[1]
Iconography
Krishna appears here as an incarnation of Vishnu, a form that many Hindus in South and Southeast Asia recognized in the sixth and seventh centuries.[4] The story sets Krishna's care for the cowherd community against the authority of Indra, the Vedic god of rain. In the myth, Krishna holds up the mountain for seven days and seven nights while rain and wind beat down on the land around it.[5]
Date and origin
The sculpture was made for worship in a man-made cave at Phnom Da.[6]
Provenance
Fragments of the Phnom Da sculptures were found in 1935 and sent to Belgium. The Cleveland Museum of Art acquired the Krishna from the Stoclet estate in 1973, when it was a torso without arms or legs.[2][4] More fragments were recovered at Phnom Da in 1977, and pieces not used in the reconstruction were sent to Phnom Penh in 2005.[2]
On October 30, 2015, Cambodia's Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts authorized the transfer of a fragment to Cleveland so that it could be rejoined to the figure. Dr. Kong Vireak, then director of the National Museum of Cambodia, welcomed the collaboration.[2] Conservators later found that the thigh, lower legs and feet attached to the Cleveland figure belonged to the other Krishna from Phnom Da, and the reconstruction was revised.[6] The restored figure gained an upper section with Krishna's raised left hand and part of the stone niche in which it first stood.[6] For its reinstallation the museum built a modular support that uses the sculpture's own fragments, with no filler.[7]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Cleveland Museum of Art
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Cleveland Museum of Art, press announcement with the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts of Cambodia (2015)
- ↑ Cleveland Museum of Art, Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Cleveland Museum of Art, The Cleveland Krishna
- ↑ caa.reviews, review of Revealing Krishna: Essays on the Conservation of Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan from Phnom Da (April 2022)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 The Art Newspaper, Ancient Krishnas are reunited with their body parts (November 2021)
- ↑ Cleveland Museum of Art, Krishna Reinstalled