Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.
The Goddess Annihilates the Demon Raktabija, from a Devi-Mahatmya
c. 1640
- Medium
- gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Page: 16.2 x 25.7 cm (6 3/8 x 10 1/8 in.)
- Culture
- Central India, Madhya Pradesh, Malwa
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Indian and Southeast Asian Art
- Credit line
- Purchase and partial gift from the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection; Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
The demon Raktabija had received a boon that from each drop of his blood that falls on the ground, a new demon would arise. When the Goddess wounded Raktabija in combat, and drops of his blood fell on the ground and generated new Raktabijas, she extended her tongue to catch every drop before it hit the ground. Here she is shown lapping up Raktabija himself.
