This four-inch-tall figure of Varahi is the sculptural ‘madhuchista vidhana’ lost wax image of one of the Matrikas or Mother Goddess of Hinduism, specifically, channelling the female energy or ‘shakti’ of Vishnu’s third avatar, Varaha. Outside Vaishnavism, Varahi is also worshipped as the Buddhist goddess Vajravarahi and Marichi, and Tantra worship envision her with their secretive Vamamarga Tantra. Varahi’s legend is derived from several texts (like the Markandeya Purana, Vamana Purana, Devi Bhagata Purana) that detail the coming of the Matrikas as a manifestation of Durga. The Varaha Purana describes the coming of Varahi, seated on Shaeshanaga, from the posterior of Vaishnavi, the Shakti of Vishnu.
While the Purana describes her as the representation of ‘asuya,’ the vice of envy, her iconography, which spans over the Matsya Purana, Purva-Karnagama, and the Rupamandana, present her in the dual forms of benevolent and fearsome. In this four-armed depiction, we see her carrying the Vaishnavite attributes of the Sudarshana Chakra and the conch, and her other two hands are in the ‘abhayamudra’ or fear-dispelling gesture and the ‘varadamudra’ or the boon-granting gesture. The Shakta tradition is presented here, for it describes her seating on a circular raised lotus pedestal (in place of her ‘vahana’ buffalo, called Mahisha) in the ‘lalitasana,’ with her one leg pendent over the pedestal.
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