Two Beautiful Women (Surasundari) Dressing with an Attendant

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

This sculpture of semidivine women, likely intended for the exterior of a temple, illustrates how the sacred and the sensuous are intertwined in Hinduism. Such figures of female abundance—with full breasts and wide hips, wearing heavy jewelry—are associated with fertility and prosperity. These women are engaged in adorning themselves: one uses a mirror to apply vermilion to the part atop her head, and another wrings water from her long hair. Their idealized forms infused the temple and surrounding land with vitality, linking external and spiritual beauty as pathways to the divine.

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