Sri Ardhanariswara

Description

9 inches. Bronze-coloured waterproof resin.

Siva is the totality of existence – male and female, light and dark, creation and destruction, yin and yang. In this form called “The Lord Who is Half Man and Half Woman” is found an expression not of duality but of the union of opposites. The deity’s right side is dressed in a short dhoti, the traditional Indian male garment from prehistory to present. The left side wears more elaborate female garments and jewelry. This anthropomorphic splitting symbolizes the primal event which modern physics calls the ‘big bang’: form emerging from void, an Original Oneness achieving multiplicity.