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Identity of a Mystery Goddess

Fireside_Hindu

Jai Lakshmi Maa
Namaste all,

Back when I was in India I had the pleasure of exploring the very dusty second floor of a shop that was being refinished on the first floor. The second floor had been storage for a long time of the shop owner's various purchases of antiques over the years and explaining my interest in sculpture he welcomed me to look around. The second floor was full of mostly brass and bronze statues. One caught my eye and I wish I could have purchased it, but I had long since used up my budget.

It depicted the goddess with what appeared to be a woman kneeling at her feet. The Goddess had an arm raised with a club in hand and was holding the kneeling woman by the hair.

There was something really unusual about it since I had never seen anything exactly like it. I thought it might be Maa Kali or Durga Maa but when I asked the owner for confirmation she confessed he had no idea who it was supposed to be exactly.

I did some digging on the internet, but the closest match I found was one of the Mahavidyas, Bagalamukhi Devi. She is depicted holding the tongue of a demon with her club raised above. Could the statue I saw have been a local variant? Or another local Goddess? (I was in Rajasthan, but I don't know where the murti came from originally). Sorry, I also neglected to take a photo of the statue. However I may be able to contact the shop owner and ask him to send me a photo if he remembers the one I am talking about.

A picture of Bagalamukhi:

benevolent_yet_not_so_devi_op24.jpg
 

Shantanu

Well-Known Member
My guess is that since your goddess is seen as attacking a demon or an evil person it must be a local name for Durga just like Bagalamukhi. This is because Durga centrally deals with evil monsters in humanity.
 
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