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Ganesha

7th century
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
In the inscriptions of seventh-century Khmer-speaking territories, Ganesha is consistently called by one of his more popular early names, Ganapati, or “lord of the ganas,” Shiva’s mischievous dwarfish helpers. His pot-bellied form almost certainly betrays his yaksha origins as a fertility deity linked to agriculture, perhaps Kubera, given the god’s association with wealth. It is evident from this Khmer example that by the seventh century Zhenla artists had developed a specific style for this most enigmatic of deities that transcended the Gupta models on which it was based. Invocations to Ganapati began appearing in Khmer epigraphy during the same period.

cat. no. 99

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Ganesha
  • Period: Pre-Angkor period
  • Date: 7th century
  • Culture: Southern Cambodia
  • Medium: Sandstone
  • Dimensions: H. 29 1/8 in. (74 cm); W. 24 13/16 in. (63 cm); D. 18 1/2 in. (47 cm); Wt. 459 lbs (208.2 kg)
  • Classification: Sculpture
  • Credit Line: Lent by National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh (Ka.1588)
  • Curatorial Department: Asian Art