Head of Addorsed Maheshvara

This sculpture depicting Shiva is altogether a more complex and esoteric religious icon. The Head of Addorsed Maheshvara represents Shiva, with braids of hair drawn up into a fanned topknot, again displaying a crescent moon on the chignon and the third eye on the forehead. However, in a rarely represented form, Shiva bears on his shoulders a squatting dwarf-like personage, a gana, grinning wide-mouthed, eyes focused skyward, as if ecstatic in his devotion, perhaps engaged in singing in praise of his Lord. Shiva displays classic 5th–6th century late Gupta features: a rounded fleshy face, cascading locks of hair and large circular earplugs. Though not entirely clear, he appears to hold in each hand a disc and a crescent, presumably intended to represent solar symbols. On the reverse is a grotesque face—a wild and early form of Shiva sometimes identified as Rudra (‘the howler’). This esoteric form of Shiva is rarely found and is confined to the mid–first millennium; a stone sculpture of a standing Shiva with squatting gana astride his shoulders has been identified at the Rang Mahal site in Rajasthan, a region with strong links with the northeast regions in the 7th century.