Yoginī, Kāñcīpuram region, Tamil Nadu (India), late 9th-early 10th century Granite Musée Guimet (MG 18506) Johan Levillain

Three Indic bodies in a Western imaginary

the Kāñcī Yoginīs in the Guimet Museum

Yoginī, Kāñcīpuram region, Tamil Nadu (India), late 9th-early 10th century Granite Musée Guimet (MG 18508) © Johan Levillain
Kāñcīpuram region, Tamil Nadu (India), late 9th-early 10th century. Musée Guimet
Yoginī, Kāñcīpuram region, Tamil Nadu (India), late 9th-early 10th century Granite British Museum (1955, 1018.2) © The Trustees of the British Museum
Yogini, Kanci, Musee guimet
Hans Grien Baldung, The Ages and Death (1541-1544) Oil on canvas Museo del Prado © Museo del Prado
Edvard Munch, Women in three stages (c. 1899) Lithograpy © Wikicommons

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Images:
- Yoginīs, Kāñcīpuram region, Tamil Nadu (India), late 9th-early 10th century. Musée Guimet (MG 18506, 18508, 18507). Photo Johan Levillain
- Yoginī, Kāñcīpuram region, Tamil Nadu (India), late 9th-early 10th century. British Museum (1955, 1018.2) © The Trustees of the British Museum
- Hans Grien Baldung, The Ages and Death (1541-1544). Museo del Prado © Museo del Prado
- Edvard Munch, Women in three stages (c. 1899) © Wikicommons

[i]Eleven yoginī have been located to date. Johanna E. van Lohuizen-de Leeuw speculates that they must have formed a group of sixteen, based on ancient texts mentioning the existence of sixteen mothers (ṣoḍaśamātṛkā). LOHUIZEN-de LEEUW 1990, p. 19. One can imagine, however, that their group amounted to sixty-four images, which is the number of niches most often arranged in the temples dedicated to yoginī still preserved (Khajuraho, Hirapur, Ranipur-Jharial, Mitaoli). DEHEJIA 1986. It is also quite possible that this set was composed of an original number of images or that it was unfinished.
[ii] HARLE 2000, p. 287.
[iii] Charlotte Schmid, in a convincing exposé, identified Tirumēlccēri as the village of origin of this sculpted ensemble.
[iv] SCHMID 2013.
[v] KAIMAL 2012.
[vi] HARLE 2000, p. 297.
[vii] Reproduced in HARLE 2000, p. 297.
[viii] Gabriel Jouveau-Dubreuil (1885-1945), professor at the Collège Colonial of Pondichéry, is considered a pioneer in the history of the art of the south of the Indian peninsula. In particular, he published an Archaeology of South India in 1914 and the Guimet Museum owes a large part of its collection of images of southern India to his contributions.
[ix] MONOD 1966, p. 91.

Bibliography

DEHEJIA Vidya, 1986: Yogini Cult and Temples: A Tantric Tradition, New Delhi, National Museum
HARLE James, 2000: « Finding the Kāñcī Yoginīs », Silk Road Art and Archaeology, vol. 6, pp. 285-298
KAIMAL Padma, 2012: Scattered Goddesses: Travels with the Yoginis, Ann Arbor, Association for Asian Studies
LOHUIZEN-DE LEEUW (van) Johanna E., 1990: « Mother Goddesses in Ancient India », Folia Indica, Naples, Association of South Asian Archaeologists in Western Europe
MONOD Odette, 1966: Le Musée Guimet, Paris, Editions des Musées Nationaux
SCHMID Charlotte, 2013: « Aux frontières de l’orientalisme, Scattered Goddesses, Travels with the Yoginis », Arts Asiatiques, vol. 68, pp. 135-152

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