Durga Killing the Buffalo Demon

The narrative of the goddess Durga—her assembling the weapons of all the gods and overcoming the demigod Mahisha, who endangered the order of the world—is represented here by the moment the goddess takes absolute control of her opponents. Her stance weighing on the back of a beheaded buffalo, Durga stabs the body of the demigod emerging from the animal before he can even draw his sword. His two companions kneeling before her in agony have a vajra and a disk stuck in their chests. The goddess’s sixteen arms fan out, showing her arsenal of weapons, and the lion under her right leg is her animal companion (vahana).