The one on our right is the third standing Annapurna with me. The details of the smaller Annapurna are in this blog.

One can play ‘spot ten differences in one minute’ and come up with 20+ differences in that time. But the overwhelming impression is they are the same. The similarity between two of them is striking.

They are possibly made by different craftsman and separated by time (may be at most by decades as the wear is comparable) but, most likely they are from the same workshop in Tamil Nadu.

The differences are, in a way, reassuring as it shows these are not mass- produced using mold.

This set of bronzes, along with few other examples, show even in earlier days these Vigrahas were produced in numbers. That may be either because of their being pilgrim bronzes (local deities of the pilgrim centers) or ‘current fashion/trend’ existed even then and it applied to deities worshipped.

It is interesting to note one reached me through an European auction house and the other from a local dealer in the US.

This Annapurna is about 8.5 cm in height and may be dated to the eighteenth century.