Ugra Narasimha – Nepal

This is Ugra Narasimha in the act of killing Hiranyakasipu. Narasimha is an avatar of Vishnu. For information of Ugra Narasimha please see Ugra Narasimha plaque and Ugra Narasimha from Punjab/Himachal.

The medium is either glass or rock crystal. It is about 4 cm in height. It is from Nepal.

Due to the size and the medium, the form of the deity is not obvious. It took a while for me to identify the Vigraha. The form of this Vigraha is very similar to the Ugra Narasimha from Punjab/Himachal on this blog site. Shown them together below, for comparison, barring the pillars and the attributes in the upper hands the form matches.

At times even this comparison does not jump out. So put my engineer’s hat on and used public domain image enhancement software and edge detection software to highlight the form. Our rightmost picture, below, highlights the part which has Hiranyakasipu. The one in the middle is the edge-enhanced image.

Identifying the place of origin proved to be an interesting exercise as well. Consulted collector/dealer friends in the USA, Singapore and Thailand. Thanks to Francois for suggesting Nepal as the country of origin. A quick Google search showed quite a few rock crystal Vigrahas from Nepal. Then a photo of Ugranarasimha in Patan Durbar square confirmed the place of origin. Note the form of Chakra in his right upper hand.

This Vigraha probably dates to the twentieth century and it found the place on this site because of the subject matter and the medium.

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