Compiled by  london Swaminathan
swami_48@yahoo.com

Date: 17 OCTOBER 2019
British Summer Time uploaded in London – 18-14
Post No. 7107

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Lord Skanda (also known as Muruga, Kartikeya, Kumara, Guha) lost his head in 1988. His Vahana peacock also lost its head but the beautiful feather of his Vahana is still intact. The original pictures are with head intact. No book gives the details of this lost head. They hope that it would turn up one day. But I doubt it.

My Son is a place in Vietnam where lot of Hindu statues ere discovered in 1903. Numerous sculptures emerged from the thick vegetation when Henri Parmentier and Charles Carpeaux cleared the bushes. Among them was the statue of Skanda and the broken piece of peacock’s feather. Skanda and another statue of Ganesa were photographed by Charles Carpeaux.

“Peacock is beautifully sculpted in stone. With legs folded the bird is sadly without its head, originally reaching god’s hips, which was not found during excavations. A fine network of incisions into the stone running over the bird’s body evokes with precision the characteristic plumage of the bird; on the back it yields a formal play of great beauty.

The vajra he holds in hiss right hand and the five chignons also assist in identifying him. Skanda in his young appearance as Kumara wears several  pieces of jewellery. The head sadly lost in about 1988  once bore particular earrings, mixing flower motifs and pendants with pears inserted into elongate lobes.

One can only hope that the head of this piece, happily known and published for a long period, might one day be recovered.

• Vibrancy in stone.
• Skanda in Danang Museum in Vietnam