Indian art Indian art consists of a variety of art forms, including painting, sculpture, pottery, and textile arts such as woven silk. Geographically, it spans the entire Indian subcontinent, including what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, N ...

, a surasundari () is a young maiden characterizing feminine beauty and graceful sensuality.

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

and Jain shrines have featured sensual figures in form of

yakshi Yakshinis or Yakshis (, , Prakrit: ) are a class of female nature spirits in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain religious mythologies that are different from Devas and Asuras and Gandharvas or Apsaras. Yakshinis and their male counterparts, the Yaks ...

s and other spirits since 2nd century BCE. However, the surasundari motif gained prominence in Indian temple architecture only around the beginning of the 9th century CE. ''Shilpa-Prakasha'', a 9th-century Tantric architectural treatise, declares a monument without a surasundari as inferior and fruitless. The 15th century text ''Kshirarnava'' states that the surasundaris should be depicted looking down (''adho-drishti''), not looking at someone. In temple sculptures, the surasundaris are often depicted as attendants of gods and goddesses. They also manifest as dancing

apsara Apsaras (, , Khmer language, Khmer: អប្សរា are a class of celestial beings in Hinduism, Hindu and Culture of Buddhism, Buddhist culture. They were originally a type of female spirit of the clouds and waters, but, later play ...

s. A

salabhanjika A salabhanjika or shalabhanjika is a term found in Indian art and literature with a variety of meanings. In Buddhist art, it means an image of a woman or yakshi next to, often holding, a tree, or a reference to Maya (mother of the Buddha), Maya ...

or tree nymph is another variation of a surasundari. Other forms of a surasundari include: The presence of surasundaris in religious shrines is interpreted in several ways. A spiritual interpretation is that they represent

shakti Shakti (Devanagari: शक्ति, IAST: Śakti; 'energy, ability, strength, effort, power, might, capability') in Hinduism, is the "Universal Power" that underlies and sustains all existence. Conceived as feminine in essence, Shakti refer ...

(the feminine cosmic energy), and can be considered as both auspicious and empowering. A secular interpretation is that they represent the prosperity of the king who commissioned the temple.

References

{{reflist Hindu temple architecture Indian sculpture Indian iconography Hindu iconography