Kubera, Sonepat

Description

This Kubera sculpture, made of brown banded buff sandstone, dates to the early medieval period from around Sonepat. While it has suffered substantial damage- having lost the head and the lower torso- it still depicts the remaining torso adorned with neck ornaments, with portions of the hands on the hips in a standing position. The image of Kubera in iconography represents wealth and luxury- with him often being associated with money and wealth directly, described as a deva (god) in the Puranas. Mythologically, he is also linked to the semi-divine yaksas as per the corpus of Hindu texts. Similar parallels also exist in Buddhist and Jaina canons.