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Maheshasuramardini sculpture at Ponnuru (Andhra Pradesh).‘Durgee slaying Mehesoor' at Ponoor in the Guntoor Circar - 1801
Watercolour drawing of a figure of Durga at Ponnuru in Andhra Pradesh, from an Album of 56 sheets of drawings (60 folios) mainly of miscellaneous architecture and sculpture in the Deccan and S. India, dated 1793-1806 from the Mackenzie Collection.
Durga is one of the many names of the goddess and a manifestation of Shiva's consort and has two aspects: one is merciful and benevolent and the other is ferocious and punishing. She is said to have been created by the gods to kill the buffalo-demon Mahisasura who had usurped their position. She is represented in this drawing standing on the demon she has killed, holding her weapons.
Colin Mackenzie (1754-1821) was the first Surveyor General of India. Originally from Scotland, he came to India in 1782 as a member of the Madras Engineers. He took part in numerous map surveys, mainly in Southern India, before he was appointed to the post of Surveyor General in 1815. During his surveys in South India he collected and recorded innumerable details concerning every aspect of South Indian history, language, life and religion, resulting in possibly as many as 2,000 drawings and over 8,000 copies of inscriptions.
Copyright © The British Library Board
Watercolour paintings, travel diaries and other accounts of British officers and their families posted in India are a very valuable source of information for those looking to reconstruct 18th and 19th century India. It provides the very important 'other' perspective through the eyes of those who had come to rule a strange and foreign country. Such watercolour paintings by British officers are in marked contrast to the painting traditions of indigenous Indian artists who were painting miniature paintings.