A great ascetic Shiva in yellow, with wild, long hair and beard, lounges in apparent nudity but for red ornaments that match his rosary. His ubiquitous snake climbs his right side, while the goddess Parvati sits at his left, demurely covering her head as should a wife in her husband’s presence. In the opposite quadrant, a second yellow figure with a rosary may be one of Shiva’s ascetic followers. Several blue lingas, the rounded pillar that is the mark of this god, are set into their socket-bases (yonis). At right a shrine with ridged¹ roof and arched entries contains a blue figure that may be the fluting Krishna. A distinctive aspect of this piece is the three heads, each cleanly ending at the neck, that may be a form of the local deity Dakshin Ray, the tiger god.² Embroiderers often blended elements across sectarian boundaries, as these had little meaning in daily faith. Darielle Mason, from Kantha: The Embroidered Quilts of Bengal (2009), p. 197.

NOTES
1. Although simplified in this embroidery, the ridged roof is a form often found on the terra-cotta temples of the region. See Pika Ghosh, “Embroidering Bengal,” this volume.
28. See Katherine Hacker, “In Search of ‘Living Traditions,'” this volume.