Indra Riding Airavata - Khmer Relief

3D Model

On permanent display at the Denver Art Museum. Captured without a tripod in low light conditions.

Airavata or Erawan is a mythological white elephant who carries the Hindu god Indra. It is also called ‘abhra-Matanga’, meaning “elephant of the clouds”; ‘Naga-malla’, meaning “the fighting elephant”; and ‘Arkasodara’, meaning “brother of the sun”. Airavata has ten tusks and five trunks and is spotless white. Wikipedia

Indra is a Vedic deity in Hinduism, a guardian deity in Buddhism, and the king of first heaven called Saudharmakalpa in Jainism. He is the god of lightning, thunder, storms, rains and river flows. Indra is the most referred to deity in the Rigveda. - Wikipedia

Indra Riding His Royal Elephant (Airavata)

Cambodia or Thiland

Khmer Empire

925-950, Koh Ker Peroid

Sandstone

Anonymous Gift - 2000.220

David Romero - March 2017