{"id":13209,"date":"2023-01-17T16:55:04","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T23:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13209"},"modified":"2023-01-18T11:05:58","modified_gmt":"2023-01-18T18:05:58","slug":"lakshmi-or-yakshi-the-story-of-a-hindu-idol-in-ancient-pompeii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13209","title":{"rendered":"Lakshmi or Yakshi? The Story of a Hindu Idol in Ancient Pompeii"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Trade<\/p>\n

The 1938 excavation of a house in Pompeii produced a statuette that first was believed to be Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of prosperity and fertility.<\/a> Newer reseach says no, but she still is Hindu. Where did she come from?<\/p>\n

A podcast interview with art historian Laura Weinstein examines the statuette’s possible backstory.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

The statuette may be a souvenir of a Roman merchant’s voyage(s) to India \u2014 or perhaps from a shorter trip to the ancient port of Alexandria (Egypt), where cargos from India were routed to new destinations in the Roman empire.((The podcast is available from Apple, Spotify,\u00a0 Player.fm, and elsewhere. The date is August 11, 2021.))<\/p>\n

Weinstein published a chapter, “The Indian figurine from Pompeii as an emblem of East-West trade in the Early Roman imperial era,<\/a>” in the collection Globalization and Transculturality from Antiquity to the Pre-Modern World <\/em><\/a>(Routledge, 2021).((Ask your librarian about getting a copy of the chapter.))<\/p>\n

The map above shows trade routes from the empire to southern Indian in that era. Weinstein mentions a “manual for merchants,” written in Greek, that gave sailing directions from the Red Sea and information about the various Indian ports, the products that could be purchased there, etc.<\/p>\n

According to one articl<\/a>e \u2014 and this is pretty much Weinstein’s view as well \u2014 she is not Lakshmi after all.<\/p>\n

Originally , the figurine was considered to depict the goddess Lakshmi, a fertility, beauty, and riches goddess venerated by early Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains. However, the iconography, particularly the exposed genitals, indicates that the image is more likely to represent a yakshi, a female tree spirit who embodies fertility, or a syncretic rendition of Venus<\/a>-Sri-Lakshmi from an old trade between Classical Greco-Roman and Indian civilizations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As for the idol, her location in the house suggests more that she was in storage than in a shrine, so perhaps she was “just a souvenir.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 1938 excavation of a house in Pompeii produced a statuette that first was believed to be Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of prosperity and fertility. Newer reseach says no, but she still is Hindu. Where did she come from? A podcast interview with art historian Laura Weinstein examines the statuette’s possible backstory. The statuette may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[20,128,143,163,56],"class_list":["post-13209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archaeology","tag-hinduism","tag-india","tag-italy","tag-rome"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-3r3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2748,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2748","url_meta":{"origin":13209,"position":0},"title":"Army Appoints Hindu Chaplain (Sort of)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"There about 1,000 identified Hindus in the U.S. Army, and now they have a chaplain, Captain Pratima Dharm. Yes, that is probably fewer than the followers of Pagan paths in uniform. The Buddhists have been recognized too, but a qualified Wiccan officer was rejected. But there might be more to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10568,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10568","url_meta":{"origin":13209,"position":1},"title":"Pagan with a Capital P","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"In editing the current issue of The Pomegranate, one of my \"favorite\" issues came up again: whether or not Pagan is capitalized. American scholars and Pagan authors tend to say yes. There has been a small campaign to convince the editors of the Associated Press Stylebook, widely used in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Letter-P.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":426,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=426","url_meta":{"origin":13209,"position":2},"title":"DevadasiIt's not just the Pagans\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"DevadasiIt's not just the Pagans talking about sacred sex--and its potential spinoff, sacred prostitution.Here is an articulate Hindu practitioner. (Notice her shrine page.) She blogs as well.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2894,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2894","url_meta":{"origin":13209,"position":3},"title":"Polytheism in the Marketplace","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Going to buy puja supplies from an immigrant Hindu shopkeeper. Confusion ensues, but is resolved.","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14223,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14223","url_meta":{"origin":13209,"position":4},"title":"Light It Up like a Roman","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 6, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Archaeologists at Pompeii are trying to figure out what incense its residents burned in their homes. The study is part of a growing interest in so-called \u201csensory archaeology,\u201d which seeks to reconstruct not only objects and spaces from the past but also the sensory experiences associated with them. The aroma\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/roman-scribe-at-altar.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/roman-scribe-at-altar.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/roman-scribe-at-altar.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/roman-scribe-at-altar.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/roman-scribe-at-altar.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/roman-scribe-at-altar.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":7995,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7995","url_meta":{"origin":13209,"position":5},"title":"A Small Victory in the Struggle for the Capital P","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 29, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I was contacted some time ago to write an article on contemporary Paganism for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, now in production. After the usual writerly procrastination, I cranked out my 8,000 words (or whatever it was) and sent it in. Then, in April, the copyedited version arrived for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"scholarship\"","block_context":{"text":"scholarship","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=scholarship"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13209"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13225,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13209\/revisions\/13225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}