This sculpture is located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Museum's website (
visit link) provides the following information:
"Vaikuntha Vishnu
Date: last quarter of the 8th century
Culture: India (Jammu & Kashmir, ancient kingdom of Kashmir)
Medium: Stone
Dimensions: H. 41 1/8 in. (104.5 cm)
Classification: Sculpture
Credit Line: Purchase, Florence and Herbert Irving Gift, 1991
Accession Number: 1991.301
On view in Gallery 237
This complex form of Vishnu, first referred to by the name Vaikuntha in the seventh-century Vishnudharmottarapurana, is four-faced (chaturmurti), with the heads of a lion (right) and a boar (left) flanking a human head. He is also identifiable in this form by the epithet Para-Vasudeva, “the highest god.” The lion and boar represent Vishnu’s Varaha and Narasimha avatars. Carved in low relief on the back of the halo is the fourth face, a demonic, grimacing representation with fangs and a vertical third eye on the forehead. The small attendant on Vishnu’s left is Chakrapurusha, the personification of his war discus, originally balanced on his right by Gadadevi, the female personification of his battle mace. The earth goddess Prithvi, stands between Vishnu’s legs. from the eighth through the tenth century, this four-faced Vishnu was the paramount cult icon in the kingdom of Kashmir."
and Wikipedia (
visit link) adds:
"The icon represents Vishnu as the Supreme Being. He has a human head, a lion head, a boar head and a demonic head. Sometimes, even three-headed aspects of Vishnu where the demonic rear head is dropped are considered to represent Vaikuntha Chaturmurti. Though iconographical treatises describe him to eight-armed, he is often depicted with four. Generally, Vaikuntha Chaturmurti is shown standing but sometimes he is depicted seated on his vahana (mount) Garuda.
The concept of a four-headed Vishnu first appears in the Hindu epic Mahabharata, but the complete iconography was first found in a 5th-century Pancharatra text. The icon reflects influences from the Gupta period and the Gandhara architectural tradition. While as per one interpretation, the animal heads represent Vishnu's avatar Narasimha (lion-headed man) and Varaha (boar), another theory based on Pancaratra texts relates the four heads to Chaturvyuha - Vasudeva (Krishna), Samkarshana (Balarama), Pradyumna and Aniruddha - four vyuhas (manifestations) of Vishnu. A cult centered on Vaikuntha Chaturmurti developed in Kashmir in the 8-12th century, when the deity also enjoyed royal patronage in the region. The Lakshmana Temple of Khajuraho suggests his worship in the Chandela kingdom (Central India) in the 10th century."
As for the asteroid, Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"4034 Vishnu (provisional designation: 1986 PA) is an Apollo asteroid, 0.4 kilometers in diameter. It completes one revolution around the Sun almost once every year. It was discovered by Eleanor F. Helin at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California on August 2, 1986. It is an O-type asteroid,[1] meaning it is similar to the asteroid 3628 Boznemcová, which is the best asteroid match to the spectra of L6 and LL6 ordinary chondrite meteorites. L and LL chondrites have lower iron and metal content, but higher iron oxide content in the silicates.
Its highly eccentric orbit crosses the orbits of Venus, Earth, and Mars. From 1800 to 2200 the asteroid passes within 30 Gm of Venus 71 times, Earth 29 times, and Mars 7 times."