Handcrafted Black Marble Meditating Shiva Statue, 24in

Shiva in dhyana, carved in black marble

Shiva sits in padmasana with both hands open on his knees in chin mudra — thumb and forefinger closed into a circle, the other fingers extended. The eyes are closed and the face is still. The whole figure is turned inward rather than outward at a devotee, which is what separates a dhyana Shiva from every other form of him.

The marks are all carved rather than applied. The jata is coiled into a high top-knot holding the crescent moon and a datura bloom. The third eye sits closed on the forehead. A cobra rises over the right shoulder with its hood open. Layered rudraksha malas fall across the bare chest, with armlets and bracelets above and below them, and a dhoti is drawn over the crossed legs. There is no trishul here — both hands are given to the mudra, and that is what makes the piece read as meditation rather than as a portrait of the god armed.

The stone, and why black suits this form

Black marble does something white cannot for a meditating figure: it holds light rather than returning it, so the silhouette reads first and the detail arrives second — much the way it does in a dim pooja room by lamplight.

The surface is hand-polished rather than buffed to a mirror. That leaves the sheen slightly uneven across the planes of the chest and shoulders, and it lets the carved edges of the jata, the mala and the cobra hood keep their crispness instead of softening under a uniform gloss. The stone is dense and non-porous, wipes clean with a soft dry cloth, and does not yellow with age.

Size, weight, and where it sits

Twenty-four inches tall, eighteen across and fourteen deep. The rounded rectangular base is part of the same block — the figure and its base are one piece of stone, not a statue set onto a separate plinth.

It weighs forty-five kilograms, which is worth planning for: this is a two-person lift, and it wants a surface that will carry the load without flexing. At that size it anchors a dedicated meditation corner or a pooja room, and it sits equally well as a single sculptural object in a living room.

About the pictures on this page

The first image is a photograph of this statue. The rest show the same piece placed in different settings — a pooja mandir, a lamplit niche, a console, a gallery pedestal, a courtyard — so its scale and presence in a room are easier to judge. The statue in every one of them is this statue; only the surroundings change.