A worshiping celestial

These three sculptures were once attached to the wall of the shrine of a temple (probably Buddhist), now destroyed, in the territories of the Cham people in today’s Vietnam. The Cham people spoke a language related to Indonesian, and were entirely distinct from the Vietnamese, against whom they struggled—ultimately unsuccessfully—for centuries.

Old drawings and photographs of the temple clearly show these sculptures positioned on the right side of a large niche in the center of the shrine wall. Their arrangement here matches, as closely as possible, their original placement.