Relief depicting the marriage of Siva and Parvati witnessed by Visnu and Laksmi (Kalyanasundara, ‘The Wedding of the Charming One’). Visnu officiates, pouring a lustration blessing (abhiseka) over the couples open hands from a gold pot. Siva displays two attributes, a deer (mriga) (deer) and an axe (parasu). He is attended by one of his dwarfish attendants, a gana. In acknowledgement of the occasion, Siva holds a spray of flowers in his lower hand. All in attendance are richly bejewelled and wear high hair-crowns (jatamakutas).

This subject is popular in south India, especially in Madurai where it is assumes a local character, Siva marrying Minaksi, the princess of the Pandyan royal household, thus effecting a union of local traditions with Sanskritic culture. This Divine Marriage is re-enacted there and at other temples each year as part of the annual Panguni Uttiram temple festival, performed with processional icons of the couple. The priests enact the rituals of marriage to the delight of a large audience, mostly female devotees.

A number of centres in south India were renowned for ivory carving in the Nayak period, most especially workshops associated with the Vaisnava temple at Srirangam, and the Minaksi-Sundaresvara temple at Madurai. This relief represents an end panel to a casket, possibly serving as a jewellery box, engraved with the date ‘Samvat 1823 (1766 CE). Although this date cannot be accepted definitively (it could have been add later by a subsequent owner), it broadly fits with our understanding of mid-18th century Nayak decorative arts.