The wooden relief shows Shiva as the Enchanting Mendicant (Bhikshatana) accompanied on his left by a ganawith a begging bowl on his head and a spotted deer on his right leaping up to nibble a bud held in the god's right hand. They are shown within a smooth curved depression carved out of the wooden block which retains two mortices on its lower edge to enable it to be slotted into the main structure of the ratha.

The god is shown naked, bedecked in jewellery, including two disparate earrings to signify his male and female aspects, and sacred threads tied round his body. On his feet he is wearing a pair of toe-knob sandals (paduka) as befits his mendicant status. His matted locks are scraped back off his forehead, behind a jewelled headband with a central flame motif, and fall either side of his head to his shoulders. Resting among his locks are a crescent moon on the left and a tiny figure of the river goddess Ganga with a fish tail on the right. He has four arms with the two front ones holding the top half of a skull in his proper left hand, while feeding a prancing spotted deer from his proper right hand. Behind his arms hold up a small damaru drum and a trident that rests across the back of his head.