Earth and Space News: Ellora Hindu Cave 22 Allows a Fertility Bull and a Fertility God

Summary: Ellora Hindu Cave 22 , ancient Maharashtra cave temple in India, allies a destructively creative fertility god to a dancing, shape-shifting fertility bull.

depiction of matrikas (mother goddesses; literally, "divine mothers") in sculpture in Ellora Hindu Cave 22; sketch by Scottish archaeologist James Burgess (Aug. 14, 1832-Oct. 3, 1916), Report on the Elura Cave Temples (1883), Plate XXXIV: via Internet Archive

Ellora Hindu Cave 22 in Maharashtra state, western peninsular India, assembles a semi-sloping platform with fertility bull and an adorational shrine with a stone-carved male reproductive organ to a fertility god.

Itinerant artisans, merchants and monks built Ellora Hindu Cave 22 as a cave temple to beliefs brought into northwestern India between 4000 B.C.E. and 800 B.C.E.. Their 42-square-foot (3.90-square-meter) cave temple contains a mandapa (from Sanskrit मण्डप, "pavilion"); a shrine; a vestibule; bracket-capital, plain pillars; and 12-foot- (3.66-meter-) high ceilings and steps. Ashtamatrika (from Sanskrit अष्टन्, "eight" and मातृक, "mother"), Ganesha (from Sanskrit गाणेश, "flock-master") and Vishnu (from Sanskrit विष्णु, "all-pervasive") sculptures deify Shiva (from Sanskrit शिव, "auspicious").

Ellora Hindu Cave 22 exhibits a crocodile-transported (Gavialis gangeticus) devi (from Sanskrit देवी, "goddess") and two devi and door-flanking, doorway-guarding dvarapala (from Sanskrit द्वार, "gateway" and पाल, "protector") duos.

Ellora Hindu Cave 22 features a fertility bull and a fertility god respectively from 4000 B.C.E. to 2500 B.C.E. and from 1700 B.C.E.

The Indus Valley in northwest India gives up some, and guards other, graven seals from Harappa and Mohenjodaro (from Sindhi موئن جو دڙو, "dead men's mound"). Harappa seals from 4000 B.C.E. and Mohenjodaro seals from 2000 B.C.E. harbor fertility bulls and, in cross-legged, seated, yogic postures and with bull-horn headdresses, fertility gods. Fertility goddesses and their fertility bulls and rams and fertility gods and their fertility bulls, buffaloes, deer, elephants, rhinoceroses, snakes and tigers impel worshiping reproductive organs.

Shaivite Hindu (from Sanskrit शिव, "auspicious" and सिन्धु, "stream") artisans joined

Indus, Aryan (from Sanskrit वेद, "noble") and Vedic (from Sanskrit आर्य, "knowledge") knowledge kindled the polished, stone-carved reproductyive organ atop the Ellora Hindu Cave 22 pedestal.

Indus to Aryan to Vedic to Hindu linkages launches Nandi (from Sanskrit नन्दि, "delight") and Shiva (from Sanskrit शिव, "auspicious") as fertility bull and fertility god. Meeting his mate Parvati (from Sanskrit पर्वति, "stone") amorously over the sage Bhrigu (from Sanskrit भृगु, "precipice") intellectually made Shiva fertility god to reproducvtive organ worshipers. Parvati, for nodding during scripture readings, nestled as fishwoman into earthly life until Shiva's loneliness necessitated Nandi shape-shifting into a shark that Shiva, as fisherman, netted.

Coastal fisherfolk offered fisherman-shifted Shiva fisherwoman-shifted Parvati for obstructing shark-shifted Nandi, whose ominous operations the real-life occurrences of the Ellora Hindu Cave 22 bull never observed.

Shiva and Nandi, as chamberlain, quadruped (from Latin quadri-, "four" and pes, "foot") guardian and musician, perform fertility and Tandava (from Sanskrit ताण्डव, "wild dance") dances.

Tandava dances quicken worldwide destruction after worldwide creation and before worldwide recreation in cyclical, never-ending universal time even as fertility rites quicken increase between population decreases. Bull-riding Shiva, as destroyer god, fertility god and shakti (from Sanskrit शक्ति, "power") female energy Ardhanarisvara (from Sanskrit अर्धनारीश्वर, "half-woman") reconciles destruction-creation, fertility-infertility and female-male opposites. The obstacle-subverting, path-finding Ganesha strengthens Shiva, fertility god successor over Ashtamatrika mother goddesses Brahmani, Chamunda, Indrani, Kumari, Mahalakshmi, Maheshvari, Vaishnavi and Varahi to Indus fertility goddesses.

Kalachuri (from Sanskrit कलचुरि, "country chieftain") dynasty (753?-982? C.E.) artisans transmitted as the Ellora Hindu Cave 22 triumphant trio fertility-tending Shiva, obstacle-tackling Ganesha and preservation-trusting Vishnu.

River Goddess Gaṅgā, transported by a crocodile, is depicted in a sculpture in Ellora Hindu Cave 22; sketch by Scottish archaeologist James Burgess (Aug. 14, 1832-Oct. 3, 1916), Report on the Elura Cave Temples (1883), Plate XXV: via Internet Archive

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

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Earth and Space News

Friday, June 26, 2020

Ellora Hindu Cave 22 Allows a Fertility Bull and a Fertility God

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