Ellora Hindu Cave 26 Perhaps Asks for Auspicious Aid to Traders

Summary: Ellora Hindu Cave 26 in Maharashtra, India, perhaps augured auspiciously for pilgrim traders with its adorational attention to wealth god Kubera.

entrance to Ellora Hindu Cave 26; Wikimedia Commons page created Tuesday, Sep. 6, 2016, via UploadWizard: Anupamg, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Ellora Hindu Cave 26 in Maharashtra state, western peninsular India, perhaps attended to itinerant and pilgrim traders whose personal and professional anxieties its adorational art to wealth god Kubera most assiduously alleviated.

Kubera (from Sanskrit कुबेर, "bad-limbed") bore behavioral models for career advancement from ancient, dark, shadowy beginnings as Vedic (from Sanskrit वेद, "knowledge") chief of evil beings.He continued as king of yaksha (from Sanskrit यक्ष, "ghost") dwarfs even as he commenced as northern guardian, one of eight deities charged with world guardianship.He did 10 successive relightings of a taper extinguished while robbing Lord Shiva of Robbers' temple or thousands of years of austerities to become a deity.

Divine architect Visvakarma (from Sanskrit विश्वकर्म, "omnificent") erected Lanka (from Sanskrit लङ्का, "happiness-obtaining") on Mount Meru for Kubera or for rakshasa (from Sanskrit राक्षस, "demoniacal") demons.

Wind god Vayu (from Sanskrit वायु, "air") flipped Lanka from Mount Meru's (from Sanskrit मेरु, "central") 84,000-league- (336,000,000-meter-) high summit to off ancient India's southern tip.

Visvakarma gave Kubera a replacement palace on Mount Kailasa (from Sanskrit कैलास, "crystal") and an aerial, city-sized, jewel-raining, magical, self-driving chariot, Pushpaka (from Sanskrit पुष्पक, "flower"). Kubera has Alaka (from Sanskrit अलक, "curl"), world-richest city, and, on Mount Mandara (from Sanskrit मन्दर, "sluggish"), Chaitraratha (from Sanskrit चैत्ररथ, "spring grove"), world's beautifulest garden. He inhabits the Himalayan (from Sanskrit हिम, "winter" and आलय, "abode") range mountain heights to institute safeguards over mineral wealth; special treasures; and the Earth's precious storehouse.

Dwarf and horse-headed attendants join white-skinned Kubera in journeying around gold, jewel, pearl and silver-jammed storehouses and the nine nidhi (from Sanskrit निधि, "receptacle") special treasures.

Ellora Hindu Cave 26 kindled knowing under Kalachuri (from Sanskrit कलचुरि, "country chieftain") dynasts (753?-982? C.E.), world destruction, fertility and storm god Shiva (from Sanskrit शिव, "auspicious").

Itinerant artisans located inside a chapel on 3- to 4-foot- (0.91- to 1.22-meter-) high molded bases, a 16-foot- (4.88-meter-) high hall and six columns with pilasters.They made, for all pilasters (from Latin pilastrum, "pillar"), crimped hairstyles and dwarf attendants for all bearers of chauri (from Sanskrit चौरी, "thiefess") fans and fly-whisks. Perhaps they nestled chauri fans and fly-whisks, as iconic, symbolic, talismanic notifications of Shaivite Hinduism, into architectural artistry for fellow Shaivite Hindu practitioners among cave pilgrims.

Beyond four front columns with pilasters and two back, the 112-foot (34.14-meter) by 67-foot (20.42-meter) interior offers a chapel, a hall, a shrine and a walk-around.

Dvarapala (from Sanskrit द्वार, "gateway" and पाल, "protector") guardians, both with stout attendants, one with flowers, pose along shrine doorway sides to Ellora Hindu Cave 26.

The high cap of one of the stout attendants quartes a right side with a skull image and a tip as sharp as a spear point. A circumambulatory (from Latin circumambulare, "to walk around" and -torius, "pertaining to") passage runs to and from an enshrined, square-pedestal, stone-sculpted linga (from Sanskrit लिङ्ग, "emblem"). Perhaps it supported walking meditations similar to those started at Plum Tradition centers in 20th- and 21st-century America, Asia, Australia and Europe.

Ellora Hindu Cave 26 treated pilgrim traders to talismanic dwarf attendants of wealth god Kubera and male reproductive organs of destruction, fertility and storm god Shiva.

view of Ellora Hindu Cave 26 (center) from Ellora Cave 29; Sept. 12, 2016: Ms Sarah Welch, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

entrance to Ellora Hindu Cave 26; Wikimedia Commons page created Tuesday, Sep. 6, 2016, via UploadWizard: Anupamg, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ellora_Caves_102.jpg

plan of Ellora Hindu Cave 26; sketch by Scottish archaeologist James Burgess (Aug. 14, 1832-Oct. 3, 1916), Report on the Elura Cave Temples (1883), Plate XXXII: via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.1544/page/n165/mode/1up

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