Ellora Hindu Cave 23 Accepts Shiva as Fertility God and as Trimurti

Summary: Ellora Hindu Cave 23 in Maharashtra, India, perhaps advances Shiva as a symbolized ferttility god of destruction over Brahma and Vishnu in Trimurti art.

"Cave 23 in Ellora Fort with an impromptu waterfall"; Saturday, July 9, 2016, 15:45: Ganesh.Subramaniam85, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Ellora Hindu Cave 23 in Maharashtra state, western peninsular India, acquires Shaivite aspects in aligning a Trimurti association of Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu with a shrine to the fertility god of destruction.

Brahmanic, Shaivite (from Sanskrit शिव, "auspicious") and Vaishnavite Hinduism broaches Trimurti (from Sanskrit त्रि, "three" and मूर्ति, "forms") deities as one supreme deity with two subordinates. The blue-throated, fair-skiunned, five-faced, four-armed, three-eyed, wild-haired fertility god of world destruction configures a crescent moon around his third eye and three chest-crossing, hair-coiled, shoulder-covering serpents. Shiva's four hands deploy his bow Ajagava (from Sanskrit अजगव), invincible sword, skull-ended club Khatvanga (from Sanskrit खट्वाङ्ग, "bedstead-bodied") and trident Pinaka (from Sanskrit पिनाक, "world-preserving").

Parvati (from Sanskrit पर्वति, "stone"), consort embodying black light from the Trimurti visual energy, employs bull (Bos taurus), lion (Panthera leo) and tiger (Panthera tigris) mounts.

Brahma (from Sanskrit ब्रह्म, "priest") fits flower-filled Satyaloka (from Sanskrit सत्य, "true" and लोक, "world") onto Mount Meru's (from Sanskrit मेरु, "central") 84,000-league- (336,000,000-meter-) high summit.

Four-armed, four-headed, red-bodied, white-robed Brahma gazes upon all goings-on with his eight eyes grouped in pairs on each of his center-back, center-front, left and right heads. Four hands hold four Veda (from Sanskrit वेद, "knowledge") hymns and his bow, scepter, spoon, stringed beads or water jar Kamandalu (from Sanskrit कमण्डलु, "water-giving ornament"). Brahma and consort Sarasvati (from Sanskrit सरस्वती, "many-watered"), white-light goddess of Trimurti intense visual energy, itinerate by goose (Anser indicus), peacock (Pavo cristatus) or swan (Cygnus).

Vishnu (from Sanskrit विष्णु, "all-pervasive") journeys from white-lotus lodgings within the 80,000-mile (128,747.52-kilometer) circumferencve of all-gold, all-jeweled, blue-lotus, red-lotus, white-lotus, five-pool Vaikuntha (from Sanskrit वैकुण्ठ, "unassailable").

Ellora Hindu Cave 23 keeps unpainted in its Trimurti Vishnu, blue-bodied keeper of bow

Two of Vishnu's four hands load his club Kaumodaki (from Sanskrit कौमोदकी, "earth-pleasing") and discus Sudarsana (from Sanskrit सुदर्शन, "beautiful") or Vajranabha (from Sanskrit वज्रनाभ, "hard-naved"). Two hands maintain his conch shell Panchajanya (from Sanskrit पाञ्चजन्य, "five-born") and, alternate mount to bird-man Garuda (from Sanskrit गरुड, "devourer"), lotus Padma (from Sanskrit पद्म). Vishnu named as consort, from the red light of the net Trimurti energy, the auspicious goddess Lakshmi (from Sanskrit लक्ष्मी, "to know and understand the goal").

Shaivite Hinduism offers Shiva as Trimurti overlord whose reproductive organs, observed devotionally and symbolically as linga (from Sanskrit लिङ्ग, "emblem"), operationalize fertile world population and repopulation.

The IndiaThatWas blog presents Ellora Hindu Cave 23 as possessing a near-double verandah, five doors, four small cells and one shrine preserving ancient practices in Hinduism.

Ancient settlers of northwest India at Harappa and at Mohenjodaro (from Sindhi موئن جو دڙو, "dead men's mound") queued around cylinder-shafted father-god and round-based mother-goddess symbols. The round pedestal that rises from the basalt floor reveres Shiva, fertility god of destroyed and recreated worlds and Hindu replacement for 4,500- to 5,300-year-old roles. The male reproductive organ-like, stone-carved symbol shares the small space of the cave temple shrine with the stone-sculpted Trimurti of creator Brahma, destroyer Shiva, preserver Vishnu.

Ellora Hindu Cave 23 takes on Shaivite tones through teaming stone-carved, symbolic male reproductive organs of, and the stone-sculpted Trimurti to, Shiva, fertility god of destruction.

Ellora Hindu Cave 23; Sabyasachi Basu@SabyasachiBasu_, via Twitter April 30, 2018

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

"Cave 23 in Ellora Fort with an impromptu waterfall"; Saturday, July 9, 2016, 15:45: Ganesh.Subramaniam85, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rain,_Waterfalls_and_a_cave_-_Ellora.jpg

Ellora Hindu Cave 23; Sabyasachi Basu@SabyasachiBasu_, via Twitter April 30, 2018, @ https://twitter.com/SabyasachiBasu_/status/990871387580624896

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