Ellora Hindu Cave 16 Appears as Mount Kailasa But Appeals to Saraswati

Summary: Ellora Hindu Cave 16 in Maharashtra, India, affords an earthly appearance of heavenly Mount Kailasa and earthly, heavenly, watery aspects of Saraswati.

southwest corner of Ellora Hindu Cave 16, known as Kailasanatha Temple; 2002: G41m8, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons

Ellora Hindu Cave 16 in Maharashtra state, western peninsular India, acquaints audiences with aesthetic and aquatic associations of learned river goddess Saraswati and with the Mount Kailasa abode of fertility god Shiva.

Itinerant artisans and monks built Kailasa (from Sanskrit कैलास, "crystal") Cave under Rashtrakuta (from Sanskrit राष्ट्रकूट, "country chieftain") King Krishna (from Sanskrit कृष्ण, "black-blue") I (756?/757?-774?/783?). Ellora Hindu Cave 15 and the Mount Kailasa cave temple constitute the last Ellora Hindu cave constructions, concurrent with constructing Ellora Jain Caves 30 through 34. Ellora Buddhist, Hindu and Jain cave details declare Shaivite (from Sanskrit शिव, "auspicious") or Vaishnavite Hinduism (from Sanskrit विष्णु, "all-pervasive" and सिन्धु, "stream") devotionally dominant.

Ellora Hindu Cave 16 exhibits an enshrined, stone-carved linga (from Sanskrit लिङ्ग, "emblem") to Shiva and Parvati.

The Mount Kailasa cavern features five shrines, to Parvati (from Sanskrit पर्वति, "stone"), fertility god Shiva's (from Sanskrit शिव, "auspicious") and four other wise goddesses.

Creator god Brahma (from Sanskrit ब्रह्म, "priest"), destroyer and fertility god Shiva and preserver god Vishnu (from Sanskrit विष्णु, "all-pervasive") each got river goddesses as girlfriends. Krishna (from Sanskrit कृष्ण, "black-blue"), eighth of 10 avatars (from Sanskrit अवतर, "sky-descended") of Vishnu, had as helpmate the river goddess Jumna (from Sanskrit यमुना, "twin"). Shiva is the father of war god Karttikeya (from Sanskrit कार्त्तिकेय, "Pleiades") with the river goddess Ganga (from Sanskrit गङ्गा, "swift-goer") after her involvement with Vishnu.

Fortune-granting, wealth-giving goddess Lakshmi (from Sanskrit लक्ष्मी, "fortune") joins Parvati as the only two non-riverine goddesses of five enshrined female sculptures in Ellora Hindu Cave 16.

Vishnu kept Lakshmi as wife and kicked out Saraswati (from Sanskrit सरस्वती, "water-possessing"), known as one of three enshrined river goddesses in the Mount Kailasa cavern.

Hindu mythology looks at Saraswati as river goddess of benevolent-spirited, namesake, westward-flowing waters from the Himalayan (from Sanskrit हिम, "winter" and अलय, "abode") Mountains to the evil-spirited, wind-tossed sea. Veronica Ions in her book Indian Mythology, for Paul Hamlyn in 1967, mentions the river goddess Saraswati as manifesting haughty, quarrelsome manners in interpersonal, social interactions. The epic Mahabharata (from Sanskrit मह, "great" and भरट, "potter") by the ninth century B.C.E. notes river goddess Saraswati nurturing sacred wates whose navigability deserts negate.

River goddess Saraswati occurred among enshrined sculptures in the Mount Kailasa cave temple well after the sage Utathya's (from Sanskrit उतथ्य) curse obstructed her sea outlet.

River goddess Saraswati of Ellora Hindu Cave 16 possesses creative prowess in inventing Sanskrit and Vedic (from Sanskrit वेड, "knowledge") hymns; and enriching, fertilizing, purifying powers.

White-clothed, white-skinned Saraswati queues up qualifications as discoverer of soma (from Sanskrit सोम, "immortal") ambrosia; goddess of music, poetry and science; and patroness of creative arts. She realizes, from a lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) or a swan-like hamsa (from Sanskrit हंस), husband Brahma's creative will as white-ornamented medium with a crescent moon-stamped brow. She succeeded in tongue-twisting mountain-sized, thunder-speech, whirlwind-breath rakshasa (from Sanskrit राक्षस, "demoniacal") Kumbhakarna (from Sanskrit कुम्भकर्ण, "pitcher-eared") into seeking eternal sleep, not immortality, from Brahma.

River goddesses triumph among Mount Kailasa cavern talismans even though Brahma took Gayatri (from Sanskrit गायत्री, "24-syllable meter") as second wife through Saraswati tending sacrifices tardily.

view of Kailasanatha Temple; May 2004: Y. Shishido, CC BY SA 3.0, 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:

southwest corner of Ellora Hindu Cave 16, known as Kailasanatha Temple; 2002: G41m8, CC BY SA 4.0 International, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ellora_Cave_16_si0308.jpg

view of Kailasanatha Temple; May 2004: Y. Shishido, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ellora_cave16_001.jpg

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