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And there also you will see a very uncommon thing an image of Shiva. You have seen his lingam fifty thousand times already, but this is Shiva himself, and said to be a good likeness. It has three eyes. He is the only god in the firm that has three.
Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva all represent these elements by turns, in their different phases; but Shiva is much more the god of the fire than either Brahma or Vishnu: he burns and purifies; at the same time creating out of the ashes new forms, full of fresh life. Shiva-Sankarin is the destroyer or rather the scatterer; Shiva-Rakshaka is the preserver, the regenerator.
He has been reincarnated more times than Shiva; and he has kept a sample of each incarnation, and fused it into his constitution.
By the door of it you will find an image of Ganesh, son of Shiva; it has the head of an elephant on a human body; its face and hands are of silver. You will worship it a little, and pass on, into a covered veranda, where you will find devotees reciting from the sacred books, with the help of instructors. In this place are groups of rude and dismal idols.
It is Cheops Pyramid, a detached mass of the red-wall limestone, which, however, is rapidly losing its red color, owing to the disappearance of the red strata from above. Cheops is five thousand three hundred and fifty feet in elevation, and is of a peculiar shape, as of some quaint and Oriental device of symbolic significance. Isis and Shiva Temples.
He is Rudra; he is Shiva; he is Agni; he is Sarva; he is the vanquisher of all; he is Indra, and Vayu, and the Aswins and the god of lightning. He is Chandramas; he is Isana; he is Surya; he is Varuna; he is Time; he is the Destroyer; he is Death; he is the Day and the Night; he is the fortnight; he is the seasons; he is the two twilights; he is the year.
He had a disciple who used every day to go to the village pond and bathe and worship the god Shiva. On the way he had to walk through the sandy island in the dry bed of the river. And, as he went home across the island, he used to hear a voice cry, "Shall I come? Shall I come? Shall I come?"; but when he looked round he could see no one.
In the immediate vicinity of each village, and often in the village itself, is a small temple sacred to Vishnu or Shiva. It is often perched high up on some bank, overlooking the lake or village tank. Generally there is some umbrageous old tree overshadowing the sacred fane, and seated near, reclining in the shade, are several oleaginous old Brahmins.
If one will visit a region devoted to a god whose power is represented by a hooded serpent, he should not complain at meeting the real thing, occasionally. Elephanta is dedicated to Shiva, the Destroyer, her attributes being imaged in the person of the cobra. "Ugh!
Soon he could contain himself no longer, and joined in our conversation. Smiling and rubbing his hands, he said that he was curious to know on the strength of what sophistry our companions could find anything resembling a philosophical explanation "in the fundamental idea of the four faces of this ugly Shiva, crowned with snakes," pointing with his finger to the idol at the entrance to a pagoda.
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