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It is difficult to realize the magnitude of these objects, so deceptive are distances and dimensions in the transparent atmosphere of Arizona. Siva's Temple, for example, stands upon a platform four or five miles square, from which rise domes and pinnacles a thousand feet in height.

And the son of Agni is the handsome Kumara born in a forest of reeds. And, he is also called Kartikeya because he was reared by Krittika and others. And, after Kartikeya, there were born his three brothers Sakha, Visakha, Naigameya. And the wife of Anila is Siva, and Siva's son were Manojava and Avijnataagati. These two were the sons of Anila.

Gaṇeśa, "the Lord of Hosts," the God who removes obstacles and is represented with an elephant's head and accompanied by a rat, is recognized as Śiva's son. Another son is Skanda or Kârtikeya, the God of War, a great deity in Ceylon and southern India.

Rama of Bhrigu's race went to Mahadeva for acquiring the science of arms. While dwelling in Siva's retreat, he had a quarrel with Karttikeya or Kumara, the son of Siva's loins. Rama worsted his preceptor's son in battle, at which his preceptor, gratified with him, made him a present of his own battle-axe, wherewith the regenerate hero exterminated the Kshatriyas for full one and twenty times.

The absence of vanity is implied by soliciting the help of others even when one is competent oneself. Females follow females, such being their nature. It is a compliment that Parvati pays to Siva for Siva's questioning her when he himself is well-acquainted with the topic upon which she is asked to discourse.

Between the world periods there are pauses of quiescence and at the end of these Śiva evolves the universe and souls. But this does not prevent the god himself in a personal and often visible form from being for his devotees the one central and living reality. The Śakti, often called Umâ, is merely Śiva's reflex and hardly an independent existence.

Siva's hair is a bunch of snakes, serpents wind around his neck, arms, waist and legs; a crescent is stamped upon his forehead, which was the chief symbol of the ancient cult of Arabia destroyed by Mohamet Aurangzeb, one of the Mogul emperors, who was a Mohammedan fanatic.

A little later, in the ghat between Siva's temple and the building, where the dead Afghan used to keep his camels, Mukhum Dass, smiling as he rode, was struck down by a knife-blow from behind and pitched off his mule head-foremost. The mule ran away.

Śiva's consort, like her Lord, has many forms classified as white or benignant and black or terrible. Female deities bearing names like these are worshipped in most parts of India, literally from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin, for the latter name is derived from Kumârî, the Virgin goddess.

Each part of the trimurti possesses, moreover, a wife. The wife of Brahma is Sarasvati, goddess of wisdom; that of Vishnu, Lakshmi, goddess of virtue, and Siva's spouse is Kali, goddess of death, the universal destroyer.