More Mahadeva
You all might recall that my 3rd entry in the EVERYMAN contest was this architectural image.
A good friend of mine asked me to tell him more about "Mahadeva", which prompted me to think about exactly where I was at the time I took it. Sometimes all the images, especially the architectural ones, run together in my mind. MAHA-DEVA means great god, and is a popular name of Lord Shiva. The images I want to show you now are specifically from the Nageshwar Jyotir Lingum temple. Even I just went back into my weblog archive here to remind myself of what I wrote about this place on 12/10.
Nageshwar translated means "Lord of the Snakes." As I understand it, though, snakes are not negative in Hinduism. Rather snakes are often a representation of the subtle flow of energy in the human body, particularly up the spine, along the energy paths in yoga called the Ida, Pingala, and the Shushumna.
Let me take you into the temple:
Entrance: notice the colorful paintings of the Sun and the Moon on either side of the entrance.
An imperfect and accidental panoramic view of the full temple structure.
As you walk around the back of the temple, you cannot help but notice the magnificent scultpures of the gods that adorn this structure, bringing the Divine into our very presence.
All the details are animated and life-like. I love these elephants!
There is nowhere that the gods are not!
My personal favorite in terms of the structural images of Nageshwar.
The contrast between the top section and the bottom is overwhelming. I need to research the reason for this.
Shopping for religious paraphinalia outside the temples was irresistable.
Besides pictures of children, I also like to take pictures of doorways. I loved the subtle colors here.
I hope you enjoyed your virtual tour of Nageshwar. Please join me again in the near future for another temple tour.
posted by Lydia at 7:20 PM
