The name of the anthropomorphic form of Varaha, an avatar (manifestation) of the Hindu deity, Vishnu. As Varaha, Vishnu assumes the form of a boar to raise the Earth goddess, Prithvi or Bhudevi, from the cosmic oceans, while as Bhuvara, he has the head of a boar and the body of a human male. In iconographical depictions, he is shown standing with one foot placed on the serpent Adisesha, while he holds Bhudevi on his left shoulder or elbow.
Link copied!
In Hindu epic and Puranic literature, a sage who is the son of the sage Gautama and Ahilya. In the…
A non-Vedic ascetic movement that practised austerity and rejected domestic life. Sramana thinkers first conceptualised the philosophies of samsara (the…
In Hinduism, Kama is the god of love and desire. Some of his iconographical attributes are a bow made from…
A Hindu deity of war worshipped predominantly in southern India. The worship of Subrahmanya as Murugan is particularly popular in…
The largest of the eighteen major Puranas, it comprises over eighty-one thousand verses written honour of Skanda, the son of…
A term coined by the Mahayana Buddhist tradition to denote followers of the contrasting, more orthodox school of Buddhism. Literally…
The anthropomorphic representation of divine weapons in the Hindu pantheon. These personified weapons are depicted either in human form or…
A form of the Hindu deity, Shiva, in which he is shown with a kankala-danda (a staff bearing the bones…