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Course: Asian Art Museum > Unit 1
Lesson 2: Hinduism- Roots of Hinduism
- Beliefs of Hinduism
- Hinduism and the practice of faith
- Hindu temples
- Principal texts of Hinduism
- Principal deities of Hinduism
- The Hindu deity Shiva
- Hindu deity Shiva as destroyer of the three cities of the demons
- Hindu Deity Shiva in the Fierce form of Bhairava
- Hindu deity Vishnu
- The Hindu deities Vishnu and Krishna
- The Hindu deity Vishnu in the form of the man-lion Narasimha
- Festival of the Goddess Durga
- Hindu deity Durga victorious over the buffalo demon
- The Hindu deity Ganesha
- Brahmani
- Varanasi: sacred city
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The Hindu deity Shiva
The god Shiva is one of the main deities of Hindiusm. Shiva can take many forms, but is frequently depicted with unkempt hair, a third eye, and a trident. Temples to Shiva feature a lingam, a column representing the creative force. Learn more about Shiva on education.asianart.org.
Video transcript
god schewe can take many forms he can appear as a ferocious figure or he can also be depicted as a family man while Shiva has dreadlocks and often he's shown with a third eye on his forehead and he often carries the Trident he's always shown his body smeared with ashes and his hair unkempt and disheveled and bearing a garland of cobras he is represented as the great yogi and the great teacher Shiva may be represented in his symbolic forms such as the Linga or the phallus the Linga is represents the creative power you would recognize that a temple is dedicated to Shiva by the image of the Linga that you would see in the temple sanctuary and here we have got a very interesting object called three pure an taka that means the victory or the three cities and the Shiva is shown here in a as an archer in his victorious pose the legend tells us that by performing severe austerities three demon brothers received a gift of power so that they can build three indestructible cities one of gold in the heavens one of silver in the sky and one of iron in the earth thinking themselves invincible they ravaged both God and man but there was a stipulation that once in thousand years the three cities would join to become one and then it would be possible to destroy them if peers by a single arrow so the man and God petitioned Shiva and when the three cities became united he discharged his mighty arrow and destroyed the cities thus rescuing the world from the evil tyranny Oh