Nandi- The Vehicle of Lord Shiva – Brass Statue – Color Chola Color

Price: $109.00
(as of May 02, 2025 18:45:58 UTC – Details)

Product Description

For the followers of Shivaji’s iconography, it is impossible to overlook Nandi. Usually portrayed as the raging bull next to a form of Shivaji or the reclining one facing the lingam, Nandi is revered as His vahana (Sanskrit for ‘mount’). Often, a distinct murti of the bull is placed within the Shivaji temple in a shrine of its own, so that devotees could admire the brilliant workmanship of the sculpture. Also known as Nandikeshvara and Nandishwara, this beast is the personification of Shivaji’s vital life-force, the convergence of the creative and the destructive energies. There is an upapurana in Hindu literature named after him, the Nandipurana, where the socialist ideas of arogyadana (universal healthcare) and vidyadana (universal education) have been expounded in the eighth-ninth century.

The Mahapuranas abound with stories of Nandi’s prowess. He was born to the sage, Salankayana, whose austerities earned him the gift of his worthy son from Vishnuji Himself. Another version says that it was Silada he was born to as a son, who was also a sage and had performed an earth-shattering yajna to get a son. In the South, one comes across interesting iconographies of Nandi – Southern artisans give him the toned body of a human and a bull’s head, or a human head complete with the jatamukuta recurrent in Hindu iconography. Nandi is powerful enough to have cursed Ravana to be destroyed by an army of monkeys. His statues are ideally placed at the dakshinadvara (southern door).

Bronze sculpture of Nandi dating back to the Chola period, excavated from Kongu-Karnataka region

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Material: Brass Statue
Dimensions: 4.7 inch Height x 5.7 inch Width x 3.3 inch Depth
Weight: 1.2 kg