Across, upwards, and inwards

It takes an hour by boat to get to Elephanta. Once on the island, you climb a set of 120 steps up the hill, to the cave that houses a fourteen hundred year old temple to Shiva.

There is something quite poetic about the idea of "crossing a sea, climbing a mountain, entering a cave" to see God. It is a journey across, upwards, and inwards, and the sculptures that await at the end are a magnificent reward.

First sighting of Elephanta Island. There are mangroves on the coast.

Shiva is such a paradoxical, puzzling God! In the first place, he is both male and female. He is angry and happy, forgiving and vengeful, creator and destroyer, an ascetic and a skilled lover. It doesn't make sense! Or perhaps it makes enormous sense, because we're all a bit like that?

In any case, Elephanta mirrors all of his contradictions with art that simply blows me away.

Panchamukha Shiva - Trimurti representing three aspects of Shiva

Ardhanarishwara - Shiva as Male and Female