Studies in Indian Art c13.s2.26

c13.s2.26

In the *Pañchamukhī* Śiva-liṅga, the symbolism of the Five Elements as the Five Face (*pañcha brahma*) is explicit. But the *Ekamukhī* form was a more subtle formula. Here the one face is taken to symbolise all the five senses or the Five Elements, all of which have their centres in the head as ears, eyes, nose, tongue and skin. The liṅga framing the head is explained in the *Liṅga Purāṇa* as the Invisible Reality called *avyakta* (*avyaktam liṅgam uchyate*, III. 1), which embodies and symbolises both life (*prāṇa*) and mind (*mānasatattva*). The two rings in the ears, described by Kālidāsa as *karṇāvasakta akṣasūtra* (*Kumārasambhava*, III. 46), and as shown in the present example, were also interpreted to signify the two *maṇḍalas*, viz., the transcendant and the immanent, the absolute and the relative, the *paramākāśa* and *daharākāśa*. The conception of Śiva offers a detailed formula of the creative principle or cosmogony as originally evolved in the Vedas and later elaborated in the Purāṇas. The images offer concrete iconographic solutions to the problem. The formless Liṅgam is the flaming Pillar of Fire that resides within each one of us as the *akṣara* or Imperishable *Prāṇa*, and the human is the gross material form in which life incarnates or manifests on the visible plane within the orbit of sense-experience.