Brahma, narrating the story about Sati’s marriage to Shiva in the Shiva Purana, notes that, “… On hearing these words of Lord Shiva adept in the divine sports I touched my head and in the same manner bowed to Shiva.
When I thus touched my head I assumed the shape of his vehicle, the bull.” This instance of Brahma transforming into Nandi relates to one of the eighteen forms of Shiva mentioned in the Shilparatna – the Vrishavahana, or the Lord Who Has the Bull for His Conveyance.
The particularly defining feature of this ‘madhuchista vidhana’ lost-wax bronze statue from Swamimalai that signifies the iconography of Shiva as Vrishavahanamurti is the manner in which his right hand is raised, in a posture which would rest against the hump of Nandi. Shiva’s form as sensuous male stylised in geometrical perfection, his body bending in a sinuous curve, his feet crossed on top of a lotus pedestal, and his left hand resting against his thigh in the ‘katyavalambita mudra’ – such an imagery presents the supreme destroyer of the cosmos in the form that the art historian Pramod Chandra, writing for the NGA Washington, said to be assumed ‘when blessing his devotees with freedom from the chain of existence and the privilege of remaining forever in his presence.’
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