Day 1 in Mumbai was a very informational and breath taking experience. The group visited Elephanta caves on an island called Gharapuri. In that island was a temple that locals no longer worshiped their gods. The temple is so historical that the state kept it open for tourists to visit and witness the ancient grounds. The Temple was hand carved and made completely out of stone. There are a few gods/idols that was carved into the temple. The most abundant carving was of the Hindu god, Shiva. Shiva is a very well popular and well known god in India. Shiva is known as one of the primary forms of God and also the king of other gods. He is known to have many forms. During the tour of this temple, we also learned that Shiva had a wife, Parvati, who he had two children with. Shiva is also known to be a creator and a destroyer. Something significant i found interesting during this tour was that Shiva had a third eye. It was said that he used his third eye to burn desire to ashes.
The temple itself is now ruins due to the fact that the temple was once used by Portuguese soldiers to practice shooting. Now most of the statues that were carved (seen in picture) are now missing parts of it. The missing parts was not restored because of what was used to build the temple and they also wanted to keep originality of the temple.
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| Shiva (Hindu god) |
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