Okay, at this point I have to admit that my ability to follow our guide's narrative breaks down a bit. We are visiting a shrine to Vishnu. This is the Varaha Cave Temple.These are actually monuments now, not active shrines, so it's not requitred to take your shoes off inside.
Again, these are monlithic granite sculptures from the Pavalla kings in the 7th century.
The sculptures here show several sides of Vishnu. Now Vishnu is the preserver; he's the diety that saves the Earth when it's in trouble. In this capacity he takes many forms, or incarnations. In the West, sometimes we notice that some of our Christian traditions have pagan elements. Like the Yule Log or the Easter rabbits. The thinking is that popular elements were absorbed into Christianity to help it's spread. People could do what they always did on the Winter Solstice, but now it was a Jesus thing.
I wonder if Vishnu has a similar thing going. Like you have the story of Rama, but all of a sudden he's Vishnu at the end. In his ninth incarnation he's actually Buddah himself. I'm no theologian, and I know very little about this culture or religious history. Or my own for that matter. I'm just observing that he takes on a lot of different aspects.
Like for instance he takes animal form sometimes. At one point he was a fish in a story that is similar to Noah and the Ark. After that he was a turtle. Here he's a boar who used his tusks to raise up the earth which had sunk into the sea. Our guide told us he's holding his wife Laksmi, the goddess of fortune, but it might make more sense if it was the earth goddess Bhumi, since that's what the Boar-Vishnu did. But like I said, my understanding of this is very tentative and I think I'm mixing up the details.
And I have to say, I completely lost the thread on this one. This gal is summoning elephants for some reason I think. There were carvings of Vishnu holding up the roof of a saving people and doing some fighting.
So, with a tentative theological grasp on things we turn our attention to Krishna's Butter Ball.
Our guide says, "Yes, you know, Krishna, he like all butter so this Krishna's Butter Ball". It's a giant rock balanced on the side of a hill. Our guide joked that it was held in place by Super Glue.
But it's a nice spot where families come and picknick on the grass. There was a small active Ganesh temple up the road as well. So you go and have your picture taken holding up the rock and there are fun things going on around. Like a guy with a parakeet wearing a feathered crown you could take snaps of for cash and ladies selling strange souvenirs like sticks with glitter on them.
The kids had found that on the smooth side of the hill you could slide down. No fool, Mike wasted no time sliding down as well, much to the delight of the other tourists.
I bought a souvenir carved rock after being stalked by a hawker and we piled back in the car for the final stop on our tour: the Shore Temple.
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