~ madhubani painting: Shiva as a great yogi ~
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Shiva is known as maha-deva or the great god. The myths of Shiva represent him in a number of ways that include the polar types of accomplished yogi who withdraws from the world in order to engage in deep meditation and the family man who has a wife and children. Here he is wide-eyed as if coming out of his meditative state into full awareness of the world. In the lower foreground is his animal vehicle, the bull Nandi.
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