Dr. Lavanya Vemsani Ph.D.

There is perfect and conclusive evidence that the seal depicts Pashupati-Shiva. However, the colonialist scholars misinterpret and confuse folks. The comparison between Pashupati-Shiva seal and Proto-Elamite sitting bull shows you how they overlook the important details and isolate a single-most useless feature to mislead the discussion. 1. The Pashupati-Shiva seal shows most characteristic features of Hindu deities and commonly associated with Shiva- three faced- we see the front face and profiles of on both sides of the face. A characteristic feature of Shiva and Hinduism. Multiple faces and multiple hands are typical Hindu feature just like multiple names. Nobody can deny this is our god. What do they do? don’t take notice of multiple heads 2. The seal shows rhino, bull, tiger, elephant, and deer. Indian animals pashu (domestic animals like bull) and mriga (wild animals like deer and others) are always connected with Shiva. Pashupati-Shiva is the one providing food for all beings in the universe. Life and death depends on that- that’s the reason Shiva and Annapurna Devi represent the lord of death and life in Varanasi. What do they do? Don’t take notice of Indian animals. Don’t mention deer commonly associated with Shiva to mislead discussion. 3. The most difficult and dangerous yoga posture- Mulabandhasana with erect phallus. This is the most characteristic feature of Shiva, perfect yogi. What do they do? They don’t identify the yoga posture, don’t mention the phallus (lingam) the most characteristic feature of Pashupati-Shiva. 4. There is nothing in common between the Pashupati-Shiva seal and the proto-Elamite anthropomorphic bull seal. The Pashupati-Shiva depicts a multi-headed deity with typical features associated with him commonly known Indian animals. He is not anthropomorphic but wearing a horned crown commonly used to represent his position as lord of animals. So the Elamite bull couldn’t have much to do the Pashupati-Shiva image. That Elamite-bull just had his horns naturally, not a crown. The bull is not surrounded by any animals to show he is the “lord of animals”. Horns are inconsequential feature of the Pashupati-Shiva seal other than functional as a crown of the lord of animals (Pashupati), not so in the case of proto-Elamite seal. 5. Pashupati-Shiva is lord of all animals not just domestic animals. That’s the reason the mriga (deer) is always depicted with him as a symbol. They confuse you with animal motifs but that’s just a mistake to consider Pashupati-Shiva as lord of only few animals but not all. Pashupati is lord of animals; all animals. Our texts didn’t specify any animals as his select group. Discussion on Pashu is how the colonialist linguistics have mislead discussion on Sanskrit terms to derive the meanings they wanted and oppress us with their superiority of argumentative rhetoric. That’s how they derived ‘Aryans’ and imposed on us. Overall conclusion: First, Colonialist academics overlook important details and focus on marginal details like the horns in this depiction discussed in Pashupati-Shiva seal. They use marginal details to overstate their conclusion and override the obvious conclusion. Second, they over interpret isolated Sanskrit terms to supersede obvious concepts to impose a new unusual meaning to change commonly understood concepts. Please counter their superfluous interpretations, comparisons, and conclusions. This seal unquestionably shows Pashupati-Shiva.