A skeletal, three-legged sage and gana devoted to Shiva alone, who refused to honour the Goddess and tried to circumambulate the god by himself. Parvati merged with Shiva as Ardhanarishvara so the two could not be divided, a warning against separating Shiva from Shakti.

Where this term appears

• The Bull and the Beetle Treatise →

  In the crowd of the gaṇas there is a sage named Bhṛṅgi — gaunt to the point of being a walking skeleton, and in the oldest images propped on a third leg like a staff, because on two he could not stand.

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