vahana
वाहन vāhanaThe animal mount of a deity (Nandi the bull for Shiva, Garuda for Vishnu, the lion for Durga), which both identifies and characterises the god.
Where this term appears
- How to Read a Murti Deities
The animal at the base Look next at the feet, because almost every deity travels on a vahana , an animal mount, and the mount is both an identifier and a characterisation.
- Who is Bhairava? Deities
Bhairava's vāhana , his mount, is the śvāna , the dog, an animal the orthodox world treats as impure and the cremation ground knows as a familiar.
- Who is Ganesha? Deities
Beneath him, almost always, is a mouse, the mushika , his vahana or mount.
- The Bull and the Beetle Treatise
He is one of the most layered beings in the entire retinue, and following what he is teaches you how a single attendant can hold many roles at once. He begins as the vehicle , the vāhana .
- The Classes of the Gods Treatise
The mount as a member of the court One last class deserves naming here, because it runs across every deity we have met and we have so far seen only in pieces: the vāhana , the mount.
- The Temple Is a Cosmos Treatise
A Hindu temple is not merely a house for a single deity — it is a scale model of the whole peopled cosmos, and its sculpture is a systematic map of the divine…