Devalok
In stone and bronze · 2 tellings · South India

The so-called Trimurti cave at Mahabalipuram

Three Pallava shrines on one platform: Shiva in the centre, Vishnu on the right, and a disputed left shrine read as Brahma by Vogel but as Subrahmanya or Brahmasasta by later scholars; a Durga panel stands beside.

Who is in it

Places: Trimurti cave, Mahabalipuram

The story, beat by beat

  1. Three shrines are cut side by side into the rock with no front hall.
  2. The central shrine holds Shiva, guarded by doorkeepers with club and lance.
  3. The right shrine holds Vishnu with discus and conch.
  4. The left shrine holds a figure without the three heads that would mark Brahma.
  5. Beside the group Durga stands on the severed head of the buffalo demon.

iconography supremacy

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Scholarly

Scholarly reading (Puratattva summary)

South India · Mamallapuram, Tamil Nadu Shaiva

The heritage-documentation reading follows the scholars: the inscription naming Malla ties the cave to Narasimhavarman I; the centre shrine is Shiva and the right Vishnu; the left figure lacks Brahma's three heads, which led Dubreuil to propose Subrahmanya and Gopinatha Rao to name him Brahmasasta, the form in which the young god humbled Brahma — a reading Lockwood and Nagaswamy share. The caption the site should use is 'the so-called Trimurti cave (left shrine disputed)'.

What is different here:

Base reading: not a Trimurti set but Shiva, Vishnu and (probably) Subrahmanya.

Mamallapuram Trimurti Cave — Puratattva

Temple tradition

Government tourism presentation

South India · Mamallapuram All traditions

Official tourism pages describe the seventh-century cave under Narasimhavarman I simply as three shrines to Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, without noting the scholarly dispute over the left shrine.

What is different here:

Presents the popular Brahma–Vishnu–Shiva identification uncaveated.

Trimurti Cave Temple, Mamallapuram — Incredible India

Sources: Mamallapuram Trimurti Cave — Puratattva; Trimurti Cave Temple, Mamallapuram — Incredible India

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How a tradition frames it

One being, three functions: the Trimurti idea

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Harihara: Vishnu and Shiva in one body

Vishnu and Shiva are shown as one figure divided down the middle.
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The Elephanta bust: Trimurti or Sadashiva?

A seven-metre three-faced bust fills the south wall of Elephanta's Cave 1.
Origin

Brahma born from Shiva's right side

Shiva alone exists before the world.
Origin

Saraswati: daughter, consort, or both

Brahma's body splits into a male and a female half.
Legend

The fifth head and the skull that would not fall

Brahma grows a fifth head, and with it pride or a false word.
Legend

The ketaki lie and the curse of no worship

Brahma and Vishnu argue over which of them is greater.