the solid mass of the roof. The three sides of the deep pit which formed the temple courtyard were subsequently carved into pillared cloisters, which provided a richly sculptured procession path, and a series of splendid chapels, from whose dimly-lit recesses Siva's snow-white palace could be seen glittering in the sunlight, for the sculpture, as usual, was finished with a fine coat of highly polished chunam.
Passing through the gopuram,[1] with its walls battlemented like the entrance of a royal palace (Pl. XXIV), one passes over a bridge to a detached two-storied shrine dedicated to Siva's bull, Nandi, and placed at the entrance to the main courtyard. On either side a stately carved monolith, nearly 50 feet high, serving as the ensign of royalty, bears Siva's trident, the symbol of his threefold qualities,[2] on the summit.
The bull is the symbol of Siva as the Creator, connecting the Saiva with those traditions of very remote antiquity when the year began with the sun's entrance into the constellation of Taurus, which was worshipped as the bull ploughing his way among the stars. There was a tradition current in Babylonia that the human race was born under Taurus, and we have seen already how the Buddhists adopted the same zodiacal sign to mark the Nativity of the Buddha (p. 32). The bull is also sacred because he wears Siva's moon-crest on his head. Nandi in the Saiva ritual corresponds to Brahmā the Creator. His shrine, like Brahmā's, has doors on all four sides facing the cardinal points. In the great Siva temple at Elephanta a splendid image
