Villagelore Part 9 by Pantaleao Fernandes
The deity that is found most frequently while traversing the forests or sacred groves is Gajalakshmi.
She is uniquely depicted carved in relief on a trapezoidal or semicircular slab mostly of the schist stone where the goddess Lakshmi is shown seated holding lotus buds in her hands. She is flanked on either side by two elephants, which shower her with pitchers of water. Musicians and devotees are shown in the lowermost portion of the icon. The elephants give the prefix Gaja to the goddess Lakshmi, and the icon becomes Gajalakshmi.
In different localities, one finds minor variations in the panels that show different sculptors and perhaps time periods. This deity is mostly referred to as Kelbai, Bhauka, and sometimes as Mahamaya or Sateri. Earlier, a semicircular stone, an iconic representations of Bhauka that was worshipped by the devotees have perhaps determined the shape of the
Gajalakshmi panels. Scholars suggest that this goddess is a celebration of nature and consider the elephants on the icon as a depiction of a monsoon cloud and that through the worship of Gajalaxmi, a relationship is created between the sky and the earth.
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