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EleazarV

(14 posts)
Wed Jul 25, 2012, 11:42 AM Jul 2012

Could the city of Petra be an ancient Shiva temple?

http://www.viewzone.com/petra.html

This unusual array of symbolic elements associated with the chief god of the Nabataeans, Dushara, may have confounded historians, but to anyone familiar with the symbolism of the Vedic deity Shiva, the similarities between Dushara and Shiva will be palpable.

Shiva is still worshipped all over India in the form of a black block of stone known as a Shiva Linga. A Shiva Linga, which is essentially a 'mark' or 'symbol' of Shiva, sometimes appears as an unworked block of stone, much like the idol of Dushara in the temple of Al Deir; but typically it is represented by a smooth, rounded stone which resembles some of the rounded, dome-shaped, baetyls that we find in Petra.


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Could the city of Petra be an ancient Shiva temple? (Original Post) EleazarV Jul 2012 OP
I wonder. JDPriestly Oct 2012 #1

JDPriestly

(57,936 posts)
1. I wonder.
Mon Oct 15, 2012, 06:41 PM
Oct 2012

The Black Stone (Arabic: الحجر الأسود? al-Ḥajar al-Aswad, Urdu: سنگ سیاہ Sang-e-Sayah) is the eastern cornerstone of the Kaaba, the ancient stone building toward which Muslims pray, in the center of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It is revered by Muslims as an Islamic relic which, according to Muslim tradition, dates back to the time of Adam and Eve.[1]

The stone was venerated at the Kaaba in pre-Islamic pagan times. It was set intact into the Kaaba's wall by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the year 605 A.D., five years before his first revelation. Since then it has been broken into a number of fragments and is now cemented into a silver frame in the side of the Kaaba. Its physical appearance is that of a fragmented dark rock, polished smooth by the hands of millions of pilgrims. Islamic tradition holds that it fell from Heaven to show Adam and Eve where to build an altar. Although it has often been described as a meteorite, this hypothesis is now uncertain.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Stone

I have read that the shrine of the Muslim religion was taken over by Muslims at some point but was, prior to that time, a shrine of what Muslims consider to be pagan religions.

Is there any link or similarity?

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