Gangeshwar Temple Cave

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 28/03/2016

A modified natural, wave-cut temple cave sacred to Shiva, situated on the beach below Fudam village, is praised as a tourist attraction (DIU s.a. ca. 1998): »The gentle sea waves offering their obeissance to the Shiva lingas in stone have a mystic aura around them in the cave temple of Gangeshwar where Lorad [sic! for: Lord, better: Lord of the River] makes his presence felt.« The so-called »cave temple« (a temple excavated to represent a cave) was found (24th December 1998) to be neither a cave nor a rock-cut temple but a temple cave (a cave used as a temple) represented by a wave-cut, tidal notch (undercut wall) on the shoreline. Naturally, the "sea waves" are as "gentle" as wave action can be (e.g. roaring) and their "obeissance" might also be rendered as tidal erosion. WARD (1988: 310) noted »… a white Nandi bull … draped in a fetching pink sari and garlanded. … steps down towards the shore, and the roar of the sea makes a dramatic aural background to this primaeval carn, where 5 yonis and 5 lingams [of allochthonous rock] are set in a flat mosaic floor, below 19 steps and a five-headed cobra squirming in blue [painted] stone set into the living rock wall …«