“Somvat had seen a creature such as Sthunakarna only on the walls of Ileshwara’s temple. Images of such deformed beasts lined the northern wall just below images of the Apsaras. ‘Because the world belongs not just to beautiful creatures,’ said the Pujari. ‘Shiva loves them. He is the indifferent one, who looks beyond bodies, beautiful and ugly, male and female, young and old, at the suffering soul.”
