Editing Yoni (section)

== Iconography and temples ==
Within [[Shaivism]], the sect dedicated to the god [[Shiva]], the Shakti is his consort and both have aniconic representations: lingam for Shiva, yoni for Shakti. The yoni iconography is typically represented in the form of a horizontally placed round or square base with a lipped edge and an opening in the center usually with a cylindrical lingam. Often, one side of this base extends laterally, and this projection is called the ''yoni-mukha''.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Smith |first1=H. Daniel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q3_XAAAAMAAJ |title=Handbook of Hindu gods, goddesses, and saints: popular in contemporary South India |last2=Mudumby Narasimhachary |year=1997 |page=17|publisher=Sundeep Prakashan |isbn=978-81-7574-000-6 }}</ref> An alternate symbol for yoni that is commonly found in Indic arts is the [[Nelumbo nucifera|lotus]], an icon found in temples.<ref name="JonesRyan2006p516" />

The yoni is one of the sacred icons of the Hindu Shaktism tradition, with historic arts and temples dedicated to it. Some significant artworks related to yoni include the [[Lajja Gauri]] found in many parts of India and the [[Kamakhya Temple]] in Assam. Both of these have been dated to the late 1st millennium CE, with the major expansion of the Kamakhya temple that added a new sanctum above the natural rock yoni attached to an older temple being dated to the 16th-century Koch dynasty period.<ref name="Ramos2017p45">{{Cite book |last=Ramos |first=Imma |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FRhdDgAAQBAJ |title=Pilgrimage and Politics in Colonial Bengal: The Myth of the Goddess Sati |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-351-84000-2 |pages=45–57}}</ref>

===Lajja Gauri===
[[File:6th century Lajja Gauri relief from Madhya Pradesh India, lotus head with female body.jpg|thumb|6th-century Lajja Gauri icon from [[Madhya Pradesh]]. In this and other early icons, her head is symbolically substituted with a large lotus-flower, her yoni visible in the depicted splayed position as if she is giving birth.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bolon |first=Carol Radcliffe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MIZADNu6U-MC |title=Forms of the Goddess Lajja Gauri in Indian Art |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-271-04369-2 |pages=5–6}}</ref>]]
The [[Lajja Gauri]] is an ancient icon that is found in many Devi-related temples across India and one that has been unearthed at several archaeological sites in South Asia. The icon represents yoni but with more context and complexity. According to the Art Historian Carol Bolon, the Lajja Gauri icon evolved over time with increasing complexity and richness. It is a fertility icon and symbolizes the procreative and regenerative powers of mother earth, "the elemental source of all life, animal and plant", the vivifier and "the support of all life".<ref name=bolon1997/> The earliest representations were variants of aniconic pot, the second stage represented it as the three-dimensional artwork with no face or hands but a lotus-head that included yoni, chronologically followed by the third stage that added breasts and arms to the lotus-headed figure. The last stage was an anthropomorphic figure of a squatting naked goddess holding lotus and motifs of agricultural abundance spread out showing her yoni as if she is giving birth or sexually ready to procreate.<ref name="Ramos2017p50">{{Cite book |last=Ramos |first=Imma |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FRhdDgAAQBAJ |title=Pilgrimage and Politics in Colonial Bengal: The Myth of the Goddess Sati |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-351-84000-2 |pages=50–57}}</ref><ref name="bolon1997">{{Cite book |last=Bolon |first=Carol Radcliffe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XW0fPQAACAAJ |title=Forms of the Goddess Lajjā Gaurī in Indian Art |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |year=1997 |isbn=978-81-208-1311-3 |pages=1–19}}</ref><ref name="Rodrigues2003p272">{{Cite book |last=Rodrigues |first=Hillary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KUlNAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA272 |title=Ritual Worship of the Great Goddess: The Liturgy of the Durga Puja with Interpretations |publisher=State University of New York Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-7914-5400-8 |pages=272–273}}</ref> According to Bolon, the different aniconic and anthropomorphic representations of Lajja Gauri are symbols for the "yoni of Prithvi (Earth)", she as womb.<ref name="bolon1997p40">{{Cite book |last=Bolon |first=Carol Radcliffe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MIZADNu6U-MC |title=Forms of the Goddess Lajja Gauri in Indian Art |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-271-04369-2 |pages=40–47, 54}}</ref>

The Lajja Gauri iconography – sometimes referred to by other names such as Yellamma or Ellamma – has been discovered in many South Indian sites such as the [[Aihole]] (4th to 12th-century), [[Nagarjunakonda]] (4th century Lajja Gauri inscription and artwork), [[Balligavi]], [[Elephanta Caves]], [[Ellora Caves]], many sites in [[Gujarat]] (6th century), central India such as [[Nagpur]], northern parts of the subcontinent such as [[Bhaktapur]] (Nepal), Kausambi and many other sites.<ref name="Bolon2010p67">{{Cite book |last=Bolon |first=Carol Radcliffe |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MIZADNu6U-MC |title=Forms of the Goddess Lajj? Gaur? in Indian Art |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-271-04369-2 |pages=67–70}}</ref>

===Kamakhya Temple===
The Kamakhya temple is one of the oldest ''shakta pithas'' in South Asia or sacred pilgrimage sites of the Shaktism tradition.<ref name="Urban2009p2" /> Textual, inscriptional and archaeological evidence suggests that the temple has been revered in the Shaktism tradition continuously since at least the 8th-century CE, as well as the related esoteric tantric worship traditions.<ref name="Ramos2017p45" /><ref name="Urban2009p2" /> The Shakta tradition believes, states Hugh Urban – a professor of Religious Studies primarily focusing on South Asia, that this temple site is the "locus of goddess' own yoni".<ref name="Urban2009p2">{{Cite book |last=Urban |first=Hugh B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VKv3AgAAQBAJ |title=The Power of Tantra: Religion, Sexuality and the Politics of South Asian Studies |publisher=I.B.Tauris |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-85773-158-6 |pages=2–11, 35–41}}</ref>

[[File:Kamakhya Temple, Guwahati.jpg|thumb|8th-century Kamakhya Temple, Guwahati, [[Assam]]: its sanctum has no ''[[murti]]'', but houses a rock with a yoni-shaped fissure with a natural water spring. It is a major [[Shaktism]]-tradition pilgrimage site.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Biles |first1=Jeremy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9zxICgAAQBAJ&pg=PT81 |title=Negative Ecstasies: Georges Bataille and the Study of Religion |last2=Kent Brintnall |publisher=Fordham University Press |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-8232-6521-3 |page=81}}</ref>]]
The regional tantric tradition considers this yoni site as the "birthplace" or "principal center" of tantra.<ref name="Urban2009p2" /> While the temple premises, walls and mandapas have numerous depictions of goddess Kamakhya in her various roles, include those relating to her procreative powers, as a martial warrior, and as a nurturing motherly figure (one image near the western gate shows her nursing a baby with her breast, dated to 10th-12th century). The temple sanctum, however, has no idols.<ref name="Ramos2017p45" /> The sanctum features a yoni-shaped natural rock with a fissure and a natural water spring flowing over it.<ref name="Ramos2017p45" /><ref name="Urban2009p2" /> The Kamakhya yoni is linked to the Shiva-Sati legend, both mentioned in the early puranic literature related to Shaktism such as the ''Kalika Purana''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Urban |first=Hugh B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VKv3AgAAQBAJ |title=The Power of Tantra: Religion, Sexuality and the Politics of South Asian Studies |publisher=I.B.Tauris |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-85773-158-6 |pages=31–37}}</ref>

Every year, about the start of monsoons, the natural spring turns red because of iron oxide and ''sindoor'' (red pigment) anointed by the devotees and temple priests. This is celebrated as a symbol of the menstruating goddess, and as the [[Ambubachi Mela]] (also known as ''Ambuvaci'' or ''ameti''), an annual fertility festival held in June.<ref name="Ramos2017p45" /><ref name="Urban2009p170">{{Cite book |last=Hugh B. Urban |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VKv3AgAAQBAJ |title=The Power of Tantra: Religion, Sexuality and the Politics of South Asian Studies |publisher=I.B.Tauris |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-85773-158-6 |pages=170–171}}</ref> During Ambubachi, a symbolic annual menstruation course of the [[goddess]] [[Kamakhya]] is worshipped in the [[Kamakhya Temple]]. The temple stays closed for three days and then reopens to receive [[pilgrim]]s and worshippers. The sanctum with the yoni of the goddess is one of the most important pilgrimage sites for the Shakti tradition, attracting between 70,000 and 200,000 pilgrims during the ''Ambubachi Mela'' alone from the northeastern and eastern states of India such as West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. It also attracts yogis, tantrikas, sadhus, aghoris as well as other monks and nuns from all over India.<ref name="Ramos2017p45" /><ref name="Urban2009p170" />

===Yantra===
In esoteric traditions such as tantra, particularly the Sri Chakra tradition, the main icon (yantra) has nine interlocking triangles. Five of these point downwards and these are consider symbols of yoni, while four point upwards and these are symbols of linga. The interlocking represents the interdependent union of the feminine and masculine energies for the creation and destruction of existence.<ref name="JonesRyan2006p516" />

===Southeast Asia===
Yoni typically with linga is found in historic stone temples and panel reliefs of Indonesia,<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kinney |first1=Ann R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sfa2FiIERLYC |title=Worshiping Siva and Buddha: The Temple Art of East Java |last2=Marijke J. Klokke |last3=Lydia Kieven |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-8248-2779-3 |pages=39, 132, 243}}</ref> Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thompson |first=Ashley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oUL7CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT89 |title=Engendering the Buddhist State: Territory, Sovereignty and Sexual Difference in the Inventions of Angkor |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-317-21819-7 |page=89}};<br />{{Cite book |last=Pawakapan |first=Puangthong R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XKzhAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA39 |title=State and Uncivil Society in Thailand at the Temple of Preah Vihear |publisher=Institute of Southeast Asian Studies |year=2013 |isbn=978-981-4459-90-7 |page=39}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hubert |first=Jean-François |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3oMqrqSp1W4C&pg=PA52 |title=The Art of Champa |publisher=Parkstone |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-78042-964-9 |pages=29, 52–53}}</ref> In [[Cham language|Cham]] literature, yoni is sometimes referred to as ''Awar'', while the linga is referred to as ''Ahier''.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hall|first=Kenneth R.|title=A history of early Southeast Asia: maritime trade and societal development, 100-1500|date=2011|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-7425-6762-7|location=Lanham, Md.|oclc=767695245}}</ref><ref name="hardy103">{{Cite book|title=Champa and the archaeology of Mỹ Sơn (Vietnam)|date=2009|publisher=NUS Press|author=Andrew Hardy |author2=Mauro Cucarzi |author3=Patrizia Zolese |isbn=978-9971-69-451-7|location=Singapore|oclc=246492836}}</ref>