Editing Yoni (section)

===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>