The stone collector

They call him the Stone Man or Kalmanidhan because he loves to collect fossils. To me, he is a reminder that not everyone in India regards these stones as religious icons but values their scientific significance. As A.R.K.Arun also calls the ones he collected from Nepal, "Saligrams", but remembers to explain their mundane geological provenance.

Where are the fossils in India?

I'd always wondered that. Now I realise the answer was (literally) at my doorstep back in Delhi. Like most other mysterious and inexplicable objects, fossils too have been venerated in certain forms of Hinduism.

That's what a Shaligram Shila is. An Ammonite fossil. If it happens to be shaped like a phallus or conch or other yantra relating to Vishnu (one of the more ancient deities) then it has been preserved in a temple. A rather more scriptural discussion and website here:

A Saligrama – at least according to geological notion – is believed to be a flintified siliceous much-eroded ammonite shell – found only in the high Himalayan rivers and more especially in the river Gandaki, one of the tributes of the Ganges, which flows through Nepal. It is usually a rounded, well-polished stone, having at times one or several holes with visible spiral grooves inside of them, resembling the chakra. It is on account of this peculiar configuration, that a Saligrama is considered as the symbol of Vishnu.

In this South Indian temple of the turtle, there exists a fossilised giant tortoise. It is the only temple of its kind (or extant one anyway, the Meso-american ancients had their version of temples to the turtle).

Some examples of temple fossils:

NARSIMHA SILA

CHATURATMA DASA's excellent collection

Many images here

Apparently you can join a pilgrimage to Nepal or the Himalayas organised for the purpose of finding Shaligram Silas. One excellent prospect being the Kali Gandaki river bed. Hmm. If only I had known...