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Jay are
11 July 2008, 06:34 PM
During my last visit to India... My colleagues and I were together and the question came up "why the majority of the Lingas in the South are black and the majority in the North are white?". We had all had some sort of speculations on why, but no one knew for sure.

I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this or knows if there is a reason behind this.

Thanks,
Jay

sarabhanga
12 July 2008, 08:40 AM
Namaste Jay,

I don’t believe that the premise is actually true.

Jay are
12 July 2008, 08:14 PM
I couldn't tell you for sure as most of my travels have been in the south... it could also be the places I go???? I couldn't tell you for sure. But the question was raised by someone that lived/grew up in the Northern part of India... which got me thinking about it.

jaya_narayana
29 July 2008, 12:00 AM
namaste

i have seen black lingas in many temples in Kashi so i'm not quite sure there really are more white lingas in the north. if there is a higher ratio of black in the south, maybe it has to do with the type or resources available?

rudrasena
03 August 2008, 04:13 PM
hello

there is a simple reason for this

northern lingams are built with white marble

southern ones are built with granite or other stone which is dark.

the practice of using white marble for construction is recent as i was told by someone.

http://banda.nic.in/kali.htm

scroll down, you'll see a black lingam. this is in UP. you must be talking about recent temples where they use white marble to fashion lingams out of.

rudrasena
03 August 2008, 04:17 PM
jaya narayana is right, there are a lot more black (granite) lingams in kashi because those are relatively old temples. north does not contain as many old temples as south since many were destroyed by muslims. so the new ones they build are in marble. hence the marble lingams.