page_title: Lakulisha
section_title: Historicity
hierarchical_section_title: Lakulisha / Historicity
caption_attribution_description: English: Inscribed Pillar - Recording Installation of Two Shiva Lingas by Udita Acharya in the Reign of Chandragupta Vikramaditya - 380 CE - Rangeshwar Temple - ACCN 29-1931 - Government Museum - Mathura (detail)
context_page_description: Lakulisha was a prominent Shaivite revivalist, reformist and preceptor of the doctrine of the Pashupatas, one of the oldest sects of Shaivism.
  According to some scholars, Lakulisha is the founder of the Pashupata sect. While, another section argues that the Pashupata doctrine was already in existence before Lakulisha, and he was only its first formal preceptor.
  According to a tradition stated in the Linga Purana, Lakulisha is considered as the 28th and the last avatar of Shiva and the propounder of Yoga system. According to the same tradition, Lakulisha had four disciples, viz., Kaurushya, Garga, Mitra and Kushika.
  According to another tradition mentioned in the Avanti Khanda of the Skanda Purana, Lakulisha and his four disciples while passing Mahakalavana, installed a linga at that place, which was then known as Kayavarohaneshvara. The Kurma Purana, the Vayu Purana, and the Linga Purana predicted that Shiva would appear in the form of a wandering monk called 'Lakulin' or 'Nakulisha', and that he would have four disciples named, Kushika, Garga, Mitra, and Kanrushya, who would re-establish the cult of Pashupati and would therefore be called Pashupata.
context_section_description: Around the 1st century CE, the Lakulisha cult was established with iconographic representation of Shiva appearing with a club. Two hundred years later, Lakulisha was accepted as an avatara of Shiva.
  A pillar erected by Chandragupta II at Mathura in 380 CE states that a ‘Guruvayatana’ (Abode of the Gurus) was established by certain Uditacharya, who was 4th in descent from a teacher of Pashupata sect named Parashara, who in turn was 6th in descent from Kushika. If this Kushika is one of the four disciples of Lakulisha as described in the Linga Purana, the latter must have existed around 125 CE.
  Renowned epigraphist John Faithfull Fleet contends  that in the North India, the Kushana emperors like Huvishka (140 CE) replaced the pictures of Hercules on their coins with ones of Shiva, and of Heracles with images of Lakulisha.
  In the 4th century CE, beginning with the reign of Chandragupta II, icons and representations of Lakulisha have been frequently found, which portray him as a naked yogi with a staff in his left hand and a citron (matulinga) in his right, with his penis erect (Urdhvalinga/ Urdhva-reta: Aroused linga representing life-force), and either standing or seated in the lotus posture. At about the beginning of the 11th century, the Lakulisha cult shifted its activities to southern India.
  A sect of Pasupata ascetics, founded by Lakulisa (or Nahulisa), is attested by inscriptions from the 5th century and is among the earliest of the sectarian religious orders of Shaivite Hinduism.
caption: Early Gupta relief on the Lakulisa pillar, inscribed Gupta era "year 61", 380 CE.
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