Sphinx at Arunachala

There are many religious and historical monuments at Arunachala but perhaps one of the most enigmatic are these wayside sphinxes that appear around the pradakshina road. Each sphinx stands next to a water tank (tirtham).

The sphinxes appear to have the head of a lion but, according to scholar Stella Kramrich, in fact are composed of three faces: the face of man, the face of the lion representing the Sun or Supreme Spirit, and the face of the dragon who, as the Destroyer of the Universe, stands for Transcendental Wisdom. Stella Kramrich further suggests that all three are superimposed on, and hence overwhelm the just discernible Deaths head underlying them.

Speculating further on the history and meaning of the sphinxes, M. Bose writes in her book, The Hill of Fire:

. . . Today, these enigmatic sphinxes are used as mere shrines at which pilgrims, after taking a bath in the tank, make their offerings to Arunachala. But did they have a more important function in the past? For their symbology suggest that in long-forgotten rites they may have been gateways to the Sun, places of initiation where the neophytes, after being cleansed of sin and animal nature, received the highest knowledge that led to immortality in the Sun.