An animal strongly associated with the god Shiva in Hindu iconography, particularly in his form as Pashupati, the "Lord of Beasts." In many of Shiva's four-armed images, the figure of a deer emerges from one of the upper arms, symbolizing his control over all life.
The musk deer is frequently used as a symbol for an ignorant, unenlightened person in Hindu bhakti (devotional) poetry.
According to this image, just as the deer does not recognize that the heady scent of musk comes from its own body, but rushes all over the forest in search of it, so are human beings ignorant of God inside and all around them, but searching for the divine outside themselves.
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