Indiana Jones Wiki
Indiana Jones Wiki
Indiana Jones Wiki
7,714
pages
in: Artifacts

Sankara Stones

Sign in to edit

"There were five stones in the beginning. Over the centuries, they were dispersed by wars, sold off by thieves like you."
―Mola Ram, to Indiana Jones[src]

The Sankara Stones were five smooth-polished stones shaped like lingams, rounded columns used as a symbol of the fertility aspect of Shiva.

History[]

Origins and early uses[]

Sanskrit manuscript

A cloth depicting Sankara and Shiva.

According to legend, five stones were given to Sankara by the Hindu god Shiva on Mount Kalisa, along with the message that he should go forth and battle evil with them. The stones contained diamonds inside, which would glow when the stones were brought together, as a way to recount the legend of Shiva emerging from the fiery pillar. The diamonds could give warmth and life, but the stones could also be used for fiery destruction for those who betrayed Shiva.[2] As a legend claimed, the Sankara Stones could grant supernatural powers.[3]

Sankara used the stones to convert many in India to the worship of Shiva. After his death, however, the stones became lost, scattered by wars and sold on by mercenaries over hundreds of years. By the 1930s, two of these "Sankara Stones" sat buried underground beneath the palace of Pankot while a second pair managed to fall into the possession of a Thuggee high priest's son by the name of Mola Ram.[4] Some claimed the stones were once housed in the palace until the Thuggees captured it, forcing a Vishnu priest to hide them deep beneath the building before it fell to the Thuggees, with no one knowing about their fate.[5]

Rediscovery in the 20th century[]

The last of the five stones[1] believed to still exist[6] had ended up in a small village called Mayapore[1] located in central northern India,[7] brougth by the Sacred River before the times of the grandfather[8] of local shaman Marhan. It was revered by the people of Mayapore because it brought happiness and prosperity to the village. They called it Sivalinga or Shivalinga[1] (a sacred stone in a shrine that is supposed to protect a village)[9] and it served as the town's lingam. It had three notches on the side, representing the three levels of the universe according to their beliefs.[1] It served as Mayapore's symbol of worship for Shiva, its use for that purpose being an ancient Indian tradition.[3]

In 1935[10] Sivalinga was taken from Mayapore by members of the evil Thuggee cult, under the command of Mola Ram, who also kidnapped Mayapore's children. Without the stone, life in Mayapore withered and died.[1] At least a month later[10] American archaeologist Indiana Jones – who had recently survived a plane crash – ended up at the village and was sent to recover the stone at the behest of Mayapore's shaman Marhan and its chieftain. The Thuggee priest Mola Ram had brought his two and Sivalinga to Pankot and set them in an underground temple dedicated to the goddess Kali, located below Pankot Palace. With the final two stones lying in the caverns below the palace, Mola Ram forced the kidnapped children to work in a mine to locate the last two stones, believing that with the power of the stones, Kali Ma would rule the world.[1]

Stones

Indiana Jones claims the Sankara Stones from the Temple of Doom

The three located stones were placed in the alcoves of a large statue inside the temple, until they were stolen by Indiana Jones. While escaping the mines with the three stones, Jones was pursued by the Thuggee to a rope bridge located over a large chasm. Grappling with Ram for the stones, Jones began incanting in Sanskrit. The Sankara Stones responded and burned a hole through Jones' satchel. Two of them plummeted down into the crocodile-filled waters below,[1] sinking into its murky current and carried downriver somewhere away.[8] As Sivalinga broke free of the bag, Ram grabbed it before it was lost. Its holy glow was too painful for Ram to bear, however, and he fell to his death while Jones caught the stone. Instead of claiming it for himself for glory and fortune as he had said previously[1] in light of the other two stones being lost,[11] Jones decided that its home was back in Mayapore and he returned it to Marhan,[1] who placed it in its niche.[12]

Legacy[]

Unbeknownst to Indiana Jones or the surviving Thuggee, the remaining two Sankara Stones sat just a few feet away from an excavated area in the mine's wall.[4]

Eventually, The Ruling Council of Twenty-Three would become aware as Indy's participation in locating the Stones, regarding the whole affair as one of the three best known so-called adventures of Jones alongside those where he found the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail.[13]

By 1938, Indiana Jones had some replicas of the Sankara Stones in his office at Barnett College.[14]

Behind the scenes[]

In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, while fighting with Mola Ram for the possession of the Sankara Stones, Indiana Jones gets the stones to turn red hot by uttering "Tum Shiva ke vishwaas-ghati ho!", which is Hindi for "You are a betrayer of Shiva".[1]

In Indiana Jones and the Sky Pirates and Other Tales, the Sankara Stones are mispelled as "Shankara Stones".[13]

In 2018, gem miner and mineral aficionado Erik Rintamaki discovered a type of florescent rock in Michigan that he named "Yooperlite" (after the nickname for the people who live in the US state's upper peninsula). The website Nerdist, seeing the Yooperlites' similarity to the Sankara Stones, joked that scientists would be unable to say whether or not the rocks could be used to go forth and battle evil.[15]

Appearances[]

Non-canonical appearances[]

Sources[]

Notes and references[]

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
  2. ↑ The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Indiana Jones Activity Annual
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide
  5. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (TSR)
  6. ↑ The Indiana Jones Handbook
  7. ↑ Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide places Pankot Province in North-Central India, while Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures places further East.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom novel
  9. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom comic
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Sourcebook places the theft of the Sankara Stone at least a month before the events of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, setting such events in the same year.
  11. ↑ Indiana Jones: The Search For Buried Treasure
  12. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom junior novel
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Indiana Jones and the Sky Pirates and Other Tales
  14. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
  15. ↑ THESE GLOWING ROCKS LOOK LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF INDIANA JONES at Nerdist

External links[]

Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
More Fandoms