Pashupati(Sanskrit: "lord of animals") is a god associated with animals and nature. He arose from the Mohenjo-daro culture of India. He is a stag-horned god, much like the CelticCernunnos. Sometimes connections have been drawn from Pashupati to Shiva, a later, Hindu supreme God, with Pashupati as the forerunner, so to speak.
Pashupati is the HornedGod of the Indus Valley, of the great Harappan city culture that developed from a village culture approximately 6000 years ago, in northern India and what is now Pakistan.
Although Pashupati is holding nothing which indicates an association with fertility, he does display an erect penis, a symbol of what must, at least in part, be his association with fertility.
Pashupati'shorns also share moon symbolism and in the later form of Shiva, Goddess symbolism can still be found on the head.
Shiva is worshipped here as Pashupati, lord of beasts, who as protector of all living creatures is also the patron deity of Nepal.
Pashupati has been patron deity of the Kathmandu Valley since the early 7th c.
At the time of the three city-kingdoms Pashupati shrines were erected in Bhaktapur and Kathmandu; in Patan an existing shrine, the Khumbeshvara Temple, becamed linked specifically with the god.
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