Each Shiva temple has the determine of a white, humped bull reclining on a raised platform and dealing with the entrance door of the shrine in order that, in accordance with tradition, he might perpetually gaze on the lord in his symbolic type, the lingam. Nandi is taken into account to be considered one of Shiva’s chief attendants and infrequently is depicted in sculpture as a bull-mukhi dwarf figure. Nandi can be recognized in an entirely anthropomorphic type, known as variously Nandikeshvara or Adhikaranandin. Sculptures of him in human type, found on the entrance door of many Shaivite temples in South India, are steadily confused with pictures of the deity as a result of they're alike in such iconographic features because the third eye, crescent moon within the matted locks, and 4 arms, two of which hold the battle-ax and an antelope. Often a distinguishing function is that Nandi’s hands are pressed collectively in adoration. The respect proven the bull in trendy India is because of his association with Shiva. In sacred Hindu cities akin to Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh state, sure bulls are given the liberty to roam the streets. They're thought-about to belong to the lord, and they are