VHP's Custom-Designed Trishul

• Trident popular in Greece since Homer’s time 3,000 years ago
  
   
• The Greek sea god Poseidon is depicted carrying a trident 2,400 years ago, predating any known Indian representation
  
  
• The trishul first begins to appear in Buddhist and Jain temple art (100BC-401AD)
  
  
• The trishul surfaces in Mahabharata for the first time but historians can’t say for certain when it was inserted
   
• It becomes part and parcel of Shiva’s world in Shiv Purana in 11th or 12th century AD, around the time trishul-wielding temple militia is created
  
  
• The trishul appears in South Indian temple art in the 16th and 17th centuries
  
  
• Calendar art in late 19th century makes trishuls popular
  
  
• 2003: VHP borrows trishul diksha concept from Hindu Mahasabha

The Legal Angle

Under the Arms Act, the government can regulate or ban any article that can be adapted as a weapon, including knives and spears and anything sharp-edged with blades longer than 9" or wider than 2". On April 8, the Rajasthan government issued an order regulating the "distribution, acquisition, possession or carrying of double or multi-bladed sharp or pointed weapons...except in religious institutions...functions and processions where such weapon is customarily used".