TYPE: Demonic Deity
ORIGIN: Hindu (Puranic)
INFORMATION: Regarded as a form of the god Siva possessing five faces, each face having three-eyes. Depicted with the naked body of an ascetic, wearing a necklace of snakes. Shrines symbolize the god with a stone, its top painted red and usually placed beneath a tree. Pancanana is worshiped extensively in Hindu villages throughout Bengal where women make invocations and anoint the stones, particularly when sickness strikes. There is a belief that children in the throes of epilepsy have been seized by the god.