Trishula

Shiva's three-pointed mark

Puranic Shaivism makes the trishula Shiva's weapon and the mark of his images: three points later read as gunas or as creation, keeping, and ending — scholastic overlay on a spear-shape. The Mahabharata knows Shiva as the giver of terrible weapons; the trident is firmer in sculpture and Puranas than as a single named astra with a long forging scene. Do not collapse it into the Pāśupatāstra, a separate restricted missile. Cult is of Shiva. The bronze and stone trident is his sign, not a quest object with a find-spot.