As a temple emblem the Trishula travelled with Shaivism itself, the branch of Hinduism centred on Shiva, into every region where that tradition took root across South and Southeast Asia, appearing in temple architecture, in the hands of stone and bronze icons, and as a standalone devotional object planted at temple entrances and carried by ascetics associated with Shiva. Durga's use of the same weapon in her own iconography, where she carries it among the array of weapons given to her by the gods for her battle with the buffalo demon Mahishasura, extends the symbol from Shiva specifically to a wider circle of deities understood as drawing on his power or sharing his domain, and Flood notes this kind of attribute-sharing, a weapon or emblem moving between a god and a closely associated goddess, as a recurring feature of how Hindu iconography marks family and power relationships between deities rather than treating each god's attributes as strictly exclusive to that one figure.
Ascetics within Shaiva traditions, particularly certain orders of Naga sadhus, carry a physical trishula as a personal marker of religious identity and, in some lineages, as an actual weapon of self-defence during pilgrimage, a living devotional and practical use running alongside the emblem's purely iconographic role on temples and icons.