Shiva

Destruction of Daksha’s sacrifice and the death of Sati

The story of Shiva’s destruction of Daksha’s sacrifice narrates simultaneously the god’s journey from exclusion from Vedic sacrifice to inclusion in the Hindu pantheon. Daksha is a son of Brahma, one of the creators (a Prajapati), and the father of Sati, who is Shiva’s wife. Daksha holds a great sacrifice in honor of the gods, but the gods, or Daksha independently (depending on the telling), neglect to invite Daksha’s son-in-law, Shiva. Enraged by the slight, Shiva destroys Daksha’s sacrifice, in essence sacrificing the sacrifice and making it complete. The result of this act, despite its destructive treatment of a Vedic sacrifice, is that Shiva is firmly incorporated as a major Hindu deity.

Sati, however, is deeply insulted by her father’s exclusion of her husband from the sacrifice—so much so that, according to some accounts, she self-immolates, an act that is often cited as the mythological origin of sati, or widow burning (although, contrary to that practice, her husband Shiva remains very much alive). Dismayed by her death, Shiva weeps terribly as he carries her body. In some myths, Vishnu dismembers the corpse; in others, the gods in general do, and wherever the pieces of her body fall, they turn into places of worship, known as the Shakti Pithas, which are important sites for Shakti worship. Shiva, saddened by his consort Sati’s death, then goes into a long, deep meditation (tapas).

Burning of Kama and marriage of Parvati

While Shiva is deep in meditation, the goddess Parvati—the daughter of the mountain Himavat (Himalaya) and considered to be a reincarnation of Sati—engages in intense meditation to acquire Shiva as her husband, only to be foiled because Shiva is no longer interested in worldly affairs or marriage. Meanwhile, the gods are afflicted by the demon Taraka, and they require the son of Shiva and Parvati, to be called Skanda, to kill the demon. Indra, king of the gods, approaches Kama, god of desire, for help in diverting Shiva’s attentions from celibate meditation to desire for Parvati. When Kama shoots his flowery arrow of love to break Shiva’s meditation and draw his attention to Parvati, an angered Shiva opens his third eye and burns Kama to ashes. A distressed Rati, Kama’s wife and the personification of passion, performs penance and pleads with Shiva to bring her husband back to life. Shiva obliges, although he revives Kama in disembodied (ananga) form.

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The wedding of Shiva and Parvati is described as a grand affair attended by the gods. Afterward Shiva and Parvati engage in years of amorous play, as poetically described in 5th-century poet and playwright Kalidasa’s epic poem Kumarasambhava (“Birth of Kumara [Skanda]”). The gods, however, still needing to defeat the demon Taraka, interrupt the couple’s play. The six-headed Skanda is then born of Shiva’s semen, which is unbearable to all beings, and is taken up in the mouth of the god of fire, Agni, and transferred first to the river Ganges and then to six of the stars in the Pleiades cluster—the Krittikas—which are the wives of the celestial sages. In other variants, Skanda is born from Shiva’s semen, dropped into the Ganges, and then raised by the Krittikas—hence his alternate name Karttikeya.

The submarine mare

Just as Shiva’s semen needs to be contained to avoid harm to other gods, his power to destroy the universe is evident early but requires containment until the right moment. The fire of anger with which Shiva burned Kama threatens to burn out of control and destroy the universe. So the sages of the world go to Brahma, seeking refuge. Brahma manages to contain the fire of Shiva’s anger, places that fire inside a mare with a flaming mouth (vadavagni), and takes it to the ocean. The ocean emerges in the form of a man to speak with Brahma. Brahma requests that the ocean contain the mare with Shiva’s anger until the final dissolution of the world (pralaya). Shiva’s capacity to destroy is thus contained until the proper time.

Birth of Ganesha

As in many of the other stories, Shiva’s anger is a main catalyst of the birth of the elephant-headed god Ganesha. One of the best-known myths of Ganesha’s birth begins with Parvati taking a bath and longing for someone to keep Shiva from barging in on her, as was his habit. As she bathes, she kneads the dirt that she rubs off her body into the shape of a child, who comes to life. But when Shiva sees the handsome young boy, he (or one of his attendants) cuts off the child’s head. Parvati is deeply saddened by this act, and the gods request that Shiva find a replacement. When Shiva cuts off an elephant’s head to bestow it on the headless Ganesha, one of the tusks is shattered, and Ganesha is depicted holding the broken-off piece in one of his hands. According to this version of the myth, Ganesha is the child of Parvati alone—indeed, a child born despite Shiva’s negative intervention. Yet Ganesha is traditionally regarded as the child of both Shiva and Parvati. As the remover of obstacles, he is one of the most popular of Hindu deities, and he is traditionally worshipped prior to embarking on any endeavor or performing any ritual.

Bhairava

As his fierce form, Bhairava, Shiva’s affiliation with death, destruction, and cremation grounds comes to the fore. The most prominent Puranic myths of Bhairava associate him with the Kapalika tradition of Shaiva ascetics. According to these myths, the god Brahma, who is traditionally known to have four heads, originally had five. Stories then diverge in their details: In some, the fifth head makes insulting comments about Shiva; in others, Brahma’s fifth head is arrogant. In response, Shiva emanates Bhairava and commands him to remove Brahma’s insulting head. Bhairava removes Brahma’s fifth head with his thumbnail, but he is then guilty of killing a Brahmin—among the worst crimes a person can commit in Hinduism. The skull sticks to Bhairava’s hand, and, as he seeks penance for his sin, it becomes his begging bowl until it falls off in Varanasi at a location that later became a center for Bhairava worship and an important site for Hindu cremation practices.

Destruction of Tripura

Yet in some myths, Shiva’s fiery nature is necessary for defeating demons. The myth of Shiva’s destruction of the triple city (Tripura) tells of three fortified cities ruled by the asura brothers Tarakaksha, Kamalaksha, and Vidyunmali. Granted a boon by Brahma, the moving cities are impenetrable and can be destroyed only when aligned, once every thousand years. The demons take over the universe and morality erodes, necessitating divine action. When the moment arrives, Shiva fires a single arrow from the Pinaka bow (his special weapon), destroying the demons and symbolizing the triumph of good over evil.

Shiva’s blue throat

In contrast to these myths of Shiva’s destructive forms, other stories depict Shiva as the great protector. This role is especially clear in the story behind his blue throat, which earned him the name Nilakantha (“Blue Throat”). During the myth of the Samudra Manthana (“Churning of the Ocean”), as the gods and demons attempt to retrieve the amrita (elixir of immortality), using the naga Vasuki as a churning rope, Vasuki’s head vomits forth poison that threatens to fall into the ocean and contaminate the amrita. But Shiva takes the poison and holds it in his throat, a feat that saves the world but, as a side effect, turns his throat blue.

Descent of the Ganges

A similar myth illustrating Shiva’s protective role relates to his breaking the fall of the celestial Ganges River as it plummets from heaven to earth. The Ganges is the celestial river in heaven (sometimes identified with the Milky Way) but descends at the request of the sage Bhagiratha to redeem his ancestors. His ancestors were the 60,000 sons of Sagara (“Ocean”) who went in search of Sagara’s stolen sacrificial horse and dug deep into the subterranean region (creating the ocean) but annoyed the sage Kapila. Kapila cursed them, turned them into ash, and declared that they could be redeemed only by the celestial river. Bhagiratha journeys to the Himalayas and performs penance for 10,000 years. Shiva respects his meditation and becomes gracious, allowing the Ganges to descend from the sky. But out of a concern that the celestial river would crush the earth, Shiva catches the Ganges in his matted locks. Bhagiratha then continues his penance for another 10,000 years, until Shiva permits it to descend to the earth. This story illustrates both Shiva’s benevolence and his favorable treatment of those who engage in ascetic practice.

The crescent moon in his hair

Shiva’s hair hosts an image of the crescent moon, and the god is closely associated with the moon and Monday (Sanskrit: Somavara). According to a myth and astrology recounted in the epic Mahabharata, there are 27 nakshatras (lunar mansions), which are the daughters of Daksha. All the daughters are married to Chandra, the moon, but he favors only one of them, Rohini. When the other daughters complain to their father about the moon’s favoritism, Daksha curses the moon to wane and become emaciated. However, the moon’s dimmed status causes the herbs to dry up, which afflicts the animals, and they begin to waste away. In some versions of the myth, the gods ask Daksha to withdraw the curse, but instead he modifies it to make the moon wax and wane each month, which explains the lunar phases, and to spend equal time with his 27 wives, which explains the monthly cycle. In some tellings, such as in the Shiva Purana, it is Shiva who intervenes on the moon’s behalf, devises this solution, and becomes the moon’s protector, Someshvara (“Lord of the Moon”).

Lingam myths and interpretations

The representation of Shiva in the form of a lingam has multiple mythological roots with two distinct interpretations and many further variations. In some myths, the lingam is a pillar of fire and light and an abstract representation of the deity; in other myths, however, the lingam is Shiva’s phallus. The lingam is either abstract or physical. The tendency in modern Hinduism is to prefer the interpretation of the lingam as an abstract symbol. Even in the myths where it is more explicitly a phallus, there is a certain trepidation about this association that relates to the long-standing tension of Shiva as simultaneously erotic and ascetic, physical and divine, all too human and far beyond human.

Shiva’s lingam is clearly a phallus in the story of his encounter with sages in the Pine Forest. As these sages, sons of Brahma, are practicing asceticism, Shiva enters their encampment, meaning to show them grace, but he appears naked, covered in ash, with a frightening appearance while dancing and screaming in a terrifying manner. The wives of the sages, however, become enchanted by him. Angered by his behavior, the sages curse his lingam (phallus) to fall off. In other versions, Shiva chooses to remove his lingam. In a story in the Mahabharata, Brahma instructs Shiva to create creatures, which he does, but he finds them imperfect, so he hides in water. Becoming impatient, Brahma asks another creator being (a Prajapati) to do the job. Shiva later emerges from the water, finds the creatures created and thriving, and, in a rage, he tears off his lingam and throws it on the ground, declaring it now useless.

The story of the lingam as a pillar of light, often depicted as a lingodbhavamurti, begins with the gods Vishnu and Brahma debating their respective importance, each claiming to be the superior god. Shiva appears in the form of a blazing pillar to quell their pride. In response, Brahma takes the form of a swan and flies upward to see if he can find the top of the pillar, and Vishnu takes the form of a boar and dives below to find its source. Neither is successful, and both are compelled to recognize Shiva’s priority and superiority.

Following these dual interpretations, images of the lingam can also be either phallic or abstract aniconic pillars. In temples and in private shrines, Shiva is also worshipped in the form of the lingam, a cylindrical votary object that is often embedded in a yoni, or spouted dish. The yoni (also the Sanskrit word for “vulva”) represents Shakti, the female cosmic power. The union of lingam and yoni is said to symbolize the union of Shiva and Parvati and of the eternal process of creation and regeneration. Regardless of this sexual resonance in some texts and theologies, in modern Hinduism, lingams of Shiva are read as aniconic, representing Shiva’s divinity in an abstract way. That strand is centuries old, too; the images on lingodbhavamurtis portray Vishnu and Brahma seeking the farthest reaches of Shiva’s divine pillar of light.