Lord Shiva

The name Shiva means 'auspicious' or 'kind'. In the Rigveda the storm god Rudra is both feared and implored for healing, and appeals to him in times of trouble are joined with praise of his great power. The Shatarudriya hymn of the Yajurveda (the Sri Rudram) addresses Rudra by many names and gives him the epithet Shiva, and the Shvetashvatara Upanishad identifies Rudra-Shiva with the supreme reality, Brahman. Over the following centuries the Puranas, especially the Shiva Purana and the Linga Purana, gathered the stories through which most devotees know him today.

Popularly Shiva is the third god of the Trimurti: Brahma creates, Vishnu sustains and Shiva dissolves. Dissolution here is not cruelty. It is the clearing away of what is worn out so that creation can begin again, much as night prepares for dawn. For the Shaiva traditions Shiva is not one of three but the one Lord who performs all five cosmic acts: creation, preservation, dissolution, concealment and grace.

He holds opposites together. He is the yogi sitting in meditation on Kailash and also the householder with Parvati and their children. He is the fierce Bhairava and Mahakala, Lord of Time, and also Bholenath, the 'simple lord' who is pleased by a little water and a bilva leaf. As Ardhanarishvara he is half male and half female, showing that Shiva and Shakti cannot be separated.

His names describe these sides of him: Mahadeva (great god), Shankara and Shambhu (bringer of peace and well-being), Neelakantha (blue-throated), Pashupati (lord of all creatures), Gangadhara (bearer of the Ganga), Chandrashekhara (moon-crested), Tryambaka (three-eyed), Vishwanath (lord of the universe) and Nataraja (king of dance).

Every part of a Shiva murti or picture carries meaning, and devotees read these images as teachings. The explanations below are the ones most often given in the tradition; different teachers stress different layers.

The pillar of light. In the Shiva Purana, Brahma and Vishnu argue over who is greater. A boundless column of fire appears between them; Brahma flies up as a swan and Vishnu digs down as a boar, but neither finds its end. Shiva emerges from the pillar, and both bow to him. This is the Lingodbhava story, and the twelve Jyotirlingas are understood as places where Shiva manifested as light.

Neelakantha. When the devas and asuras churned the ocean of milk for amrita, the first thing to rise was the poison Halahala, which threatened to burn up the worlds. The Bhagavata Purana (Book 8) tells how Shiva drank it out of compassion, and Parvati held his throat so that it stayed there, turning it blue.

The descent of the Ganga. The Valmiki Ramayana (Bala Kanda) tells how King Bhagiratha performed long austerities to bring the heavenly Ganga to earth to liberate his ancestors. Only Shiva could bear her fall; he received her in his hair and let her flow out in gentle streams.

Sati and Daksha's sacrifice. Shiva's first wife Sati was the daughter of Daksha, who insulted Shiva by excluding him from a great yajna. Sati gave up her body in the sacrificial fire. In grief and fury Shiva sent Virabhadra to destroy the rite. In later Puranic and tantric tradition, the places where parts of Sati's body fell became the Shakti Peethas.

Parvati and Kamadeva. Sati was reborn as Parvati, daughter of Himavan, and set her heart on Shiva. When Kamadeva shot his arrow of desire at the meditating Shiva, the third eye opened and burned him to ash. Parvati then won Shiva through her own tapas, a story told in the Shiva Purana and celebrated in Kalidasa's poem Kumarasambhava.

Shiva's family is one of the best-loved images in Hindu homes. Parvati, also known as Uma, Gauri and in her fierce forms Durga and Kali, is his consort and his Shakti. Their elder son in North Indian tradition is Kartikeya (Skanda), the commander of the gods' army, worshipped in the Tamil country as Murugan. Ganesha, the remover of obstacles, is the other son. Their home is Mount Kailash in the Himalaya.

Nandi the bull is Shiva's vahana and gatekeeper. In temples he sits facing the linga, and many devotees whisper their prayers into Nandi's ear in the belief that he will carry them to the Lord. Shiva is also surrounded by the ganas, his often wild attendants, and by Bhringi and other devotees in the Puranic stories.

Monday (Somvar) is Shiva's day, and many devotees keep a Somvar vrat. The whole month of Shravan (July-August) is especially dear to him, and the Pradosh vrat on the thirteenth lunar day (Trayodashi) of each fortnight is kept at twilight in his honour.

The central act of worship is abhisheka, pouring water over the Shivalinga, often with milk, curd, honey, ghee and sugar, followed by water again. A full Rudrabhishek is performed while reciting the Sri Rudram. Favourite offerings include bilva (bel) leaves, usually in sets of three, white flowers, dhatura, aak flowers, sandal paste, vibhuti and rudraksha. Many traditions avoid offering the ketaki flower, recalling a Shiva Purana story in which it bore false witness. Customs on offering turmeric, kumkum or tulsi to the linga vary by region, so families follow their own tradition.

The simplest and most universal prayer is the five-syllable Panchakshara mantra, 'Om Namah Shivaya', whose words come from the Sri Rudram. The Mahamrityunjaya mantra from the Rigveda is recited for health, protection and freedom from the fear of death. White and pale blue are colours associated with Shiva, and devotees mark their foreheads with three horizontal lines of ash (tripundra).

Maha Shivaratri, the 'great night of Shiva', falls on the fourteenth night of the dark fortnight (Krishna Chaturdashi) of Phalguna in the purnimanta calendar, which is Magha in the amanta calendar (February-March). Devotees fast, keep vigil through the four watches of the night and bathe the linga at each watch.

The Shravan Mondays (Shravan Somvar) draw huge crowds to Shiva temples, and in North India the Kanwar Yatra sees pilgrims carry Ganga water on foot to pour on the linga. Every month there is a Masik Shivaratri and two Pradosh days. Kartik Purnima is celebrated in many places as Tripurari Purnima, remembering Shiva's victory over the demon cities of Tripura, and in Varanasi the same night becomes Dev Deepawali, when the ghats are lit with lamps.

The twelve Jyotirlingas are the holiest Shiva shrines: Somnath and Nageshvara in Gujarat, Mallikarjuna at Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh, Mahakaleshwar at Ujjain and Omkareshwar in Madhya Pradesh, Kedarnath in the Himalaya of Uttarakhand, Bhimashankar, Trimbakeshwar and Grishneshwar in Maharashtra, Kashi Vishwanath in Varanasi, Baidyanath at Deoghar in Jharkhand, and Ramanathaswamy at Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu.

Beyond them, Pashupatinath in Kathmandu is the great Shiva shrine of Nepal. The Brihadeeswarar temple at Thanjavur, built by the Chola king Rajaraja I, is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Chidambaram is revered as the place of Nataraja's dance. In Tamil Nadu the five Pancha Bhuta Sthalams worship Shiva as the five elements, and the cave shrine of Amarnath in Kashmir draws pilgrims each summer to its natural ice linga. Mount Kailash itself is circled by pilgrims as Shiva's abode.

Shaivism, the family of traditions that worship Shiva as the Supreme, is one of the major streams of Hinduism. In the Tamil South, the sixty-three Nayanar saints sang hymns to Shiva that were gathered into the Tirumurai, and Shaiva Siddhanta teaches that the soul (pashu), bound by impurity (pasha), is freed by the grace of the Lord (Pati). In Kashmir, philosophers such as Abhinavagupta developed a non-dual Shaivism in which all of reality is the free play of Shiva's consciousness and liberation is the recognition (pratyabhijna) of one's identity with him. In Karnataka, the Lingayat or Virashaiva movement associated with Basavanna in the twelfth century emphasised personal devotion, with each devotee wearing an ishtalinga on the body.

Shiva is honoured far beyond these schools. Adi Shankaracharya, the great teacher of Advaita Vedanta, is credited with many hymns to him, and Smarta households worship him among five deities in the panchayatana puja. In Vaishnava tradition he is revered as the greatest of Vishnu's devotees, and in Shakta tradition as the inseparable partner of the Goddess. Each tradition describes the relationship in its own way, and all of them treat Shiva with deep reverence.

In yoga, Shiva is honoured as Adiyogi, the first yogi, and as Dakshinamurti, the silent teacher who instructs by his presence alone. His image teaches that stillness and dynamism, renunciation and family life, terror and tenderness all belong to the same divine reality.