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Shiv
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- His
name means The Auspicious One. He is Pure Consciousness, Chidanandaroopa - the form of joy that pure consciousness takes. He
is the oldest god known to mankind, and more interestingly is perhaps the
oldest living god, tracing a genealogy of worship that is easily five
thousand years old. Naturally, therefore, he is described as the God with no
lineage. Like Yahweh, who may be his only contemporary, his name was not to
be taken in vain. In fact his name was not to be uttered at all. He is the
howler, Rudra, when he first
appears to us in the Rig Veda. He is Raudra
Brahman, the wild God of the Hymns. He is also Nataraja,
the elegant King of the Dance, and in fact of all the fine arts. He is
the Lord of yoga, the culmination of the universe, the cause of its
dissolution - yet always transcending such petty events.
To attempt an overview of Shiva in one essay is an act of extreme idiocy. I
shall therefore seek to communicate some of the flavors that are associated
with Shiva, trusting that time will be vouchsafed us to explore him in
detail as we grow as a web-site. Shiva has been around for so long that
entire encyclopedias on him are necessary to get just a bird's eye view.
This god is perhaps the single most important influence on the arts and
culture of the Indian subcontinent. In a very real sense, you find Shiva all
over the country, he is in fact the
country,
so closely interwoven are the myths of his actions with the culture and
geography of the land. So strong is Shiva's hold on the imagination that all
local area gods which seek to gain in prestige, or are sought to be
subverted to the main body of the Hindu religion, end up being described as
various manifestations of Shiva. If the god lives on a hill, a forest or a
cave then there is no way he escapes being but one more aspect of Mahadeva -
the great god who loves to linger in hills, forests and caves. This is what
has happened to Khandoba in Maharashtra, Skanda in Tamil Nadu and Ayyapan in
Kerala to give the three most common examples. In fact another manner of
accommodating these local religions was to decree the gods to be sons of
Shiva.
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- The
Rig Vedic Shiva was known as Rudra. He was a grim mysterious god, living on
the fringes of Vedic society, a god who was so much of an outsider that he
was not even entitled to a share in the fire sacrifices. Yet the Vedic
pantheon was clearly in awe of this self sufficient Hunter-God. The hymns
praise him in all-too-visible anxiety that his strange powers may be
aroused, and his name as mentioned was never to be invoked. "We live in
dread, and pray that you pass us by", quavers the Rig Vedic verse. Yet
it immediately goes on to add that He is the Awakener, who when touched by
pleas, grants a thousand kinds of balm that heal.
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