Varieties In Shiva!!

Shivai,the hindu God,is visualized as a man living on mountains,beneath the polestar.He is a wanderer who holds a trident,smears ash on his body and has a snake around his neck.However ,the naked God doesn’t only have this aspect,the Mahadev is visualized through many ideas and perspectives in the Indian mythology.In different regions,these forms change.They take new colours,ideas and beliefs.Today,I am going to tell some of the concepts behind some forms of Mahadev,which tells us the morals of life.

1. Kal Bhairav

Kal means ‘death’ and bhairav is made of the word Bhay which means ‘fear’.Hence,the meaning of kal bhairav is the one who removes fear of death.The humans fear death the most as they can imagine what will happen if death comes,but humans are only the one who can also withdrew this fear as they are provided with minds. Animals,however,don’t have this capacity to overcome the fear of death because of their mind shortage.That only makes the prey to run in fear of death.The humans can attain, so called immortality,by controlling these fears of death.So,for the development of highly human instinct,Lord Shiv takes the form of Kal bhairav to vanish the fear from men.

Kal Bhairav is visualized as child riding a dog and holding a human head.The human head symbolizes the mind having the fear of death.The dog on which the Bhairav rides is the symbol of domination of animal instinct of having fear and not concentrating .

Therefore,The Mahadev is not only destroyer of world but also the destroyer of animal instinct of fear.

2. Tripurantaka

Each human has his own world of thoughts and emotions in their life.In this mental world,they think,explore,discuss and question themselves about what is going around them.Everyone possess this world or Bhramanda,of whom they are the Bhrama(one of the Tridev who constructs the world)

A Bhramanda constituted of ignorance, has the ego of me,what is mine and what is not mine.These three, symbolically,can be called as Tripura.However,literally,Tripura was a fort constructed by Maya,the divine architect .The story goes that after the slay of Tarakasura by Lord Kartik,his three son,Tarakaksha, Vidunmali and Kamalaksha demanded an impregnable for their people from Lord Bhrama,after doing sever penances.Pleased with them,Lord Bhrama offered them a boon of having 3 forts which would be mobile in air and will align together one’s a thousand year, yet the city had one weakness, that it’s destruction could happen by a single arrow.Contented with the boons,the three asuras went back to live in these forts.As the time passed,the son of Tarakasura developed the ego within themselves of being the most powerful because of Bhrama’s boon.Hence,evil began to rise, chaos struck the earth,their tyranny spread everywhere.Finally,a time came when the asuras had to be destroyed. As a result,the devas appealed to Lord Shiva,who took the form of Tripurantaka,destroyer of three worlds of me,mine and not mine and ruined the fort of Tripura,city of ignorance

Therefore, the mahadev is not only the destroyer of animal instinct but also of ego.

3. Shankara

The Mahadev is a dev who shuts his eyes and immerses himself in deep tapa,the penance,to lighten up his inner fire of wisdom.However ,what is the use of having this wisdom if the Mahadev has withdrew himself from wordly life?Wisdom can only be applied when we take part in the life but not by being insulated in a cave.The Goddess Shakti realizes it and, taking the form of Parvati, Goddess of mountains ,compell Shiva to marry him andtake part in life to help others through his wisdom; by expelling ignorance.The Goddess makes Shivai understand that he needs to have patience to make others understand what true wisdom is, but this can only happen when he takes part in life .As a resulted,Shivai, the insulated God becomes Shankar,a beloved husband who gets binded to the world for upholding his dharma of being the destroyer of ignorance.

4. Ardhnareshwar

After the marriage of Shiv and Shakti,Bhringi,a staunch devotee of Shiva,wanted to move around him to have his Darshan.Looking upon it,Shivai insisted Bhringi to also take Parvati’s darshan as he is incomplete without her. However,Bhringididn’t take this advice and rejected the idea.Annoyed by this,Mata Parvati sat on Shivai’s lap,so that Bhringi couldn’t move around her husband alone .But bhringi was adamant. As a result,he transformed himself into a fly so that he could move around Shiv alone.Displeased by bhringi ,the Mahadev merged his body with that of her wife and took the form of Ardhnareshwar, half male,half female.In Ardhnareshwar form,half body is of shivai and another half is of goddess parvati.Ardhnareshwar symbolizes equality of men and women,it gives us the idea that culture (male principle) and nature (female principle) balances each other, the male and female principle are the two sides of the same coin, the universe. The former can’t survive without the latter and vice-versa

5.Nataraja

Every person in this world loves to dance.Dance is not only about exercising but it’s a way to express yourself, to open freely without any hitch.Shaivai, the mahadev uses the dance wisely to convey the morals of life and hence,become Natraj ,the supream dancer.As Natraj, he performes the dance form Tandav, In this dance performance, Shivai appeals to the conscious of the people, causes it to rise and demands analyses of the soul.

In the common natraj statues,the Mahadev is seen with four hands.The right hand of Shivai is upraised. This is a sign of liberation. Through this, Shiva assures mankind to be calm and fearless because he is present.Life can only be focused on divine unless we are free from maya or illusion.The Natraj then raises his left foot. The rising of left foot causes imbalance and probality to fall, but still there is no fright on shiva’s face.He is still in sat-chit-anand,the state of being in supreme bliss in which neither things affect an individual.The mahadev,also, rotate this upraised foot indicating an impermanent materialistic world,where everything changes from time to time . The ring of fire around natraj denotes the cycle of life. Life has neither starting nor end. It will continue forever. The natraja’s upper two arms helds two potions to mankind,one the rattle drum, which means to dance at the tunes materialistic life or maya,or the fueless generated fire,to lighten up the inner fire or tapa,to understand one’s consciousness and be liberated!!!!

Though whatever the form Shiva may take , the man should not cease to have faith in the him, to the one who not only deconstruct our human shortcomings but also deconstruct our human ignorance.....Om Namah Shivay!!