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May 5th, 2014 - 02:19 AM
Here's some info to go along with my Shiva gallery.
Shiva is one of the most important and popular gods in Hinduism. Though worshiped widely among HIndus, he also a strange enigma for most westerners, including scholars and academics. Other gods of the Hindu pantheon such as Vishnu, Brahma or any of the other devas do not present such a simultaneously fascinating yet confusing blend as Shiva does. Shiva is a marriage of every kind of quality. He is a bundle of contradictions. There are countless stories of him, each displaying a different facet. In some he is a drunkard. In some he is an ascetic. In some he is celibate. In some he is engaged in incessant sexual activity. In some he is hideous. In others he is the most beautiful. This chaotic ensemble finds expression the way Shiva is worshiped too! Aghoris worship him in cremation grounds with rituals involving corpses and ash. Housewives worship him with flowers and incense. Between these two extremes, every devotee creates his own ritual.
Western scholars, beginning with the early British in the first decades of the ninteenth century usually found Hinduism's various rites and gods repulsive. Shiva worship in particular, was seen as a depraved because of the linga, which they thought represented a phallus. Besides, Shiva was also the greatest tantric and the first yogi and Guru, who imparted tantra and yoga to humankind through the seven sages or Saptarishis. Left-hand tantra with its many unorthodox practices was condemned by the first British explorers.
Shiva is also not a demure and peaceful God like Jesus. The powerful, dynamic gods of ancient Greece are more akin to him. He carries a trishul, destroys his enemies, burns his foes with his fiery third eye, lives in cremation grounds and walks about covered in vibhuti or sacred ash.
Shiva is also the "official" destroyer of the Universe. When this particular creation has run its course, Shiva dances the fearsome tandava, his Dance of Destruction, to bring this Universe to an end, allowing Brahma the creator to give birth to the next creation. Shiva is also Nataraja, the Lord of Dance. He is ensconced in this form in the Thillai Nataraja temple in the town of Chidambaram in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
Nataraja has also traveled to a few unusual places. CERN, the home of the Large Hadron Collider where the Higgs boson was first observed, has a two-meter tall Nataraja statue before its main entrance. Shiva as Nataraja represents the beauty and rhythm behind the fundamental basis of creation. In fact, various images of sub-atomic particle dynamics detected in bubble chambers coincide with the image of Nataraja, according to Fritjof Capra, author of Tao of Physics.
Shiva is worshiped across the country and there are countless temples to him, most frequently with a linga as the object of worship. He finds mention in many scriptures, most notably in the Shiva Purana. He is often invoked through the mantra, Om Namah Shivaya, and the chants, Nirvana Shatakam and Guru Paduka Strotram. Shiva is in fact worshiped by other gods such as Krishna, who mentions in the Bhagavad Gita and other stories in the Mahabharata, that Shiva is Mahadeva, the Greatest God, who is his object of worship.
Shiva's presence is also manifested as the rudraksha worn by Hindus. The rudraksha are said to be the teardrops of ecstacy that fell from the eyes of Shiva (in his form as Rudra, the roarer). The rudraksha are seeds of a particular tree that are strung together as malas or necklaces and usually worn around the neck. They protect against negative influences and enhance the energies of a spiritual seeker.
Shiva is especially worshiped on the night of Mahashivratri, and he is called on by people on Mahalaya Amavasya or Pitru Paksha, through the means of karma, and various other rites, to help their ancestors.He is also worshipped in Kashi, Kailash, Velliangiri and the Jyothirlingas. Kashi is perhaps the most famous among Shiva devotees among all the centers of Shivaite spirituality. Kashi is also the place they go to die, so that their karma can be eliminated in one fell swoop, and they can attain liberation.
But Shiva is not all death and destruction. He is a family guy too! His wife is Uma or Parvathi, representing Shakti, the feminine aspect of existence. His two children are Kumara and Ganapathi. True to form though, nothing is very simple with Shiva. Parvathi is his second wife. His wife, Sati, immolated herself, unable to bear the insult her father Daksha was heaping upon Shiva. She chose to be reborn as Parvathi, to a father, Himavat the king of the mountains, who worshiped Shiva. The whole family lives atop Mount Kailash according to Hindu scriptures.
Shiva's kids are a complicated issue too. Kumara aka Karthikeya, Subramaniam and Muruga, is Shiva's son certainly, but Parvathi contributed only partly to his birth. The story goes that the devas were suffering from the oppressions of a demon named Tarakasura. Begging for Shiva's help, Shiva assured them that his son (as yet unborn) would be their savior. When Shiva married Parvathi, they embraced and copulated for eons. Initially, the devas were hopeful that this union would result in the promised savior. But Shiva and Parvathi never ceased.
Finally, the desperate devas employed various stratagems to disturb the couple and separate them. Once successful, they managed to collect Shiva's semen as it fell to the ground. Shiva's seed, is of course, no ordinary piece of work. It is Hiranyaretas, the golden seed. It's heat and radiance were so powerful that only Agni, the fire god dared to pick it up, and burnt his fingers in the process - literally and metaphorically. The semen was hot it burnt his hands, and Parvathi was so miffed at him for interrupting her love-making that she cursed him.
Agni, battered by the semen and the curse, looked desperately for some way to relieve himself of Shiva's seed and plunged into the Ganga, allowing the seed to float away in its waters. The seed manifested as six babies on lotus pads, who were cared for by six apsaras or heavenly nymphs who happened to be passing by. Parvathi came by when she heard of the incident and combined the six babies into one child with six heads - kumara or arumuga the six-headed one.
Ganapati or Ganesha is Shiva's other son. Ganesha's birth follows the opposite pattern as Kumara's. Ganesha is almost entirely his mother's creation, with little, though crucial input from Shiva. Parvathi, lonely on one occasion when Shiva was away from Kailash, creates Ganesha from mud, particles of her skin, vibhuti and other materials, and breathes life into it with her tantric powers. Ganesha is thus born.
One day, Shiva returns to find the entrance of his house guarded by a young boy. In anger at being kept out of his own house, he lops of the child's head. Parvathi rushes out and bemoans the death of her child and berates Shiva. Naturally, even Shiva has to listen to his wife, so he sends his ganas of to find a suitable head. They pick an elephant as an appropriate candidate and bring its head to Shiva, who afixes it on the boy and brings him back to life. The boy was henceforth called ganapathi or ganesha.
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