Shiva
Shiva is generally depicted immobile, as an ascetic - naked, his body smeared with ashes and his hair matted. His meditation and austerities build up his spiritual strength, giving him unlimited powers to perform miracles - and also strengthening his powers as fertility god, for the two roles are not so antithetical as might at first appear from the myth in which he kills Kama, god of desire, by burning him up with the fire from his third eye. Though Shiva may have struck Kama dead for having interrupted his meditations, the effect of Kama's shaft was not thereby nullified. By still further delaying his union with Parvati, thereby causing Parvati herself to perform austerities in order to arouse his interest and causing all the gods to hope anxiously for the consummation of his desire, Shiva in effect heightened the desire and strengthened the force of his role as fertility god.
The child produced from his union with Parvati was one of the strongest of the later pantheon: Karttikeya, god of war, who to some extent supplanted Agni.. It was the angry sage Bhrigu who caused Shiva to be worshipped in the form of the lingam. He was sent by the other sages to test the three gods of the triad to see which was the greatest. When he reached Shiva the god did not welcome him; he was engaged with his wife and would not be interrupted. For his lack of respect due to a sage, Bhrigu cursed Shiva to be worshipped as the lingam. Brahmat also failed to gain Bhrigu's approval for he was too occupied with his own self-importance to receive the sage with due courtesy. Vishnu was sleeping when Bhrigu reached him and the sage rudely kicked him in the ribs.
Instead of rising in wrath Vishnu, full of concern, asked him if he had hurt himself, gently rubbing the foot, which had injured him. Bhrigu went away proclaiming that this was the god most worthy of adoration - such compassion and humility before a sage was the mark of greatness. Shiva quarreled with many of the gods, for though he claimed the right to judge their actions and to punish them, many of the other gods in turn considered him to be a Brahminicide because he struck off one of Brahma's heads, for which offence he was condemned to be a wanderer and to perform penances. The gods mocked at him as an ugly, homeless mendicant, unclean, ill-tempered and a haunter of cemeteries. Eventually, however, like Brahma and Vishnu, Shiva acquired a heaven of his own. This was situated on Mount Kailasa, in the Himalayas, and was the scene of his austerities and where the Ganges descended on his head. |
