Maha Shiv Ratri

Today is Mahashiv Ratri, the day that Shiva married Parvati.

As we all know, the Hindu trimurti are Bramha, the creator who brings the universe and life into existence, Vishnu the preserver who sustains the universe, and Shiva who destroys illusion and decay, making way for renewal and transformation. As the transformer, Shiva dissolves the universe at the end of a cosmic cycle making possible regeneration and renewal.

Shiva is also the ultimate ascetic who meditates. He is the primal yogi.

There are aspects of the universe that can only be apprehended symbolically. As a Hindu, I am capable of and comfortable with symbolic reasoning and apprehending the universe symbolically. I am not forced take everything literally.

Bramha, Vishu and Shiva are symbols that refer to deep truths that undergird the incomprehensibly complex universe. Taking them literally reveals ignorance and stupidity. People who are too cognitively challenged cannot distinguish between symbols and what they represent. 

Bramha creates, Vishnu preserves and Shiva destroys. And the cycle continues ad infinitum. What’s the point of this endless cycle of creation, sustenance and destruction? Damned if know. But that’s what it is. Who knows? Nobody.

As the Rig Veda hymn to creation (Nasadiya Sukta) concludes about the mystery of existence and the origins of the cosmos:

“Whence this creation has arisen—perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not—the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows—or perhaps he does not know.”

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Let’s get back to Shiva. Shiva is quite the deal. He is that from which everything arises and into which everything dissolves. As the adiyogi he is the ultimate yogi. He transmitted the science of yoga to the Saptarishis (seven sages).

Shiva is known by a few million names. He (like all other aspects of reality) has many names. One of them is Neelkantha — one with a blue throat. This is why. The Devas and the Ashuras were intent on getting amrut, the nectar of immortality. They were forced to collaborate to get it.

Long story short: they had to churn the ocean to get amrut. They used a serpent wrapped around a mountain to do the churning, the devas at one end and the ashuras at the other end. They churned. That yielded lots of stuff but first they got poison that was so potent that it would poison the whole of creation if not contained.

Shiva came to the rescue. He drank the poison (Halahala). But that could have destroyed him too if he had ingested it. He drank but did now swallow. That turned his throat blue.

The symbolism is that poison is part of the world and has to be dealt with. The poison cannot be entirely eliminated; it has to be contained and not allowed to work. Someone had to do it. Shiva did it. Shiva, the Destroyer, is the savior.

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I like Shiva. He made it possible for the sacred river Ganga to descend to earth by containing it. Ganga’s torrential uncontained descent on to earth would have drowned the earth; so Shiva let it descend into his locks and then flow onto the earth.

Shiva is depicted with a crescent moon on his head. Therefor he is “Chandrashekar”: one with Chandra (moon) on his head (sekhar.)

Shiva has thousands of names. He is the King of Dancers (Nata-raja.) That is my favorite. Read this.

For now, let’s listen to Uma Mohan sing the Shiva Tandava Stotram. This was composed by king Ravana whom Bhagwan Rama defeated, as told in the Ramayana. Ravana was a great yogi himself. That’s another fascinating story.

“damad damad damad . . . ”  That’s the sound of Shiva’s damaru — the drum on this top left hand.

Since I don’t know Sanskrit, I had to get an AI agent (Copilot) to do a bit of translation: a flowing English translation of the Shiva Tandava Stotram. It’s a hymn describing Lord Shiva’s cosmic dance of destruction and creation:

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