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KarmaVaani
Devotional painting: Lord Shiva seated in meditation on a tiger skin on a Himalayan rock, pale ash-blue skin, matted hair piled high with a crescent moon and a small stream of the Ganga flowing from it, a third eye on the forehead, a blue throat, a cobra around his neck, rudraksha beads, four arms: a trident and a small hourglass damaru drum in the upper hands, the lower right hand raised in blessing, the lower left resting on his knee; the white bull Nandi resting beside him, snowy Kailasa behind

Shaiva tradition

शिव

Shiva

Mahadeva · Nataraja · Bholenath · Rudra

The auspicious one; lord of dissolution, meditation, and transformation.

Abode
Mount Kailasa
Consort
Parvati
Vahana
Nandi the bull
Colour
Ash-white with a blue throat
Arms
4

Shiva is one of the principal deities of Hinduism, revered as the destroyer and transformer within the trimurti, and as the supreme being in the Shaiva tradition. He is the great ascetic of Mount Kailasa, the cosmic dancer (Nataraja) whose dance sustains the rhythm of the universe, and the boundless consciousness worshipped in the form of the linga. He embodies both fierce power and infinite stillness.

Mantra

ॐ नमः शिवाय

Om Namah Shivaya

Salutations to Shiva, the auspicious one: the five-syllable panchakshara mantra.

रूप और प्रतीक

How Shiva is shown

An ascetic seated in meditation on a tiger skin, ash-smeared, pale blue-grey skin, matted locks piled high.

Trishula (trident)
Mastery over the three gunas and the three times: past, present and future.
Damaru (hourglass drum)
The primordial sound from which creation and language unfold.
Crescent moon in the hair
Time held in check: he is beyond its waxing and waning.
The Ganga flowing from his locks
He broke the river's fall from heaven so the earth could receive her.
Third eye
Insight that burns away desire and illusion.
Serpent at the neck
Fear and death mastered and worn as an ornament.
Blue throat (Nilakantha)
He drank the poison churned from the ocean to save the worlds.
कथाएँ

Stories

Nilakantha, the blue-throated

When gods and asuras churned the cosmic ocean for nectar, the first thing to rise was halahala, a poison that threatened every world. Shiva drank it. Parvati pressed his throat so it would go no further, and it stayed there, turning it blue.

The descent of the Ganga

King Bhagiratha's penance brought the Ganga down from heaven, but her fall would have shattered the earth. Shiva caught her in his matted hair and let her out in gentle streams, which is why she flows from his locks.

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