Book Description

Lord Shiva is the great figure in the modern pantheon. In contrast to the regal attributes of Vishnu, Shiva is a figure of renunciation, an ascetic, performing meditation alone in the Himalayas. There he sits on a tiger skin, clad only on a loincloth, covered with sacred ash that gives his skin a grey colour. His trident is stuck into the ground next to him. Around his neck is a snake. From his matted hair, tied in a topknot, the river Ganges descends to the earth. His neck is blue, a reminder of the time he drank the poison that emerged while gods and demons competed to churn the milk ocean. Shiva often appears as an antisocial being, which once burned up Kama, the god of love, with a glance. But behind this image is the cosmic lord who, through the very power of his meditating consciousness, expands the entire universe and all beings in it. Although he appears to be hard to attain, in reality Shiva is loving deity who saves those devotees who are wholeheartedly dedicated to him.There are many instances of pure hearted devotion to the beautiful lord and the final revelation of himself as Shiva after testing the devotees. Shiva often appears on earth in disguise, perhaps as a wandering Brahman priest, to challenge the charity of belief of a suffering servant, only to appear eventually in his true nature. Many of these divine plays are connected directly with specific people and specific sites.The lord Shiva has been depicted in a variety of guises; Bhikshatana, the beggar lord, Bhairava, a horrible, destructive image; or Nataraja, the lord of dance, beating a drum that keeps time while he manifests the universe. Because he withholds his sexual urges and controls them, Shiva is able to change sexual energy in to creative power, by generating intense heat. It is, in fact, the heat generated from discipline and austerity that is seen as the source for the generative power of all renunciants, and in this sense Shiva is often connected with wandering orders of monks in modern India. The male principle (purusha), the prime source of generative power but dormant, and a female principle that came to be known as prakriti, an active principle that manifests reality, or power (Shakti), at work in the world. On a philosophical level, this female principle ultimately rests in the oneness of the male, but on practical level it is female that is most significant in the world.The book deals in detail about the story of Shiv and Shakti. This book is an answer to various such questions which often haunt His devotees regarding worship of the lingam. After conducting lot of research many anecdotes and myths related to Shiva and Shakti have been collected and presented in the book.