Significance of Shivaratri !

Sanjeev Kumar Nath

It is common for modern, educated people to laugh at the idea of the thirty-three crore gods of Hinduism, but the different gods are only metaphorical representations of different spiritual needs of human beings.

No one can deny that as a species, humans distinguish themselves by mind-boggling differences within individual members. A cat may be different from another cat in certain ways, but those differences would be minimal compared to the similarities between them.

A tiger may be different in temperament or behaviour from another tiger, but the differences cannot be striking. Two human beings can be different from one another in myriad and startling ways. All tigers are carnivores, for example, but a human may be a vegan or a lacto-vegetarian or a lacto-ovo-vegetarian or a non-vegetarian. You will not find a tiger who believes in the philosophy of non-violence, but you will find human beings that would rather die than be violent, and also humans that could be unimaginably cruel, violent and destructive.

Hinduism is an extraordinary conglomeration of spiritual pathways suitable for human beings of all kinds of temperament. All humans—from the absolutely gross-minded to the sagely ones—will find ideas about gods, goddesses, or one supreme God and methods of worship suitable for them.

One who doesn’t so much care about supernatural entities called gods can also practice spiritual sadhana is traditions (such as Advaita Vedanta) where the god-idea is not important. The Vedas talk of many gods, but the Vedanta teaches about one supreme reality, and the Vedanta is the “anta” or the culmination of the Vedas. Then there are non-Vedic traditions that have also been absorbed into the ocean of Hinduism in different ways.

Thus, the idea of a beggar-like, sannyasi-like, but “family-person”, Shiva appeals to ascetics who wish to renounce all material pleasures and practice intense austerities(tapas) to attain spiritual fulfillment. However, the idea of Shiva doesn’t end with the form of the beggar-like god, but with the idea of Shiva being the ultimate reality, Brahman or All.

Different traditions in Hinduism portray the gods differently. The so-called Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva is not accepted in all traditions, or at least the hierarchy is not the same in all traditions.

In the Vaisnava tradition, Krishna is the ultimate reality, so that the pores of the skin of Krishna’s body, so to say, produce this universe we inhabit and many other universes we know nothing about. Texts like the Bhagavata Purana speak of the supreme glory of Krishna. In Shakta traditions, the Divine Mother is the Supreme Power so that all the gods bow before Her, and seek Her protection. In Shaiva traditions, Shiva is the Supreme Lord and all other gods seek His blessings.

The same story may be told in different ways in different Hindu traditions. One story says that when the gods and the demons churned the ocean and finally produced amrita, the nectar which provides immortality, the gods deceived the demons through a clever stratagem.

Knowing the weakness of the demons for the objects of sense pleasures, Vishnu took the form of Mohini, the most enchanting woman in all the worlds, and served the amrita to the gods, and managed to skip serving the nectar to the stupid demons ogling at her (Mohini).

Then there are accounts about how Shiva also got attracted towards Mohini, and various Vaisnava poets have made fun of poor Shiva enchanted by Mohini. Our own Sankaradeva has presented such a picture of Shiva, running after Mohini in his immortal creation, “Haramohan”.

However, this story is told in a totally different manner in South India where Shaivism has long enjoyed priority among many Hindus. The South Indian story is that Shiva’s falling in love with Mohini didn’t end with the world laughing at His expense, but He actually made love to Mohini and impregnated Her, and the child born out of that divine union is Ayappa, a god much revered in South India.

Again, Kailash is supposed to be the abode of Shiva, and Hindus actually bow down to and worship Mouth Kailash in the Himalayas, but there is a very strong South Indian Shaiva tradition in which a rather small mountain called Arunachala located at Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu is considered Shiva Himself, not His abode. Literally millions of people go round Aurnachala Hill on Shivaratri and on every full moon night of the year, while many hundreds or thousands go round Arunachala every day of the year.

There is a story about Arunachala which again establishes the supremacy of Shiva. It is said that Brahma and Vishnu once fell to arguing as to who was the greater among them. As the arguments got more heated, and there was no conclusion to the debate, they suddenly noticed a column of light appearing quite near them. The column of light seemed endless both upwards and downwards.

Then they heard a voice announcing that to decide who was greater among them, they should try to find the end of the column of light. Whoever found the end, would be considered the greater god. Brahma then flew up on his swan, trying to find the top end of the column of light, but he couldn’t find any end. Then he saw a pandanusflower (screw pine of keteki) tumbling through the sky.

Brahma told about his impossible mission of trying to find the end of that column of light, and convinced the pandanus flower to give false testimony on his behalf. Vishnu, on the other hand, took the form of a boar and plunged downwards to find the end of the column. When he couldn’t, he came up and said that he was unable to find the end of the column, while Brhama said that he had found the top end of the column and had plucked the pandanus flower from there.

Because of this falsehood, Brahma is not worshipped in any temple, while the pandanus flower is not offered to Shiva, and Vishnu, because of his honesty, was given a pre-eminent place among the gods. Then the column of light itself solidified as the Arunachal Mountain. That is why it is considered Shiva Himself. In all South Indian Siva temples, there is a depiction of this story in a form of an idol called Lingodbhava.

If we take Shiva as the Supreme Reality, then Shivaratri is not the night of Shiva for Shiva, but for the jiva (individual self, ego) who aspires to be Shiva. The depiction of Shiva in deep meditation implies the meditation of the jiva on his individual self or atman. Deep contemplation of what this individual self or ego is, leads to the dissolution of the ego and the emergence of the Supreme Self in its place. Thus, the meditating Shiva is a suggestion for the individual ego (jiva) to find Eternity within, through meditation.

One specific form of Shiva, very common in South India is Dakshinamurti, Shiva as the ultimate teacher, facing south. The direction south indicates death, and Dakshinamurti’s facing south means if you wish to find the ultimate Truth you must confront death, just as Nachiketa in the Kathopanishad confronted the God of Death, Yama to know the secret of death.

The secret of death is that there is death only for the body-mind complex; there is no death for the Atman, and the Atman is our true nature—deathless, eternal, ever pure. Dakshinamurti is the ultimate teacher because He teaches this great truth (atmavidya) through his mystic silence, not through words. Words are entirely inadequate to describe or explore the Truth.

The story about Dakshinamurti concerns the four sons of Brahma and their search for the Truth. The four sons of Brahma, the Kumaras, were asked by their father to help him in his work of creation, but having great dispassion for the world even from birth, the four Kumaras refused to take part in the worldly affairs of their father, and were only looking for a guru who could help them realise the Truth.

They found their father Brahma inadequate as a guru because he was always busy in the worldly activity of creation, so they went to Vaikuntha. There they saw Vishnu reclining in great comfort and his wife Lakshmi Devi pressing his feet. They felt that Vishnu was even more worldly than Brahma, and so went to Kailash, thinking that Shiva the ascetic will be a good teacher.

When they arrived at Kailash, however, Shiva had just taken the form of Ardhanareeshwar, so that half of Him was Himself, and the other half was His consort, Parvati. The Kumaras were greatly disturbed and went away from there, too. Then Parvati, the Divine Mother who is full of compassion for all creatures, told Shiva that since He knows why the four Kumaras had come, He should take a form that they would like, and teach them and given them the knowledge of the Truth.

Shiva then took the form of a young ascetic and sat under a banyan tree in a place where the Kumaras could see Him. This is Dakshinamurti Shiva. Seeing the young ascetic deep in meditation, the Kumaras fell attracted and prayed to him for upadesha.

Dakshinamurti then taught them the highest truth not through words but through a silent gesture, the chin mudra. Instantly, the four noble-minded, pure-souled Kumaras realised that the awareness within is the Truth or Brahman or Supreme Reality.

Keeping night-long vigil in Shivaratri is to be vigilant against ignorance (darkness, or the belief that this body-mind complex is me) so that by negating what one is not, one may arrive at what one is—pure awareness.

The little Tamil book NaanYaar, translated as (Who am I?) ascribed to Sri RamanaMaharshi (1879-1950), the greatest Advaitic sage of the twentieth century, is about the primal question of Advaita Vedanta—Who am I?—the question that Dakshinamurti Shiva solved for the Kumaras, the question that was implied in Nachiketa’s question, “What is death?”. The vigil in Shivaratri should lead one to the deathless Self.

Sanjeev Kumar Nath, sanjeevnath21@gmail.com

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