Shivaratri is celebrated on the 13th
or 14th night of the dark Phalgun (Feb or March) every year. On
the auspicious day, devotees observe fa
st and keep vigil all night.
It is believed that on this day Lord Shiva was married to Parvati.
Recipes for
Mahashivratri
As
the name indicates this festival is celebrated in honor of Shiva, the
third God of the Hindu Trinity. This
is the night when he is said to have performed the Tandava or the dance of primordial creation,
preservation and destruction.
Celebrations
: Devotees of Shiva
fast during the day and maintain a long vigil during the night. In temples
all across the country, bells ring, sacred texts are chanted and
traditional offerings of leaves and milk are made to the Shiv lingam,
the phallic symbol of the god.
On the day of
Shivratri, the lingam is bathed with the five sacred offerings of a
cow, called the panchagavya - milk, sour milk, urine, butter and
dung. Thereafter the five foods of immortality - milk, clarified butter,
curd, honey and sugar - are placed before the lingam. Dhatura
and jati, though
poisonous fruits, are believed to be sacred to Shiva and thus offered at
his temple.
Special
celebrations are held at important Shiva temples at Chidambaram, Kalahasi,
Khajuraho and Varanasi. In Kashmir, the festival is held for 15 days; the
thirteenth day is observed as Herath,
a day of fast followed by a family feast.
According to Hindu
mythology, observance of the Mahashivratri Vrat with discipline helps a
devotee to control the two great natural forces that afflict a man, rajas
guna (the quality of passionate activity) and tamas guna (the quality
of inertia). When a devotee spends an entire day in the Feet of Lord and
worships with sincerity, his motion is controlled and evils like lust, anger and
jealousy, born of Rajas are ignored and subdued.
Besides, when a
devotee observes vigil throughout the night (jaagran) he manages to conquer the
evils of Tamas Guna too. It has also been mentioned that when a devotee observes
a round of worship every three hours, the Shivaratri Vrata becomes perfect.
Devotees of Lord Shiva believe consider Shivratri fast to be extremely
auspicious and rate it equal or more than performing an Ashwamedha Yagna. Some
believe that a devotee who observes a Shivaratri Fast with sincerity and utters
the name of Lord Shiva with perfect devotion is absolved from all sins. Such a
devotee reaches the abode of Lord Shiva and lives there happily. He is also
liberated from the cycle of birth and death.
Shiva the “Great God”
“It is probable that, long before the arrival of the
Aryans, the ‘great god’ (‘Mahadeva’ or ‘Maheshvara’) was wor-shipped
in India.” Mount Kailas in the Himalayas is the abode of Shiva. “The Ganges
came down from the heavens because Shiva bore on the matted locks of his head
the forceful impact of her falling torrents.”
“He creates and destroys, he sustains the world, he at
times obscures by his power of illusion (maya), or offers grace to the suffering
world. These are the fivefold activities of Siva, symbolized by the five faces
of the god (Pancanana). He sees the past, the present and the future by means of
his three eyes (Trilocana).
To save the earth, he drank the poison and his
throat became dark-blue (Nilakantha). A moon’s crescent round or above his
central eye (Candrasekhara), clad like an ascetic with a tiger-skin, he holds a
trident (Pinaka) in his hand; he rides the bull Nandi. Some of his images
represent him as a four-armed person-age, two of the hands holding a battle-axe
(khadga) and a deer, the two other hands in poses signifying assurance of safety
and liberality; in some other representations, he carries a bow, a thunderbolt,
an axe, a skull-capped staff, a drum.”
Shiva’s family is composed of his wife Uma (Sakti) and
their two sons Ganesh and Kartikeya (Subrahmanya). Their respective mounts are
the bull, the lion, the mouse and the peacock.
“In the full figure of Siva the male and female principles
are united, and he himself is said to be half man and half woman. The emblem
under which he particularly delights to be worshipped is the lingam or phallus,
which is always erect. Lingam and yoni (the female organ) represent the totality
of his nature and the totality of all created exist-ence.”
“Despite the fact that he (Siva) was later to inspire the
tender love among his devotees, he remains a mysterium tremendum et fascinosum:
he terrifies and he fascinates. Unlike Vishnu and his incarnations there is
little that is human about him; he transcends humanity, and the vio-lence of the
contradictions that he subsumes into himself gives him a sublimity and a mystery
that no purely anthro-pomorphic figure could evoke. The Saktas of a later time
sought to realize in themselves the perfect union of the male and female
principles in the one by combining the strictest control of the senses with the
sexual act itself.
A man and a woman, representing Siva and his
Sakti, would be
in close embrace but with the senses under such perfect control that no seminal
discharge took place. Thus, it was claimed, the complete fusion of the male and
female principles of Purusha and Prakrti, was realized in the One and indivisible
Siva who, though ever chaste. In this close embrace which imitates
the inseparable unity of Siva and Sakti, there is no distinction between
liberation and creativity, between moksha and samsara, because the opposites are
felt to have been transcended. The close union of the sexes is thus the most
perfect representation in the sansaric world of the divine transcendence of all opposites.”
The demons and the celestials agreed to churn the
ocean of milk. Mount Sumeru was the churning staff, the snake Vasuki the
churning rope. They wanted to get ambrosia. But when they were about to
get the desired nectar, poison came from the mouth of the snake.
Frightened the gods and the demons ran away. They had recourse to Shiva,
the Great God. Shiva out of compassion swal-lowed the deadly poison,
which remained as a blue stain on his throat. Hence the name Nilakantha.
Saved from the danger the Devas and Asuras resumed churning the ocean
and shared the ambrosia that was obtained.
Twelve Jyotirlingas
The Shiva Linga is the most common object of worship all over India. But twelve
such stones are considered more important and are known as Jyotirlinga. They are
situated in the following places:
Omkareshwar in Madhya Pradesh
Rameshwar in Tamil Nadu
Bhimashankar in Daminyal near Pune in
Maharashtra
Mahakaleshwar in Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh
Somanath in Saurashtra
Nageshwar in Dwarka
Mallika1 in Uttar Pradesh,
Kedarnath in the Himalayas,
Dhushmeshwar in Ellora near Aurangabad
Trimbakeshwar near Nashik
Vishvanath in Benares and
Vaidyanath in Parli in Marathvada.
