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The Festival Of Maha Shivratri 

Every month in the Hindu calendar has listed the thirteenth day of the darker half of the month as Shivaratri i.e. 'Shiva's great night'. Shivaratri falls in the krishna paksha, in the month of Magha and is celebrated all over the country as 'Mahashivaratri'.

Shivaratri is celebrated on the 13th or 14th night of the dark Phalgun (Feb or March) every year. On the auspicious day, devotees observe faLord shivast 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.

Male and Female


 “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.” 

 

Shiva Linga

mahashivratra2.jpg (24045 bytes)


The stone in its spherical form untouched by the sculptor, is the form nearest to the formless. And the sexual union of male and female is the farthest the human mind can reach to express the creative action of God. This action, as God Himself, remains a mystery to man. All that man can do is to look at nature and see how a new being comes into existence. Since nature is the work of God, it is logical to conclude that both the male and the female principles must be found in God Himself, the sexes being only a manifestation of God’s nature. At the level of symbolism, the Shiva Linga or the stone with the semi-spherical top, makes a positive contribution in man’s effort to express the Divine Mystery.

Nilakantha


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.

 

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