The Dance of Shiva

BIBEK DEBROY’S translation of the Shiva Purana leaves us with a question that may take several lifetimes to answer: what is Shiva? Not who, not where…but what. Neither Brahma, the creator, nor Vishnu, the preserver, could answer this question. It could lie in something as simple as identifying with Shiva, an individual enterprise, and then ‘knowing’ Shiva. That is, my Shiva stands within the limitations and the liberations of my body-mind-soul and state of my evolution. Your Shiva with yours. And since everything has an element of the divine in it, so will ‘its’ Shiva—the Shiva of the skies, the air, the waters, the earth, its flora and fauna.

Words are inadequate to define Shiva. He was before anything else, and he will be after everything else. Shiva resides in us, and is beyond us. Shiva has several manifestations (Rudra, for instance). Shiva is sakala (with a form) and can be approached through an image, and he is nishkala (without form). Shiva manifested as the lingam to fix the arrogance of Brahma and Vishnu. I see the nish­kala form of Shiva as pure consciousness; and the sakala forms, images of Shiva, as pathways to reach that consciousness. And then, again, Shiva is beyond consciousness. So, what is Shiva?

When in saguna form, say as Rudra, he epitomises the tama­sic guna, just as Brahma characterises the rajasic, and Vishnu the sattvic guna. When Shiva manifests as nirguna, formless, he is the un-decaying brahman, without gunas. These complexi­ties may perplex those uninitiated in the grammar of spiritual-philosophical Indian traditions. Understanding these needs a new approach, the hermeneutics of faith rather than the brittle lens of ‘understanding’ and suspicion that defines the paradigm of the West and currently the dominant mode of learning, espe­cially of spiritual literature, worldwide. It works for them there; it does not work for us here.

That said, the nirguna aspect of Shiva can leave even scholars of Indian traditions scratching their heads. If Shiva is beyond all gunas, where does that leave Vishnu who, as Krishna’s avatar, is also beyond the gunas, as expounded in the Bhagavad Gita? Adding a degree of complication, Shiva bows before Ram, the avatar of Vishnu, when he was searching for Sita in the forest— itself a short conversation between Ved Vyasa’s Shiva Purana and Valmiki’s Ramayana. And yet, Vishnu seeks Shiva to kill Tarakasura, who is finally killed by Kartikeya, the valiant son of Shiva.

Just before being killed, Tarakasura brings an intellectual debate into violent discourse. As part of the ancient Indian tradition that takes a 360-degree view of things rather than narrowly pursue a one-god, one-book ideology, the Shiva Purana, like the Ramayana and the Mahabhara­ta, creates spaces for dissent within its belly. In this segment, the critique of Vishnu is as brutal as the violence around it.

Tarakasura admonishes Vishnu for using deception to kill Bali as avatar Vamana, killing a woman (Tadka) as avatar Ram, and severing the head of his mother as avatar Parashurama. In fact, the fusing of two apparently opposite, but essentially united ideas—spirituality and violence—in the middle of battle, is a key signa­ture of Ved Vyasa, who it is argued is a series of rishis carrying that exalted designation rather than one being. Recall how the Bhagavad Gita is situated in a unique time-space: right before the greatest war on the Kurukshetra by time, and between the two armies by space.

The violence in the Shiva Purana is beyond imagination. Scriptwriters need to study this text closely. The fights with, and killing of, Daksha by Virabhadra is not only a nail-biting account of in­numerable forces across several battles, they also give the word ‘gory’ a new dimension. Chanda uproots Pushan’s teeth. Nandi plucks out Bhaga’s eyes. And Daksha, whose head could not be sev­ered by any astra (celestial weapons, thrown from a distance—arrows or chakras) or shastra (one that’s held—sword or mace), is finally killed when Virabhadra uses his hands to tear off Daksha’s head and fling it in the fire pit.

Of course, there’s more to Shiva Purana than killings or phi­losophies. The section on rudraksha beads, their meaning, their 13 types, how they are to be worn, and by whom is informative and insightful. As are the eight forms of Shiva, and his several avatars. Returning to the abstract, there are two sections that describe the master-sound, ‘AUM’, as an expression that is noth­ing less than shruti, a direct communion with god, something that lies within all of us, the spark of divinity, which we realise through spiritual techniques, in the discovery of Shiva. It’s like being in communion with the sound of consciousness.

The three matras, syllabic instances, of AUM contain within themselves the universe. ‘A’ is the seed for Brahma; ‘U’ stands for Vishnu; and ‘M’ defines Nilalohita, Shiva. A complex explana­tion of all the letters in the Sanskrit alphabet that follows is a window to understanding Shiva. That is, not merely physical humans and the material planet, even the non-physical sounds are divine. They simultaneously emerge from, and are expressions of, Shiva’s body. Further, ‘A’ is spoken of as hymns from the Rig Veda; ‘U’ the Yajur Veda; and ‘M’ the Sam Veda. Suddenly, an ordinary sound that finds resonance in every Hindu home across the world and vibrates within it gathers a new meaning, a new experience, perhaps even a new realisation. And the complexity of ‘What is Shiva?’ magnifies.

Of the 18 Maha-Puranas, I have read five. Without doubt, the Shiva Purana is the most complex. I am certain there will be new in­sights waiting when I read it again. Spread over three volumes and 2,176 pages, at 24,646 verses it is the second largest Purana, after Skanda Purana (81,100 verses), and is one-third the size of the Mahabharata’s 73,787 verses. Until Shiva Purana, my journey into these texts had been straightforward. I dived into the creation of the universe, understood the genealogies of gods and kings, studied the wide tapestry of rituals, discovered the geography of Bharat, its diverse faiths, all enclosed in stories and characters that define dharma. In the Shiva Purana, these assume a narrative that’s hard to grasp. The degree of difficulty breaches all other spiritual texts. Equally, the prasad we receive after read­ing it has a deeper impact and a stronger force. But ‘What is Shiva?’ remains an enigma.

As India’s greatest master translator, one translation at a time, Debroy is singlehand­edly capturing the contours of how a modern rising nation engages with its ancient glory. He is creating the intellectual infrastructure for a country that is still fumbling around its civilisa­tional conversations, a nation facing existential questions, whose Sanatani faiths are being likened to diseases, and whose Hindu followers are being turned into targets. Conversely, a country that has systematically and institutionally ensured that not a speck of this knowledge, the monopoly of Bharat, finds a place in its modern educational system, needs deeper introspection into how we are squandering away the depths of our spiritual inheritance.

In that larger footprint of civilisational endurance, if there is one mind that’s bringing this knowledge together, one stream of effort that is creating the fundamental base from which Bharat will rise, one sustained and unrelenting pursuit of Knowledge with a capital K that throbs in India’s national soul, it is Debroy. We are indebted to him. A Padma Vibhushan awaits him. For serious readers, who wish to navigate the Shiva Purana, but cannot do so in Sanskrit, Debroy’s three-volume translation is the surest guide. Until then, approaching Shiva with all we have, and all we are, within all our constraints and all our evolution­ary cycles, identifying with him—being him—may help us answer this eternal question: What is Shiva?

About The Author

Gautam Chikermane

Gautam Chikermane is a Vice President at Observer Research Foundation. His latest books are Reading Sri Aurobindo (Penguin, 2022) and Reform Nation (HarperCollins, 2022)

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