Shivaਸ਼ਿਵ

Shiva is one of the main deities of Hinduism, the destroyer in the Trimurti alongside Brahma the creator and Vishnu the preserver, and the supreme God for the Shaiva tradition, one of Hinduism's largest. He is at once an ascetic meditating on a Himalayan peak and a householder with a family, a dancer whose movement shakes the universe and a still point of silence. Hindus worship him in countless temples, most often not as a statue but as the lingam, his rounded stone emblem.

Who is Shiva?

Shiva's name means the auspicious one. Within the Trimurti, his task is destruction, but Hindu teaching treats that destruction as necessary and even kind: what is worn out is dissolved so that creation can begin again, and the individual soul is freed toward liberation, called moksha. For Shaiva Hindus, Shiva is not one god among three but God entire, performing creation, preservation and destruction himself. On a personal level, devotees turn to him for help in daily life, and his reputation as Bholenath, the simple-hearted lord who is easily pleased, makes him one of the most approachable of gods.

Forms and symbols

Shiva appears in many forms. As Nataraja, the lord of the dance, he dances inside a ring of flames, his steps enacting the rhythm of the cosmos. As a meditating yogi he sits ash-smeared on Mount Kailash, the river Ganga caught in his matted hair, a crescent moon on his forehead and the serpent Vasuki around his neck. His third eye, opened in anger, burns whatever it looks upon. Other forms include Bhairava, his fierce aspect linked with cremation grounds; Ardhanarishvara, half Shiva and half Parvati; and Dakshinamurti, the silent teacher of wisdom. Above all there is the lingam, the form in which he is worshipped daily in temples from Kedarnath to Rameswaram.

Stories told about Shiva

The epics and Puranas tell many stories of Shiva. When the gods and demons churned the ocean of milk for the nectar of immortality, a terrible poison rose first; Shiva drank it to save the world and held it in his throat, which turned blue and gave him the name Nilkantha. When the goddess Sati, his first wife, died after her father Daksha insulted him, Shiva carried her body in grief, and the places where her body parts fell became the Shakti Peethas, sacred to the goddess. He burned Kama, the god of desire, to ash with his third eye, then married Parvati, the daughter of the Himalaya, who is Sati reborn. Together they are the parents of Ganesha and Kartikeya. It was Shiva who broke the fall of the heavenly Ganga in his hair when the river descended to earth, and Shiva who destroyed the triple city of the demons with a single arrow.

How is Shiva worshipped?

Shiva's great festival is Maha Shivratri, the night of Shiva, when devotees fast, pour water and milk over the lingam and keep vigil. The month of Shravan is sacred to him, and Mondays are his day. Twelve shrines are honoured above others as Jyotirlingas, places where Shiva is said to have appeared as a column of light. On Jugti you can read about several of them: the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi, Kedarnath high in the Himalaya, Somnath on the Gujarat coast and Mahakaleshwar at Ujjain. The cave shrine of Amarnath, where an ice lingam forms each year, draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, and Pashupatinath in Kathmandu is among the holiest Shiva temples in the world.

Shiva in Punjab

Every detail of Shiva's image carries a meaning. The crescent moon rests in his hair, marking his mastery over time; the river Ganga, whose fall to earth would have shattered the world, is caught and tamed in his locks and released as a gentle stream. The third eye on his forehead burned the god of desire, Kama, to ash when he dared disturb Shiva's meditation, and it stands for the wisdom that sees beyond appearances. His trident, the trishul, matches the three qualities of nature, and his hourglass drum, the damru, beats out the rhythms of creation. Snakes coil at his neck, for he is lord over death and poison, and his body is smeared with sacred ash, a reminder that all things pass. Facing his shrine in every temple sits his attendant, the bull Nandi, patient and still, waiting on his master.

The five temples of the elements

Among Shiva's countless temples, five in the Tamil country hold a special place as the Pancha Bhuta Sthalam, where he is worshipped in the form of the five elements. He is earth at Ekambareswarar in Kanchipuram, water at Jambukeswarar near Tiruchirappalli, fire at Arunachaleswarar in Tiruvannamalai, where a great beacon is lit on the hilltop at the Karthigai Deepam festival, air at Srikalahasti, and space itself at Chidambaram, the temple of his cosmic dance. A pilgrim who visits all five has honoured Shiva as the substance of the whole physical world, an idea his devotees sum up in the claim that the universe is his body.

Shiva is worshipped across Punjab, where Maha Shivratri is kept with fasts, night-long singing and fairs at Shiva temples in towns and villages on both sides of the border. In Pakistani Punjab, the Katas Raj temples near Chakwal form one of the most important Shiva sites in the region: tradition holds that Shiva wept here for Sati, and his tears formed the sacred pond around which the temple cluster stands. Punjabi Hindus also join the Amarnath pilgrimage in large numbers each summer. You can browse the region's temples in our mandirs of India guide.