Bav­ina Sookdeo�

Hin­dus around the world will cel­e­brate Ma­ha Shiv­ara­tri on Feb­ru­ary 17th. Here in T&T too, the aus­pi­cious oc­ca­sion is cel­e­brat­ed with great pomp. Ma­ha Shiv­ara­tri is ded­i­cat­ed to the Hin­du god Shi­va and while most fes­ti­vals are cel­e­brat­ed dur­ing the day, this par­tic­u­lar one is cel­e­brat­ed at night –the 13th lu­nar night in­to the 14th day (one day be­fore the new moon) dur­ing the Hin­du month of Ph­a­gun.

"Lord Shi­va is the third God in the Hin­du tri­umvi­rate (three God heads)" ex­plained Pan­dit Ramesh Kissoon, spir­i­tu­al leader of the La Plai­sance Road Hin­du Mandir, La Ro­maine. The Hin­du tri­umvi­rate con­sists of three gods re­spon­si­ble for up­keep, cre­ation and de­struc­tion of the uni­verse. "The oth­er two are Brah­ma and Vish­nu" he ex­plained fur­ther. "Brah­ma is the cre­ator of the uni­verse, Vish­nu the pre­serv­er and Shi­va, the de­stroy­er but he de­stroys the uni­verse in or­der to recre­ate it."

"It is easy to mis­un­der­stand the words 'cre­ator, pre­serv­er and de­stroy­er'" the pan­dit added. "Brah­ma brings in­to man­i­fes­ta­tion that which al­ready ex­ists, Vish­nu sus­tains all of these cre­ations to en­sure that the uni­verse works the way it is de­signed to work while Shi­va re­ab­sorbs every­thing un­til such time that man­i­fes­ta­tion takes place again."

You are prob­a­bly ask­ing your­self which god will want to de­stroy and why would that god de­stroy. The spir­i­tu­al leader ad­dressed this: "Hin­dus be­lieve that Shi­va's pow­ers of de­struc­tion and cre­ation are used to de­stroy the il­lu­sions and the im­per­fec­tions of this world. This is done to pave the way for ben­e­fi­cial change–con­struc­tive de­struc­tion –so for this rea­son Lord Shi­va is seen as a source of good com­bin­ing many con­tra­dic­to­ry el­e­ments."

The pow­er­ful Hin­du god is de­pict­ed as a man with a blue face or throat, ashy white in colour or en­tire­ly blue in some im­ages. Kissoon re­lat­ed a pop­u­lar sto­ry which speaks about the god's colour: "In or­der to get am­rit (nec­tar of life) from the bot­tom of the ocean, gods and demons churned the ocean and many things came up–pre­cious gems, an­i­mals, gold, sil­ver and poi­son called Ha­lalal. When this poi­son came up it threat­ened to de­stroy the en­tire world and every­one had to pray to Lord Shi­va to ask him to de­stroy it. Lord Shi­va took the poi­son and stored it in his neck and be­cause of this he was giv­en the name 'Neel Kan­tha' which means the 'blue-throat­ed one.'"

The god al­so has three eyes. "The third eye in the mid­dle of fore­head rep­re­sents the wis­dom and fore­sight Shi­va has and is be­lieved to be his un­tamed, raw en­er­gy," Kissoon ex­plained. The tilak (dot in the mid­dle of the fore­head) is placed on the heads of Hin­dus in an at­tempt to en­cour­age devo­tees to fo­cus with their in­ner spir­i­tu­al eye. There are three hor­i­zon­tal lines drawn with white ash on Shi­va's fore­head (the vib­huti); "These lines rep­re­sent his su­per­hu­man pow­er and wealth" said Kissoon "and the Tr­ishul (tri­dent)–rep­re­sents the three func­tions of the Hin­du Trin­i­ty (Tri­umvi­rate)."

The co­bra wrapped around Lord Shi­va's neck in its strik­ing po­si­tion prob­a­bly scares many but as Kissoon re­lat­ed, "it sig­ni­fies Lord Shi­va's pow­er over the most dan­ger­ous crea­tures in the world. "From a more philo­soph­i­cal per­spec­tive" point­ed out the pan­dit, "the snake rep­re­sents Kal (time) ever hov­er­ing over us. Lord Shi­va is al­ways in med­i­ta­tion and is de­pict­ed as ab­stain­ing from all earth­ly plea­sures. His med­i­ta­tive de­pic­tion teach­es us that we should al­ways be con­cen­trat­ing on the lord and that we should al­ways be ready for when death strikes be­cause it can strike at any time."

The great god is al­so rep­re­sent­ed by the Lin­ga. "This is a phal­lic sym­bol" says Kissoon "and it rep­re­sents the raw pow­er and mas­culin­i­ty of Shi­va. Hin­dus be­lieve it rep­re­sents the seed of the uni­verse demon­strat­ing Shi­va's qual­i­ty of cre­ation.

"You may no­tice that while many Hin­du gods are de­pict­ed in lav­ish sur­round­ings, Lord Shi­va is de­pict­ed sim­ply on skin. "This shows that he is a Ma­ha Yo­gi and his at­tach­ment to this world is lim­it­ed."

Par­vati De­vi, his con­sort, when­ev­er present, is al­ways at his side and their re­la­tion­ship is one of equal­i­ty. "Hin­duism does not sub­scribe to women be­ing in­fe­ri­or to men" in­sist­ed Pan­dit Kissoon. "Our roles and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties may be dif­fer­ent but we are in no way su­pe­ri­or or in­fe­ri­or to the oth­er."

He then point­ed out that some­times one may see im­ages where Lord Shi­va is de­pict­ed as half man, half woman. The pan­dit dis­closed: "Par­vati De­vi was com­plain­ing that Shi­va did not have time for her and he split his body show­ing half of his and half of hers say­ing you are a part of me; you are al­ways with me."

While Shi­va ap­pears as an as­cetic and is de­tached from world­ly things, bal­ance is struck and he shows con­tra­dic­to­ry be­hav­iour when it comes to the re­la­tion­ship with his con­sort and his two sons. He is known to be a pas­sion­ate lover but with­in the bounds of mar­riage.

The pan­dit then re­mind­ed us that even though Shi­va is seen as peace­ful we should re­mem­ber that "still wa­ters run deep–Shi­va re­al­ly holds great pow­er in­ter­nal­ly; a pow­er that ex­ists in all of us–a pow­er for great­ness."

So what is Ma­ha Shiv­ara­tri all about? On the Hin­du cal­en­dar there are 12 Shiv­ara­tris but Ma­ha Shiv­ara­tri is es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant be­cause it is be­lieved that this is the night when Lord Shi­va per­formed the Tan­dav dance or the dance of cre­ation, preser­va­tion and de­struc­tion.

"On this night" Kissoon stat­ed, "Hin­dus per­form ling pu­ja while we pray for neu­tral­i­ty of mind, body and soul. We pray that our scales must be bal­anced and we must not be swayed to any ex­treme. Mar­ried cou­ples al­so pray to Shi­va and Par­vati for hap­pi­ness in mar­riage since they are up­held as the per­fect ex­am­ple of mar­i­tal bliss."