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Indian Legends (was Re: Shiva and Vishnu)
Hari Krishna Susarla (susarla@owlnet.rice.edu) wrote:
: In the scriptures, it is definitely Vishnu who is identified as
: the Supreme Lord. However, in Vedic culture, it one's duty to
: offer respects to all great personalities, including the
: spiritual masters and the demigods, both of whom are devotees
: of Vishnu. However, because few people actually read the scriptures
: today, somehow or other people have become confused and have
: started identifying Shiva as God, even though Shiva himself has
: never claimed such a status.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I think this is a good time
to introduce Mr. Hari Krishna Susarla to some Hindu legends. In
general, if you want to understand Hinduism, you have to consider
various schools of thought competing and debating, each favoring some
deity over another. So it is more than likely that most of the
various deities that you have in Hinduism had their own adherents or
sages who advocated the principles of that deity. It seems that the
main competition from early times was between the Shaivite school and
the Vaishnav school. During the early part of the Vedic age, the
Vaishnavs dominated the scene, with the philosophy of the
all-pervasive Vishnu permeating the universe. This is the subject of
the legend of Prahlad where Prahlad, a Vaishnav defeats his Shaivite
father Hiranyakasipu when Vishnu appears as Narsimha, a man-lion, an
avatar (or incarnation) of Vishnu.
During the latter part of the Vedic age however, the Shaivites tend to
dominate the scene with remarkably abstract concepts. The Brahman,
according to the Shiva Purana, is a Shaivite concept. The Brahman
signifies the entire universe material and non-material, having form
and formless And the Shaivites who seem to be unbeatable at abstract
metaphysics, follow up with the ideas of Aum (phonetic representation
of the Brahman) and the Maya doctrine which essentially attributes all
motion to God; in other words the material world becomes a partial
manifestation of Shiva's motion. All material transformations are
caused by Shiva's motion represented as a dance.
The Shaivites make sure to unite Shiva with the Brahman, afraid I
suspect that the Vaishnavs may claim the Brahman as theirs.
Repeatedly in the Shiva Purana they insist that only the Shiva is the
entire Brahman as he is the only one who is worshipped both embodied
in a form (idol) and without a form (lingam or phallic symbol). No
other deity is worshipped as such, they repeat over and again. So
Shiva represents the entire Brahman while Vishnu represents only an
embodied form within that Brahman. That Shiva is now known largely as
a destroyer conceals the fact that philosophically he was capable of
both creation and maintenance. It is told in a Shaivite legend in the
Purana that in the competition for who will dominate Hindu philosophy,
Shiva won. There is a legend of a fiery lingam appearing as Vishnu
and Brahma wage war, properly interpreted as a fierce philosophical
debate, each claiming to be greater than the other. Shiva takes the
form of a fiery lingam and neither Vishnu, who bores down into the
ground, nor Brahma, who takes to the sky can find the end of the
lingam. Basically neither school of philosophy could break the
philosophical abstractions of the Shaivites (Vishnu perhaps looking
inward at the self, and Brahma looking outward at perhaps astrology).
In either case, after having declared victory over the others, Shiva
accords Vishnu the status of functioning as the preserver and Brahma
as the creator, but denies Brahma the right to be worshipped
independently because he supposedly lied about finding the end of the
lingam. With the maya philosophy of the Shaivites and the union of
all creation with God with tne notion of the Brahman, Hinduism becomes
at this point monotheistic.
Some concepts which confuse most westerners are incarnations and
many-headed and many-armed deities.
First let's discuss incarnations. There are various incarnations of
Vishnu both animal, such as a turtle, and human such as Rama and
Krishna. In general, any point in time which the Vaishnavs consider
particularly philosophically significant they have marked with some
incarnation. For example, Vishnu assumes the form of a turtle during
the churning of the ocean to serve as the base for the churning rod.
The churning of the ocean represents extracting the essense from the
voluminous ocean of Hindu philosophy. Vishnu as a turtle provides the
base or the foundation for the debates which were carried out
thousands of years ago to decide which deva will attain immortality.
Little known are the various incarnations of Shiva; yes he too has
incarnations. The various incarnations of Shiva are largely Hindu
sages, probably the men who developed the abstract concepts of
Shaivism. The most famous of these men was Durvasa (from near the
Yamuna in western UP) who was considered Shiva himself, he had a
temper to match the personality of Shiva. One interesting fact is
that Shiva gives Vishnu the Sudarshan Chakra. This weapon is
supposedly controlled by the mind. It is largely a philosophic
weapon, some philsophical abstraction. In one of the legends in Shiva
Purana, Duravasa in a furious state sets out to turn some king into
ashes by supposedly staring at him, Vishnu sends the Sudarshana Chakra
for protecting the king who is a Vaishnav. The Shaivites insist that
the Vaishnavs call off the Sudarshan as it cannot be used against
Shiva himself (Durvasa) because Shiva was the one who gave the
Sudarshana to Vishnu in the first place.
The many heads of some deities, particularly Bramha, probably
represents a many-faced school of philosophy. The Shiva Purana
describes Shiva as having five faces, and goes on to describe the
various faces as philosophical entities.
The many hands of some deities represent the ability to do things
simultaneously, as Gods must.
The reason that Shiva, despite being philosophically superior to any
other thought in Hinduism, is often the most misunderstood and
belittled, is because the Shaivites had a reputation for being fierce,
for being rather rag-tag, and in general did not fit the description
of the gentle, proper god-fearing people that were more to a
Vaishnav's liking. In general Shaivite legends describe Shiva as
rather humourous, a little under the influence, and causing
embarassment during most social occasions including his own wedding
and in general, neither he nor his followers ever fit into a social
scene. Shiva has a reputation for being easily pleased; it seems that
the people who probably found company with Shaivite philosophers would
not likely be accepted by the more finicky Vaishnavs. And indeed,
Shaivism is considered to be the first large religious movement in
India. It was known to have thrown its doors open to castes which
would not be accepted by the finicky Vaishnavs at one time. The
Indian identity of "Bharat" comes from the name of the grandson of
Vishwamitra another Shaivite, Rama's guru -- yes Rama was probably a
Shaivite who had been "claimed" by Vaishnavs as their own. Krishna
also seems to demonstrate acceptance of Shaivite philosophy of maya as
he is nicknamed the "mayavi" Krishna.
Another thing that bothers westerners about Shaivism is that it
accepts destruction as quite natural and necessary for creation.
Shiva dances both peacefully and at times does the "tandav" or dance
of destruction. He eventually resumes his peaceful dance and creation
continues. However such philosophical acceptance of destruction had
caused many early Christian missionaries in India to label him the
"Mahadevil" a distortion of his name the "Mahadeva."
