Tag Archives: parvathi

Parvathi’s penance to unite with Shiva – Darasuram

When Satheesh told me that he was planning to go to Darasuram, I immediately asked him to take some pictures of the amazing pillar sculptures in the pillared hall. He obliged with some delightful pictures. They depict some lovely scenes from the birth of Lord Murugan. Though the Sanskrit work of Kalidasa ( Kumarsambhava) deals with this in epic proportions we searched for an authentic south Indian version. With help from Vairam (who runs the popular Karka nirka blog) we chanced on the rare work of Kachchiyappa Sivaachaaryar in Project Madurai Archives – Kandhapuranam.

The background is thus – We have earlier seen the stories of Dhaksha – wherein disgusted with the insults heaped on her beloved by her own father Dhaksha, Dhakshayini the consort of Shiva – jumps into the sacrificial fire to rid herself of all ties with Dhaksha. Stricken with grief, Shiva leads the life of an hermit. The demon Surapadhman meantime uses this opportunity to occupy the three worlds and causes innumerable hardship to all – he too is aided by a boon of Brahma – wherein he seeks his end only from an offspring of Shiva -cunningly sought knowing the demise of Shiva’s consort and his life of penance. The Devas use this loophole and to get Shiva interested in the reborn Parvathi – get Kama to shoot his love arrow ( we saw this sculpture as well in Tanjore Big temple) – he being burnt in the process.

The scene now shifts to Parvathi who is reborn as the daughter to the Mountain Himavan and his wife Menaa.

( since we cover the verses in tamil in the tamil version of this post – am giving the sanskrit references here)

http://www.geocities.com/desirajuhrao/ks/sarga1/kssans1.htm

*****Not able to display the sanskrit font right now – am working on it *******

1-21. atha= then; dakShasya kanyaa= Daksha’s, daughter; bhava puurva patnii= Bhava’s [Shiva’s,] former, wife; satii= husband devout wife; satii= Sati Devi named; pituH avamaanena prayuktaa= by father’s, dishonouring, incited; yoga visR^iShTa dehaa= through yoga, discarded, body; janmane= to birth – to take rebirth; taam shaila vadhuum prapede= her, mountain’s, wife, reached.

Then Shiva’s former wife and Daksha Prajaapati’s daughter Sati Devi, being a husband devout wife but incited at her father’s dishonouring discarded her body through yoga, and to take a rebirth she made her appearance before Mena Devi, the wife of the king of mountains. [1-21]

From a very young age she realises her mission and her only goal is to marry Shiva. She undergoes severe penance to attain her goal , the intensity of her penance amazes all the people around, to the extent that they pray to her to stop her penance – which is too strenuous for a 6 year old!!

Finally her penance gets the attention of Shiva, who as is his style, decides to test her resolve. As the tamil text mentioned above, he mockingly comes dressed as a old ascetic and advises Parvathi against such a penance. He ridicules her effort, saying will such acts get her shiva.

But Parvathi stays steadfast in her resolve.

Lets now look at the sculpture. A lovely intricate pillar sculpture from Darasuram. The panel probably read from bottom up – The last two rows, we see all people being amazed at Parvathi’s resolve. Next shows her deep in devotion to Shiva – depicted in Linga form -with three of her friends, with raised hands – maybe praying to her to stop.

The top most shows her – deep in penance, standing on one leg – fire raging both sides. What happened next ..well the rains came and ….to be continued.

Birungi – The three legged skeleton saint

While we were discussing the posts on karaikkal ammai and Puli Kaal muni, we had mentioned about Bringhi Rishi. He is quite a character but very rarely seen in sculpture.

He was such a staunch shiva devotee that he refused to pray to anyone other God. Once when he went to visit Shiva in his holy abode of Kailash, he saw much to his discomfort that he was giving darshan ( private audience) with his consort Parvathi seated beside him. Such was the saints devotion to Shiva that he felt that he could not even pray to his consort.

Inorder to overcome the problem, the saint morphed into a bee and flew around shiva three times. There is a version of story which says that its due to this that Parvathi got shiva to offer her half his body ( as Artha naari) . Anyway, she was greatly enraged that this devotee refused to worship her and would only pray to her husband. Enraged, she took back her strength ( parvathi is called shakthi – the life force) since he did not want to pray to her, why would be want her strength alone.

Deprived off this, the saint became a mere skeletal form and could even balance himself, Shiva took pity on him and lent him his staff to learn on which got transformed to a third leg. What happened after this is a longer story which we will see later. ( There is another version which states that as the Saint was walking towards Shiva, Parvathi realised his intentions not to worship her and hence edged closer and closer to Shiva. When the Saint still managed to squeeze through inbetween them,she demanded one half of Shiva’s body – and hence he became Ardhanaari.. yet the rishi persisted and taking the form of a bee, bored through the shiva part and came out !!! so much for devotion)

But we return to the sculpture, had searched high and dry for this sculpture and at last found it in the outside hall pillar in tiruchendur. Though the skeletal form is not well sculpted, you can clearly see the three legs and the arms raised in devotion.



To see the skeletal forms, please view this collection of pictures.
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Images courtesy:
Temple Dairies – Part 1

and

*http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/mythology/7667.htm*
South Indian shrines illustrated By P. V. Jagadisa Ayyar

Kama aims at Shiva – this time in Cambodia

Sometimes the sheer extent of geographical spread of our legends baffles me. The reliefs of Banteay Srei in Cambodia and Parambanan in Indonesia are such – veritable treasure troves. But once in a while, something very unique comes up, that makes you sit up and take notice. What we are seeing today is one such sculpture. This is from Banteay Srei complex – this follows the previous post of Kama vs Shiva which we saw deep in the hearts of Chola land – tanjore big temple – the illustrious capital of Raja Raja. It gives me great pleasure in presenting to you today the same legend depicted in Cambodia.

Lets analyse the panel in depth – shiva is seated on a high pedestal – a very regal presentation of Shiva, seated in an almost yogic stance – the spine straight, left arm on his thigh …he is looking down to his left – at Kama – who is taking his stance with his bow to discharge the arrow. Shiva’s right hand is holding a rosary but he seems to be giving it to the beautiful lady seated to the right. Below are three rows of various gods and demi gods, incl some animals.

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How do we interpret this panel. This is most probably a composite panel – meaning unlike the chola version which comprised of individual scenes moving like a story board – this is just a single panel depicting the legend. Going from left to right ( of the panel) – Kama aims and discharges the arrow, shiva is woken up and looks at Kama in anger – but the impact of the arrow is strong, that he is giving up his life of austerity symbolised by the rosary to Parvathi and falling into wedlock !!!

Shiva burns the Lord of Love – Tanjore

Today we are going to see another interesting panel from the Tanjore temple ( thanks again to Satheesh). The burning of the Lord of Love – Kama by Siva.

To the uninitiated a short brief on Kamadeva – the god of love – fair complexioned, handsome and the best looking among the gods. He carries a bow made of sugarcane and strung with a line of humming bees. He shoots with his bow the five flower-tipped shafts of desire * . RATI (passion) his wife and his friend VASANTA (spring), who selects for him the shaft to be used on the current victim accompanies him. Kamadeva’s vehicle is the parrot.

{ *couple of months ago in agathiar forum Mr. K. Srikanth posted an interesting article on the flowers that make up Kama’s arrow and his targets / effects. am giving that below – His arrows are of five varieties of flowers. Aravindam which is Lotus, Asokam – Hellebore, Chootham – Mango flower, Navamallika – new Jasmine, and Nilotpala – blue lotus are the five arrows of manmadha. With these arrows he hits five places in the body and creates five different effects.
Unmaadana – ‘unmattam’ or craziness/sillyness happens when manmatha hits with Lotus flower on the chest, rodana – the asoka flower hits the lips makes the person lament/cry with excitement, sosna – the jasmine flower hits the eyes and reddens it (loss of sleep), sammohana – the tender mango flower when hit at the head; makes the person loose their mind and finally the deadly Nilotapal flower stupifies the person to standstillness (Stambhanam).
http://manoranjitam.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/legend-of-kaama/ }

Ok, enough of introductions, we plunge into the story / legend.

The story immediately follows our earlier panel – that of Dhaksha’s beheading. Not able to put up with the insults heaped on her husband by her father, Dhakshayini has immolated herself in the sacrificial fire of Dhaksha. Heartbroken at this, Shiva is deeply immersed in penance. He is hardly aware of what is happening around and in deep meditation.

So when the destroyer is in such state, the forces of evil raise their heads. A demon named Taraka performs a great number of austerities for a great number of years, as usual Brahma is forced to grant an audition – usual dialogue – demon seeks boon of immortality – Brahma refuses – offers something short – This time the demon is wise ( or so he thinks), he knows that Shiva is in deep trance and there is no sign of his consort – he is leading a life of absolute austerity. So he seeks absolute invulnerability from every creation in the universe except a son of Shiva.

Ok, back to familiar script – armed with the boon, Taraka has none to stop him from conquering the worlds and inflicting tremendous hardships on humans and the gods. He defeated the gods one by one and forced them to pay him tribute. Indra was forced to part with his wonderful white horse, Uchchaisravas, which was one of the fourteen precious things that had turned up at the Churning of the Ocean at the beginning of creation. Jamadagni, the great sage, had to give up his celestial cow Kamdhenu, a creature which could fulfill all desires. Kubera, the god of wealth, had to pay tribute to Taraka in the form of a thousand precious sea-horses and Vayu had to obey all of the wicked asura’s commands. Even the sun and the moon were in terror of Taraka and while the sun could not give out any heat the moon was forced to shine all the time. The gods were forced out of their respective heavens and wander about in forests.

The disposed gods regrouped in the forest and tried to come up with the way to vanquish the demon – they blamed Brhama squarely for their debacle and at that point Brahma reminded them of the loophole in the boon. Immediately the Gods set about working on the acilles heel of Tarakasura. But the problem was that Shiva was still mourning Dhakshayini and was living a life of complete celibacy.

Fortunately the divine mother was already reborn as Parvathi ( parvatham – mountain – daugter off) daughter of the Himavan ( Himaalaya mountain) and his wife Manorama.
Parvati was born, exceedingly beautiful and worthy of a potent god like Shiva. When she came of age she realised her mission in life and she herself began to perform many austerities in the hope of attracting Shiva’s attention but that god was still in grief and impervious to all her best efforts.

Indra then turns to Kama, the god of love and desire, to go to Mount Kailash and somehow make Shiva break his self-imposed celibacy. That flighty god fearfully went to Kailash and found Shiva deep in meditation, impervious to all around him. Even the birds and animals in that holy place made no noise. Even the leaves on the trees stayed still and made no sound. Kama dared not proceed with what he had been sent to do and hung about the place wondering what he could do.

So Kama dithered about the place quite uncertain as to how to rouse Shiva’s desire to wed with Parvati. This uncertain situation went on for many days till, one day, suddenly, Kama saw Parvati approach gently and quietly and start picking flowers to offer to her desired lord, Shiva. Kama immediately saw his opportunity and, setting aside his fear of the hot-tempered god, fitted an arrow to his famed bow and aimed at Shiva and let fly. The arrow flew true to its mark, Shiva’s breast. Shiva was rudely shaken out of his meditative trance and his eyes flew open. The first person he saw was the lovely Parvati charmingly picking the colorful flowers. He immediately felt a warm surge of love for her course through his body. Then he saw Kama and he instantly understood the reason for his unforeseen desire. He flew into a rage at what he thought of as Kama’s imprudence and, turning his terrible third eye on that hapless god, reduced him to ashes.

Taking pity at the woes and responding to the pleas of his widow, Rati, Lord Shiva restored her husband but only as a mental image, representing true love and affection and not just physical lust. Hence the other name of Kama Deva is ANANGA (the bodiless).

The rest – is the birth of skanda/muruga and how he becomes the warrior chieftain of the Gods and leads them to a successful campaign to destroy Tarakasura. ( the entire legend is beautifully described in kalidaasa’s immortal work – Kumarasambhava )

A long post but an interesting legend. Lets look at the sculpture now.

The entire panel coming up first for you. The top most row is a groups of ascetics and the bottom most row -Shiva’s faithful assistants. The main story described in three scenes in between.

The first scene – shiva is in deep meditation – watch the beauty of the sculpture, even in this miniature scale the sculptor has managed to sculpt shiva’s closed – meditating eyes ! The handsome Kama ofcourse is aiming his arrow on shiva. (you can vaguely see the smile on his lips)

The second scene, immdly below – we see a falling Kama and a wailing Rathi. Again a slightly damaged sculpture, but the falling kama is shown beautifully. You can also see Rathi wailing beating her hands on her heads ( a very south Indian emotional act)

The last one, to the right of the second scene – we see a resurrected Kama in all devotion and a visibly happy Rathi – taking the blessings of shiva ( who has a large assitant – bootha gana beside him)

This reminds me of a similar scene in cambodia – Banteay Srei complex, which we will see in the next post.

There are many references in Thevaram on this episode, ( thanks to Mr.V. Subramaniam ) quoting a couple below;

http://www.thevaaram.org/thirumurai_1/songview.php?thiru=4&Song_idField=41030&padhi=103&startLimit=3&limitPerPage=1&sortBy=&sortOrder=DESC


fixing the pure and soft flowers as arrows in the bow of the sugar-cane.
putting into use the fire the Lord in nākaikkārōṇam who destroyed with the frontal eye kāmaṉ to become ash!
praising your names.
grant your grace to utter the five letters of namaccivāya on the day when I die.
our Lord who does good to devotees!
Translation: V.M.Subramanya Aiyar–Courtesy: French Institute of Pondichery / EFEO (2006)

http://www.thevaaram.org/thirumurai_1/songview.php?thiru=12&Song_idField=1228&padhi=72&startLimit=476&limitPerPage=1&sortBy=&sortOrder=DESC


“O Nectar that devoured the venom of the ocean
To save the Deva-throng of devotees,
O pure and purifying Lord unknowable
To the tall Vishnu and the Four-faced Brahma,
O One whose jewel is the snake of blue-hued poison!
O Holy Lord who, when Rati prayed to You,
Resurrected Kaaman who was reduced to cinders!
O beauteous Lord of Marukal girt with fragrant
And flowery gardens! Pray, save me!
Translation: T.N. Ramachandran

Salvation while being Lynched – Part 2 – Ellora

We had earlier seen the Andhaka Legend in detail. Today, we are seeing another depiction of the same legend in one of the inner wall sculptures of Ellora.

Sadly the sculpture is much worn out and we cannot make much out of the facial features. Yet this seems to be a slightly more sedate depiction or maybe the last act of surrender of Andhaka – so brilliantly depicted by the sculpture, has calmed shiva’s anger.

For even without the intricate facial expressions, there seem to be some gentleness in the way Shiva is holding up the speared Andhaka – almost in a tender manner. But the depiction of the speared Andhaka – is spectacular – the trident has passed clean through his torso and he is impaled on it – but you can see him raising his hands and submitting to the divine grace of shiva.

Down below, we see a visibly unmoved, rather firm posture of Parvathi – unfortunately very much damaged, we cant clearly see what is depicted – but you can vaguely make out the shape of a demon holding a club/mace in his hand ( under the left feet of shiva) – shiva seems to be stamping on him – maybe this is act 1 of the legend, with Andhaka trying to go for Parvathi!!!

Amazing sculpture, beautiful depiction of Andhaka.

Shiva cuts off the head of his Father in Law – Tanjore Big temple

My friend Mr.Satheesh Kumar is an ardent sculpture lover like me and he offered to get me some nice photos of the tanjore big temple. Little did i realise that he will get me such a rich collection. We are going to see one interesting panel from his collection today.

As usual, we go for the story first:

Shiva’s consort Parvathi is born to Dhaksha – the king of mountains ( she is fondly called malai magal – in tamil – malai – mountain, magal – daughter). When she comes of age, she expresses desire to marry Shiva ( as is destined), but being a vain king, Dhaksha ( he himself being the son of Brahma) refuses to give his youngest daughter, whom he so lovingly brought up, in marriage to shiva – for he considers him uncouth, wearing animal hides and living in the cemetery, accompanied by ghouls/demons/ etc.But Shiva marries Parvathi and Dhaksha is not able to stand this insult.

He plots his revenge,and tries to insult Shiva, by organising a massive penance/sacrifice, but doesn’t invite Shiva, the foremost of Gods. However,hearing of this big event in her home, Parvathi’s heart and love for her family, makes her plead with shiva to let her go and attend the function. Shiva cautions her, that she will not be welcome and doesnt give her permission to go. However, love blinds the eyes of paravathi and despite the advise of Shiva, she lands us as an uninvited guest in Dhaksha’s palace. There she is not given any respect and is witness to all insults thrown at Shiva. Not being able to bear these and having acted against the advise of her husband, in anguish she kills herself in the sacrificial fire ( meaning, she gets rid of her material body which had affection to family there itself and takes her divine form). However, this enrages Shiva and he cuts the head of dhaksha and throws it into the sacrificial fire.

A bit later, Brahma and other rishis come and plead with Shiva, to forgive Dhaksha. Shiva obliges, but since the original head has already been consigned to flames,he cuts off the head of a sacrificial lamp and fits it on Dhaksha’s head ( inter species head transplant – how is it?)

Now lets look at the sculpture – Satheesh has masterfully taken the pictures to give you an idea size ( with ball pens for scale)

The story board is broke into two sides of the staircase – on one side is the beheading episode and on the other is the head transplant. wonderful depictions.

See the first part, the assembled guests are shown – towards the back of the composition against the wall. Then you see Shiva seated in a lovely pose, with Parvathi leaning non nonchalantly with one arm on nandhi. she is flanked by her assistant to her right.


The crucial scene kind of flow through the entire panel – Dhaksha’s severed torso is shown, fallen to the ground, with his wife lamenting with her hands towards the sky, and shiva is shown clutching the severed head by the hair and dropping into the sacrificial fire ( he has an evil looking sword in his hand – kind of reminds of the blade – neck cutting video’s we saw from iraq)…the priest who is next to the fire is turning away in disgust.


To the right of the composition, we see three ladies and three men – faces turned in aghast at the beheading and almost freezing to flee – their highly strung bodies about to run away – towards the end we see much mutilated but clearly – two beings running away from the scene ( note the size of the composition with the ball pen scale)

The other side – is a prettier picture – a beautiful standing depiction of Shiva, complete with his axe and deer, with a snake adorning his waist – being pleaded to by Brahma, looked on by three rishis. The final scene, we see a revived Dhaksha with a Ram’s head, in all humility,bowed along with the others – showing deep respect for shiva.


A delightful panel. Trust you enjoyed it as much as i did. i loved the depiction of shiva with the snake hanging by the waist.

Salvation while being lynched – Ellora

We saw the sculpture of Gajasamharam previously, today we take Adhakasamharam. Since we saw a minitature last time around, lets take a massive one for a change – An amazing sculpture from Ellora.

As usual the story first, once while Shiva was in deep meditation, a sporting Paravathi playfully covered the three eyes of Shiva with her soft hands. Immediately the entire cosmos was bereft of light, became just an expanse of darkness. the heat from the third eye of shiva caused beads of sweat to form on Parvathi’s hands. Out of this came a ugly, angry baby who was blind with matted hair – Andhaka ( the blind one). He was given away to the demon Hiranyaksa ( who was childless and prayed for an offspring) . Hiranyaksha was killed by Vishnu and in due course Andhaka grew up to be no better. He did severe penance to strengthen himself – tearing his body flesh to offer – Brahma finally obliged with a boon – for Andhaka wanted vision and divine vision and deathlessness. Brahma couldnt oblige with this – and asked him to vary his. – There is a version that in his deep heart Andhaka wanted to see his mother, so he asked a boon that if every he lusted for his mother he would die but slowly. Having recd the boon, he harrassed every mortal and did not leave the celestial at peace either. He lusted after the divine women and chased them to the heavens. There he heard of the beauty of Parvathi and destiny drove him to his death. Shiva speared him and in that moment he hung there for eternity – atlast seeing his divine parents.

Now See the masterfull depiction in sculpture ( at a towering 15 feet – the proportions are immaculate) – Parvathi being scared of the approaching demon and the fight – holds her hand to her bosom to calm her heart beat. Shiva as usual is mad with rage, eye balls popping out, fangs bared – he painfully spears his own offspring – but the pinnacle of the sculpture is the depiction of the speared Andhaka, despite all his pain and impending miserable death – turns back with folded hands, offers respects to his beloved parents. Maybe the Lord is not fair at times, for what wrong did Andhaka do – to be born blind and as an ugly creature, because of a playful act of his parents, abandoned among demons in his infancy ………once you read the story, you are filled with pity for him, amazing that the sculptor managed to bring this emotion into his creation.

Baby Muruga is scared of Shiva- Pullamangai

Today we are going to see a fantastic miniature sculpture from Pullamangai ( Thanks chandra for the photo – more to come of yours shortly) – There is an equally majestic sculpture in tanjore museum – which is my favorite as well, which i fondly refer to as stone monalisa, but we will see that in a subsequent post. Am actually redoing this post, with further photos from Satheesh. We are in a real treat.

In order to truly appreciate this miniature, you got to understand the size of this creation and its location. We see the size at the end, just leaving it with ` miniature’ for now.

Well, need to use some software to brighten it up a bit and closeup for you.

Ok, recap the legend first.

Once upon a time there lived a demon called Gajamuhasura. As all demons are, he was cruel and ill treated all the good incl the devotees of shiva. Lord Shiva enraged at this decided to put an end to this and with his trident had a furious battle with the elephant bodied demon. The battle was so fierce and intense that Shiva was filled with rage and he caught the head of the elephant, crushed it with his foot and skinned him right there and wore it as his garment.

Now for the beauty – can you spot the characters – ofcourse Shiva – in his majestic, dynamic grace, almost dancing into the elephant hide – you can spot the elephant’s head way down to the left of the sculpture ( as you see it), under shiva’s trident – next to the shiva gana – who is up to his useful pranks – showing faces at the fallen asura. Amazing little characters these Ganas.


You can see shiva’s torso twisted in his effort to wrest the skin and is holding it like a blanket around him.


way down to the right, you can see his consort Parvati wanting nothing of this and rushing away, for she is scared and more scared is the young skanda – the portrayal of the baby is the master stroke of this sculpture – he wants to jump into the waiting hands of the lady helper, away from all this fearsome action …

Thats all the canvas that this master sculpture needed to sculpt this amazing microcosm of myriad emotions …Hats off for this splendid miniature. Well, did i say miniature?

If pride goes before the Fall – this is the lowest it can fall

We saw the Cambodian version of the humbling of Ravana by Shiva when he tried to uproot Mount Kailash in an earlier post. This is another interesting depiction from Ellora.
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This verse has been sung often in Shivite saint Appar’s works, but those have been discussed in depth in the tamil version of this post. However, crux of the story is Ravana is stuck and humbled. To what extent. Have a look at the sculpture.
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You can see the massive twenty armed, ten headed asura stretched underneath the mount, on top the sublime divine calmness in the faces ( though heavily damaged) of Shiva and Parvati are still evident.
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If you notice carefully, Shiva Bootha Gana – demon assistants are making fun of ravana. As you face the image to the left, you can see a Gana making obscene gestures by bending down and showing his back to ravana, while the other one has taken a stick and is hitting his knuckles. On to the right the little gana pulls out his tongue and is making faces at him. What an insult to the King of Lanka.
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To get to truly appreciate the composition i kept this picture ( of a friend) to the last – now you get a fair idea of the size and scale of this sculpture.
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Btw, how did Ravana get out of this predicament, and how he was humbled many more times we will see in coming posts, along with some more beautiful depictions of the above story in various places.

Please don’t go my dearest, says Shiva!

Looks like even Gods have domestic quarrels….spotted this superb composition in a temple renovation group recently 633 http://picasaweb.google.com/reach.foundation.india/BairaveswaraTempleSholapuram/photo#5151797745278369842 This form is called Shiva Gangadhara….when the divine ganges is ordered to flow to the earth ( Bagiratha’s penance…Oh thats another thread by itself) she is filled with anger…her ego…she is filled with rage that she has to leave her divine abode and gushes with all her might to wash away the earth……well she didnt contend with the power of shiva….he handles or rather humbles her… you can see shiva holding up just two strands of his hair…for her to descend into….caught in his locks…breaking her fall and then he lets her fall gently to the ground…. 635 This interesting episode forms the plot of Pallava Mahendra’s amazing cave in trichy rock fort ….he called it lalithangura pallava griham…thats another post as well. 629 Ok but how does our sculptor see this episode…the divine river is a ravishing beauty…and she has taken temporary refuge in the Lord’s locks….this causes his consort Parvathi to take offense…afterall its competition and she begings to walk away…and then our poor man is trying to cajole and console her to stay… see the mastery in stone here in solapuram and also in gangai konda cholapuram GKC images tks to http://www.kumbakonam.info/kumbakonam/gkchopu/images/vimsta/viar16.jpg