Click of the photo to view the complete form of Alidhanrita Shiva, Kailasanatha temple, Kanchipuram
The most famous form of Nataraja that we know envelops the Panchakriyas, i.e. the five activities comprising of:Shristi - the process of creation and evolution,
Sthiti - the process of continuous maintenance,
Samhara - the process of destruction,
Tirobhava - the curtain of illusions by his various incarnations, and
Anugraha - ultimate salvation and release.
The form of Alidhanrita Shiva is the expression of victory or Samhara brought out through natya and shilpa shastras. This form of Shiva has been described in sculpture, painting and dance as the victory over evil, over the cities of Tripura. Alidhanrita Shiva is the culmination of the dance form of Tripurantaka Shiva and depicts a warrior's victory over one's own evils.
What does the form of Tripurantaka Shiva signify?
While destroying the three cities of Tripura, Shiva plays the warrior who rides the chariot into space to destroy the three flying cities. This celestial chariot vividly paints Brahma as the charioteer who rides the earth, one of Shiva's Ashtamurtis* that makes up the chariot. The Sun and the Moon who also are a part of the Ashtamurtis and are the very eyes of Lord Shiva Trayambakeshwara, take up their significant roles as the wheels of this celestial chariot. Shiva's ornament Vasuki, the snake plays the bow-string and Mount Meru is the very bow that twangs sending reverberations of victory over the three cities. Vishnu, is the arrow that is aimed at Tripura along with Agni who is again a part of the Ashtamurtis of Shiva. The four horses that pull this divine chariot are the Vedas that are the very breath of Brahma. Shiva, the great warrior rides this divine chariot. This is described in the dance form of Alidha depicting Tripurantaka Shiva vanquishing the three cities.
Raghuvamsa describes: (Raghuvamsa 3, 52)
atishthad alidhaviseshasobhina vupuhprakarshena vidambitesvarah
Lord Shiva Tripurantaka destroys the three cities in terrific rage, the furious emotion that is expressed in his gaze is called Raudra Drishti in the Natya Shastra. This expression is depicted in only the paintings at the Tanjore temple murals and is not captured in the sculptural version of this form, where the expression is more of Karuna or compassion. His fury is vividly described in the painting, where his eyebrows are raised and his eyes are wide open displaying pupils that are depicted as wide rounded balls. The eyes are crooked and depict the severe fury raging out of the being of Tripurantaka Shiva.
How do we relive the experience of Tripurantaka Shiva and the victorious dance of Alidhanrita Shiva when we worship the Lord?
With emotions tuned into the realm of Shiva we as a Bhakta surrender to Lord Shiva during puja. As the sacred syllables roll out into mantras in rhythmic flow, in the light of the ghee lamp we offer flowers and vilva leaves to the Lord.
Om Trighalam trigunadharam trinetram chakrayuttam
Trijanmapapa sangharam yega vilvam Shivarpanam
With this prayer to Lord Shiva residing within the chamber of my heart, I offer myself to the Lord, and to the divine three eyed Lord I give up my sins and karma of the last three janmas. I take on the very same warrior like form of Alidhanrita Shiva and destroy my own three cities of evil and dance my own victorious dance of liberation destroying my own karma. I am Him, I am alidha, I am what remains when I vanquish my own desires and bad thinking with my own furious gaze and burn those thoughts to ash. And after giving up myself into an egoless existence, I pray to the Lord to free me off this misery. In pure adoration to the Lord I offer myself, and with my chariot symbolized by Agni, Surya and Chandra, each signified by the three leaves of the Vilva, the very embodiment of Trayambaka, the three eyes of the Lord Himself, each defined by Chandra, Surya and Agni, I embark on my chariot to destroy my own demons, with every offering of Vilva leaves I make during my worship.
Thus, having imbibed the very form of Tripurantaka Shiva and having destroyed our own karma, one enters the realm of Alidhanrita Shiva where one is in union with the Lord dancing the joyous dance of victory after severing (samhara) one's own deep desire of self pride.
*The Ashtamurtis are Prithvi, Chandra, Surya, Agni, Vayu, Water, Varuna and Dikpalas.
Photo courtesy:Origin of photo unknown
Reference: Nataraja in Art, Thought and Literature - C.Sivaramamurti
26 comments:
Hi Kavitha, A nice presentation of the writings of the 'wise ancient Hindus'!
The ‘wise ancients’ used code words and laid stress on Brahma-Vishnu-Mahesh (reflected by bel tree leaf) as the three aspects of the formless creator, Tripurantaka Shiva, represented in physical form of Natraj, as the essence or model - like honey drawn from flowers by ‘ali’ the dark black ‘bhramar’ that is ‘gnat’! And the eight members of solar system for holding the essence of the universe, earth, to create illusion of multiple faces of the same to represent the process of evolution from ‘zero’ that is Nadbindu to Anant the unending! A wonderful style of communication of the Absolute Truth!
Not only did Shiva believably evolve from beginning of Kaliyuga to end of Satyuga (with Shiva eventually realized as the ‘sat’ or essence of the universe as conveyed in “Satyam Shivam Sunderam”), the language, Sanskrit, also evolved. The word ‘kali’ conveys both, the original budding ‘black energy’ responsible for the creation (that resides in Shiva’s heart) and the ‘bud’ that evolves into a flower, which provides it food in the form of its essence, honey, to 'Ali' the ‘bhramar’, the relatively dark big-sized gnat compared to the bee - and the word ‘bhram’ means illusion!
The 'wise ancients', on the other hand, indicate man as an image of God, or a reflection of evolved earth the immortal essence of the unending universe. Where, universe is the believable dark void that apparently is filled with innumerable galaxies, each of which contains a variety of heavenly bodies, including stars as the source of white light, the colour also reflected by milk, irrespective of its source, be a dark buffalo or a white cow.
Similarly the ‘wise ancients’ realized man himself as the most evolved animal, a variety of forms of which co-exist upon the earth at all times, thus indicating the various others images that perhaps help indicate the history of evolution of Shiva from pure energy…because macrocosm and microcosm both work on the same basic principle and reflects the mind of the creator…
Although it is purely temporary, there is no iota of doubt in the mind of any average normal human being that human body itself is a wonderful design. And not only human form, even the smallest of the small animal form is a thing of beauty and wonder for all humans at all times, despite its erratic appearing behaviour with the passage of time, like any ‘man-made machine’, which ultimately gets dumped in a trash-bin or a junk-yard howsoever one would like it to have continued for ever and not undergo any deterioration with time...
The wise ancients therefore appear to have conducted in-depth research on the creator, or creators, of the different components of the wonderful appearing universe with whatever time that was available at one’s disposal. And they apparently realized one and only supreme being to have been responsible for it and the various other different appearing creators also to be the Supreme Soul’s (SS) own creation…good or evil, serving some useful purpose to the SS tht is beyond ordinary humans, Alas!
Hi Kavitha,You have brought out the symbolism in the story very well!The actual story says that Shiva never fired the arrow...He merely smiled & in that smile the 3 puras were burnt.All the 3 asuras were forgiven & rehabilitated ...One was given the task of Fanning shivaji with"Chaamar"& the other two were included as personal security.....Destroying ego with a smile...& this too from the ultimate destroyer..Is it not a very profound concept?
As regards the Ashtamurtis you have mentioned Varuna as well as water...which should mean the same thing,... the Jalatatva.I am not an expert in the field but is "space" the missing eighth one?
Hi Anilji
As the reference did not clearly state all the ashtamurtis, i had to go with what was given. Since ether is the only one left in the panchabhootas which is not mentioned here, its an easy guess, but i am not certain about it. I will have to look up further references to clear this out.
Will update the post.
regds
Kavitha
Dr. Anilji, You might have come across such cases, however, ‘I’ have only read it in stories, say of Anastasia the granddaughter of the last Czar of Russia, or seen in films people who meet with accidents and when they open their eyes they realize they are lying in a hospital!
Having lost the memory of their past, the first question they ask is, “Where am I?” And, after recovery they spend their life trying to find who actually they were before they landed in the hospital.
In most of the films, in the ‘reel life’, the ‘truth’ gets revealed. But, in the ‘real life’ case of a character, who called herself ‘Anastasia’, after attempting to recall the past from memory she apparently provided many convincing proofs of that, but to her disappointment - although the viewers get convinced - yet the concerned authority didn’t, because the stake was too high and could therefore easily tempt tricksters and gangsters…
Hi Joshi uncle,Total loss of past memory after an accident is a creation of "Reel Life"...practically The memory loss is partial & transient in almost all the cases.
But, Anilji, That will be true if we believe the present life to be completely, a unique phenomenon that is independent of the believable remotest possible past, i.e., Nadbindu of the ‘Hindu Philosophy’…with ‘Apsmara Purush’ the ‘forgetful man’ depicted under Shiva the Natraj’s foot in mind…
Human mind has unseen barriers that normally restrict different individuals at different levels of achievements. Such a barrier was shown in the one-mile race, that is, when a character, named Dr. Roger Bannister broke ‘4-minute-a-mile-barrier’ that had stood for many years and, therefore, was accepted as such by all athletes. Once someone did it physically under 4 minutes, many did it immediately after that…
With the above in mind, being enslaved today by ‘machines’, the era also called Kal Yuga that is ‘Machine Age’, ‘we’ cannot even imagine it possible that at a certain stage in the ‘past’ some Yogis could have managed to disappear at one place and reappear virtually instantaneously at another remote place. Therefore accepting the thought that someone, called a ‘divine person’, could have achieved control over ‘Tripura’, that is, ‘sky’, ‘earth’ and ‘water’ ('Indra', the sun perhaps, responsible for potable rain water and Varuna for saline seawater, teh store-house for all waters) is virtually impossible, leave aside the possibility that our planet earth, in fact, could be the said person!
Talking of Trimurty Shiva, and ‘ashtmurtis’ that is eight idols, ‘ashtchakras’ that is ‘eight wheels’, ashtabhja dhari Durga, ‘dikpals’ that is controllers of different directions that are eight in numbers, could remind one also of the three octaves used in music that define the range of human voice used in speech, in terms of frequency of sound energy, and also music to convey certain ‘rasas’ or emotions as are experienced in one’s life. And so also the ‘Hindu belief’ of use of eight essences of different members of the solar system (perhaps Sun to Jupiter) in the formation of human structure…
On the other hand, ‘Navagrahas’ indicate essences of nine planets used to cover the ten directions to completely define a spherical shape. Thus one planet, perhaps Saturn, is believed to control both ‘up’ as well as ‘down’ directions, which is believably linked with that of planet Mars indicated by saffron colour, which is associated with Yogis, whose king or Yogiraja is Krishna…and their God is Yogeshwar Shiva!
It is interesting to note that ‘Post Independence India’s’ ‘national bird’ is the (blue) Peacock. And, the ‘ancient Hindus’ related the bird - as his vehicle - with Shiva’s favourite elder son Kartikeya. Also the blue colour, and metals iron and steel were associated by astrologers with the ring planet Saturn, which is also hinted to perhaps be related with Vishnu and His ‘sudershan chakra’ as also with Neelamber Krishna, one of the avtaras or re-incarnation of Vishnu Himself who sported a peacock feather in his crown, and who believably controls the west direction.
Besides the bird, a blue wheel is also selected in the middle white strip of the ‘Indian national flag’, the Tricolour - perhaps unconsciously reflecting Trimurty Shiva’s/ Kartikeya/ Krishna’s hand in the choice - as the symbol of industrial revolution, which automatically brings to mind Iron & Steel and Tata-like rich people associated with these...
On the other hand, ‘Left Party’s’ ‘hammer and sickle’ (in white on a red flag, reflecting direction east) also reflect these metals - the former a ‘T-shaped’ symbol representing the poor industrial worker; and the latter, a moon’s crescent shaped cutting implement, a symbol representing the poor farmer - the two together, or their yoga, forming the materially poor (and spiritually rich in the beginning) wide base of the pyramid. The grand edifice is however reflected by their poorly constructed hutments that unfortunately have limited life-spans and, therefore, have to be demolished (together with the palaces of the rich they support for a certain duration) and rebuilt - again and again…
In ‘India’ one can see this phenomenon year in and year out reflected in the shape of immersion of idols of Ganesha/ Durga etc. after these are installed in different regions for a few days according to certain traditions continued since time immemorial.
Both creation and dissolution were accepted as parts of ‘natural’ phenomena, but a thing of the remote past in the life of Bhootnath Shiva/ Supreme Soul - as the controller of the past/ ghosts that is souls - who believably continues to review His Stories through His innumerable eyes.
He is believably appreciating roles of each and every character in the hierarchy used in the drama, ‘big’ or ‘small’ in human eyes at any given apparent time within a certain Era. However, the saying, “To err is human,” conveys that human judgment is obviously erroneous, for each human being represents some stage of evolution prior to Nadbindu (Vishnu) achieving perfection in the form of Shiva the immortal Supreme Soul even in physical form as the ‘mithya jagat’ that is ‘illusory earth’ (achievement of ‘perfection’ or immortality being a phenomenon related with time ‘zero’ with which the formless creator is related)…
The ‘wise ancients’ also in the Bhagavad Gita have stated this fact in Krishna’s statement where He reportedly revealed the Absolute Truth of the drama of souls vis-à-vis the Supreme Soul to Arjuna only when time was right for clearing of ‘Maya’. That is, to the effect that himself he knew his past only in the form of a human being called Arjuna during that life in Dwaperyuga, whereas Krishna knew Arjuna’s past from the very beginning (of yet another day in the life of Brahma), for He had ever been his friend. It conforms to the ‘Hindu belief’ of a soul as a component of the one and only supreme soul, which is believably attached to various forms as the process of evolution continues from energy to the most evolved form of man. But, only as a crude instrument that needed proper calibration/ education with experience over a certain period of time, which varies from one person to another. And, realization of the Absolute Truth to any given individual instrument believably occurs in His devotees only when time for that to happen is proper…
With the above in mind, perhaps ‘I’ am now in a better position to realize that ‘I’ am an instrument that at the end of Satya Yuga, or Sat Yuga, was a true copy or model of ‘Shiva’ (opposite of ‘Visha’ the poison to signify Him as immortal) that is now also being used by Him, maybe earlier appeared in innumerable other forms from time to time, to now review the status of Kaliyuga from ‘my’, perhaps erroneous point of view as one of the innumerable ones, as indicated in the saying “Hari ananta/ Hari Katha ananta…” – judgment left to Him, the all knowing one and only supreme being…for Him to perhaps see how far ‘my’ viewpoint is from the ‘truth’ that He alone knows and apparently revealed to some characters from time to time…
Hi Kavitha, Although ‘I’ had seen in my early childhood Lakshminarayan Temple (popularly known as Birla Temple) that has idols of Lord Vishnu and His consort Lakshami as the main deities, and also later the Temple - a copy in marble of Kandhariya Mahadev Temple at Khajuraho located within the premises that housed the Birla Institute, at Pilani, Rajasthan, the hometown of Shri Ghanshyam Das Birla - which had installed within it a beautiful marble idol of Saraswati, the Consort of Brahma and goddess of knowledge, as the main deity. And Ghanshyam is one of the names of Krishna…
Now, a popular legend has it that goddess had appeared in the dream of the head of the Birla family and had told him that some or the other construction work must always be continued in his works for the family to continue flourishing materially, i.e., construction work shouldn’t be stopped completely…and that we observed continued happening in the campus in some extension works during the period that ‘I’ was there…
Maybe that's why, following in the same foot-steps, 'I' too try to post some comment even when 'I' have many times thought of discontinuing:-)
Best wishes.
Although Mirabai, the once upon a time queen of Mewar in Rajasthan sometimes in the sixteenth century, (also a born devotee of Krishna and a popular saint poet), blamed Krishna for his mischievous nature. For according to her one found the ruler of the material world to be brawny but brainless, while the brainy people always begged, (perhaps because ‘brahmins’ the intelligentsia in ‘ancient India’ were traditionally taught to beg, and selflessly serve the society with the knowledge they attained)…With this background ‘I’ sent the following reactin to an article in ‘my newspaper’…
This refers to Shashi on Sunday article ‘Do we get the politicians we deserve?’
As a background, ‘India’ was reborn at ‘zero hour’ on the 15th August ’47, apparently thanks to advocates who alone could punch holes in the legal system set up by the ‘educated’ British that they had almost perfected during their rule that lasted under two centuries. That point in time marks the ‘apparent time’ as the ‘turning point’ in the history of ‘modern India’…
And, credit for laying down the basic guidelines or the foundation for the ‘present day’ politics in the country, i.e., India that is Bharat, apparently goes to Dr. BR Ambedkar and his baby, the Constitution, the modern day Guru Granth, which obviously couldn’t have anticipated all eventualities likely to pop up from time to time.
‘Bharat’ is a piece of limited land that is virtually groaning under the weight of its exploding population that has become almost 5 times of what it was at ‘zero hour’, in just six decades, which itself has resulted in further shrinking of the land that had become available after partition. And, the further reduction in land apparently became necessary primarily only to meet the progressively growing basic needs of ‘RKM’ besides birth and growth of all other fields of activities that became necessary due mainly to keep up with Uncle SAM.
With nuke deal as its reflection it, apparently thus in fact, is an attempt at yoga of the east (India alone) and the west that is situated directly opposite on the globe - but hindrance being apparently experienced because of the other natural constituent members on the globe that are situated both in the east as well as the west of Kashi as Bharat continues in reality to shrink as if naturally trying to reach Shiva the formless Nadbindu, who is in fact the unseen Ruler who operates through remote control right from the day of creation of the globe/ universe, whether we deserve Him or not!
The space filled with innumerable heavenly bodies inspires man at all times to continue to guess how these could have initially come into existence. And thus there could be various versions, for there are as many thoughts as there are heads…
As an instance of the reach of a philosopher, a poet imagined the sky as a sheet of cloth (appearing blue during the day in sunlight, and dark during the night in moonlight) and said to the effect that these weren’t stars but were holes punched on the sheet by (the heat of) his sighs (due to separation from his beloved, which could even be interpreted by an atheist as the unique invisible Mother of various mothers in animal forms, called God)!
The ‘Hindu’ mythological stories quite frequently refer to chariots and their charioteers, which could be visualized as referring to various members of the solar system, (called ‘graha’ in Sanskrit), viz. sun, moon, earth, mars, Jupiter, and so on…with say for example Sun as one of the physically powerful charioteer, the heavenly body that has been learned to lie at the centre of the solar system and acts as the superior most ‘charioteer’. They believed man to be a model of the universe…
However, the acquisition of further knowledge that the solar system in fact lies within the periphery of a galaxy that has at its centre a super gravity Black Hole which makes the entire heavenly bodies that constitute the galaxy to revolve around it, could perhaps help ‘Hindus’ to realize the reference of Krishna in Bhagavad Gita as the charioteer of Arjuna (our Sun in the Dwaper Yuga, when the process of evolution had reached only the middle, or 50%, stage), and also the claim by ‘Krishna’ that He illuminates the sun and the moon…
***********
The existence of a heavenly body in a particular form for a certain period of time that varies from one to another, a star or a planet, and so on, is believably attributed to two kinds of balancing forces: its gravitational inward pull and the radial pressure exerted by its content outwards…The Hindu mythological stories however indicate some selected members of our solar system to have received ‘amrit’, that is, it attained immortality at the end of Satya Yuga…all the eight, or ‘ashtmurtis’, playing an important role jointly to represent the variety of animal forms and the hierarchy in all aspects as reflections of illusory forms of earth - on earth itself as the superior most among those - as these are associated with changes incorporated with time, in terms of the unending cycles of Yugas…the role of judgment, however, left to the ninth planet referred in Navgraha…
Thanks to the mysterious Ma Kamakhya/ ‘ashtbhujadhari’ Durga’s invitation to seek her, in an attempt to enter the mind of ‘ancient astrologers’ and ‘palmists’, ‘I’ have indicated ‘my interpretation’ or belief earlier also of the believable role of ‘ashtmurtis’ or selected 8 numbers members of the solar system.
To recapitulate it: Number 1 is the thumb in human hands, which is short like the little finger, but is thicker, and believably indicates the essence of planet Mars as the ‘mooladhar’ or the ‘basic seat’. It believably has the blessings of Ma Kali the original ‘destructive energy’ (Red) represented by the centre of earth/ heart of Shiva, which is thus represented as No. 2 in the form of the little finger. Also as per acupuncturists, the heart channel runs from under the collar bone in the shoulder along the inner arm to end up in it. And, Ganesha the ruler of earth and ‘vighna-harta’ or trouble shooter is indicated to also have the blessings of Ma Gauri the most evolved form of life-giving energy reflected by Yellow colour as the Guru, which is represented by the index finger as number 8 (the mysterious number that is read as infinity if it is made to recline like Vishnu and is formed of two zeros!).
The gap between the little and ring fingers, the ring finger, and the gap between the ring and middle fingers represent Sun (number 4 and white light), together with infrared rays (number 3, related with Ketu or planet Jupiter) and ultraviolet rays (number 5, related with Rahu), for the stories cryptically indicate two Gururs associated with Suryavanshi Kings (also acupuncturists indicate the Triple Warmer channel in the ring finger).
The tallest of all fingers, the middle one represents the egoistic Rakshashas associated with their Guru Shukracharya that is planet Venus and blue colour (number 6). And, the gap between it and the index finger (number 8) represents green colour as essence of earth (number 7).
When the thumb and index finger are joined to form a zero (‘0’ or letter ‘O’) it is noticed that the normally existing three lines on the palm appear to originate from/ trend to the base of ‘0’, that is number ‘9’. And interestingly these form the figure ‘IV’ in the left hand palm and ‘VI’ on the right, which as the ‘Roman numbers’, respectively, can be read as 4 & 6 (Sun or white & Venus or blue, which together indicate daytime that is the believable illusion created by the solar system, through ‘fire’ and ‘sky’, the two elements out of the ‘panchtatvas’ or ‘panchbhootas’)!
And the absolute truth ‘0’ the Bhootnath Shiva is seen formed in the middle of thumb (1, that is, Mars) and index finger (8, that is, Moon), the three or Trimurty read together form the mysterious number ‘108’, reflected in 108 beads (of Rudraksha) in rosaries and 108 used also as a prefix to one’s name (xxxx), when addressed by our ancestors till the recent past - as Shri Shri 108 Shri (xxxx)!
In the US the unique emergency helpline number is 911 (and the 'twin-towers' incident happened on 9/11). In 'India' 108 is already adopted in Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand and is proposed to be adopted in all the states of the country in due course...
Among the ‘panchtatvas’, the five basic elements; or ‘panchbhootas’, the five elements that continue to exist through time immemorial - and play very important roles in the drama of life - besides ‘earth’, ‘fire’ and ‘sky’, the fluids, ‘Air’ and ‘Water’, take the first two positions - in that order. For a human being can survive without water for many days (but not a ‘matsya’ that is fish, believed as the first incarnation of Vishnu, as ‘Matsyavatar’, indicated as the superior most fish in the form of a crocodile, also called ‘graha’ in Sanskrit, just as solar system members also are!), but humans can live without air only for a short time…Being colourless, the air in the atmosphere of earth remains invisible, but its presence can be felt. While, water exists in three natural forms on earth: Solid (ice), liquid (water), gas (water vapours).
It is interesting to learn that ice crystals generally take forms that appear in structure like a hexagon. The shape might however vary depending on the quality of water - distorted when there are impurities.
Also, as per Hindu mythology Kartikeya the elder son of Parvati, and a favourite of his dad Shiva, was so named because he was breast fed by six Karittikka deities. And besides many other names, he is believably also called ‘shanmukh’ because he has six faces (and maybe it might, in fact, mean the face of Shani or Saturn)…
Thus it might not be a coincidence to learn that ‘scientists’ have recently observed with the help of Cassini probe a mysterious hexagonal formation on the North Pole of planet Saturn. The name perhaps resulted in misnomer of Satan or demon…just as young Krishna was notorious for his mischievous nature and therefore called Natkhat Nandlal also…
Thus we can perhaps appreciate how Moon & Mars, associated with Parvati & favourite son Ganesha (the storehouses of supreme knowledge at the end of Satyuga and at the beginning of Kaliyuga, respectively) and represented on human hand by Index finger and thumb, joined together, to indicate ‘0’ the formless creator in the middle of ‘108’ and having the two faces (of the coin) represented by 1 & 8, i.e., essences of Mars and Moon respectively.
However, the six other essences of ‘grahas’, from number 2 to 7 apparently act as the mischievous faces of Kartikeya that normally keep the Mother & Child away from each other, in ‘mooladhar chakra’ located at the tail-bone-end and ‘sahasrara chakra’ (the ‘thousand channels’) located within the head of humans that serves as the unique source of dissemination of information at all times – from Sat Yuga to Kali Yuga, at the end of which the whole information believably gets locked up at the ‘mooladhar’…
The indication in stories of ‘vahanas’ that is different vehicles used by different deities indicates in symbolic language the concept of yoga of material form and energy contained within it. Thus ‘Ashtgrahas’, for representing four Yugas from Kaliyuga to Satyuga, similarly suggest linkages of four deities and four vehicles. For example as per the popular belief, Ganesha the number one deity has mouse, the animal responsible for destruction of food, as its vehicle, which indicates link between orange and red colours in Kaliyuga as the ruling energies’ reflections (efficiency ranges between 25% and 0%).
In Dwaperyuga, the stories indicate link between White and Infrared energies as being predominant (efficiency ranges between 50% and 25%).
Similarly, in Tretayuga the predominant link is that of Blue and Ultraviolet energies (efficiency ranges between 75% and 50%).
And eventually in Satyuga it is the link between Green and Yellow that is predominant (efficiency ranges between 100% and 75%).
As the drama of the entire duration, covering the Yugas from Satyuga to Kaliyuga, is believably being reviewed by Bhootnath Shiva through innumerable eyes reflecting different characters belonging to different Yugas to get an overall picture of the creation expressed in the saying “Hari ananta/ Hari katha ananta…” perhaps any one character would appreciate life through one’s own view-point, which might not be the same as that of Bhootnath Shiva the 100% perfect being!
And, there is no way to know what His viewpoint or purpose really is. The ‘wise ancients’ therefore suggested “surrender in Him”, just as one gives up guessing the correct answer to a quiz/ murder mystery and waits for the quiz master/ author to reveal it in the end…
The popular mythological stories of ‘Mahabharat’, literally convey the whole globe as ‘India’ at a certain period during the process of evolution from poison in the beginning of the ‘churning’ to ‘amrit’ that is ‘immortality’ attained by the solar system as Mahashiva that sustains earth, that is, Shiva the Mahesh the best among gods as the essence of the universe at the end of Satyuga only. At the end of the Dwaperyuga, it is indicated that only the ‘truthful’ Yudhister, the eldest of the five Pandava brothers, was led believably to the ‘Heaven’ by Dharmraja the Lord of Death appearing in the form of a dog, the animal recognized at all times for its faithfulness to man…As per the Hindu belief “God can appear in any form” and, therefore, faith believably is the primary requirement in the souls that ‘seek the truth’ that is the Supreme Soul!
The test of one’s faith in Kaliyuga is, however, indicated to be not as rigorous as it is in Satyuga, which is conveyed through the story of Satyawadi Harishchandra, a suryavnshi king, who ended up as a petty worker in a crematorium. Of course, things reportedly became all right in the end, that is, he eventually succeeded in getting back what all he had lost, but never lost faith in God!
In simple words, the universe could perhaps be visualized as someone watching a group photograph of a large number of persons in a particular class in school/ college, and so on.
Generally speaking, everyone first looks for one’s own face in the group (like we the terrestrials always see the earth, wherever we might be located upon it, and even when in space perhaps we wouldn’t like to lose sight of it); the closest friends (other important planets); the VIP (Sun/ Moon) seated in the front row; and then casually only the rest innumerable other stars (various other forms of animals), just as in a race the others who also participated but weren’t considered worthy of receiving a prize in that race…
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