Mahashivratri


Shivratri or Maha Shivratri is a festival celebrated every year on the 13th night of the new moon, during the month of Maagha (as per Shalivahana or Gujarati Vikrama) or Phalguna (as per Vikrama) in the Hindu Calendar (that is, the night before and day of the new moon). The festival is principally celebrated by offerings of Bael (Bilva) leaves to Lord Shiva, all day fasting and an all night long vigil. Ganga is traditionally used as an offering for Lord Shiva and his followers.

Per scriptural and discipleship traditions, the penances are performed in order to gain boons in the practice of Yoga and meditation, in order to reach the goal more swiftly and avoid rebirth.

Now, coming to the story part of it - Once the Devas (dwellers of heaven) came to know about Mrutha Sangivani, which when consumed would give them immortality and strength that would enable them to over power the Asuras (Demons of the underworld) forever. But this magical potion had to be churned out of Palazhi (Sea of milk) in heaven which seemed like a Herculean task for them. They finally decided to seek the help of Asuras in meeting this task and agreed to offer them a part of the magical potion as a reward.

And so they got together and started churning the Palazhi. The story goes that a big mountain and Vasuki, the ten-headed snake of Lord Vishnu were used to churn the Ocean of Milk. During this process, haalaa-hala, a poison, came out of the ocean. It was so toxic, it could have wiped out the entire creation. At this juncture, on the advice of Lord Vishnu, the gods approached Lord Shiva and prayed to him to protect their lives by consuming this poison. Pleased with their prayers, and out of compassion for living beings, Lord Shiva drank the poison but it was so intense that something was required to cool its effects as his throat became blue. Help was taken from Chandra (Moon God) and finally a snake was placed around his neck which cooled the effect of the poison and the throat became blue. Thus Lord Shiva is also known as Neelakantha (Blue Necked).

This was the version of the story told and retold to me a hundred times by my dad. He was an ardent devotee of Lord Shiva and this was one of his favourite stories from the Hindu mythology.

Comments

  1. The romantic query letter and the happy-ever-afterFebruary 16, 2010 at 6:25 PM

    A beautiful epic tale thanks for sharing it with me.
    Warm regards,
    Simone

    ReplyDelete
  2. HelenaFebruary 20, 2010 at 7:20 AM

    I wish my bedtime stories had contained these wonderful tales! Ten headed snakes and oceans of milk in stories would have kept me fascinated..!!

    ReplyDelete

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