Shaiva Deities

The Auspicious One

One of the principal deities of Hinduism: the ascetic on Kailasa and the householder with Parvati, the destroyer within the Trimurti and, for Shaivas, the supreme reality itself. Worshipped chiefly in the aniconic form of the linga, and across India at the twelve Jyotirlingas.

The Tamil God

Kartikeya in the north and Murugan in the Tamil country — the youthful commander of the divine armies, worshipped at the six Arupadai Veedu shrines and at Thaipusam, and one of the most fervently followed deities in South India and the Tamil diaspora.

The Lord of Time

Shiva as the fierce guardian of time and of boundaries — the koṭwāl of Kashi, who carries the staff of consequence and a dog at his feet. In the Kashmir Shaiva tantras he is not an aspect of the Absolute but the Absolute itself.

Lord of the Dance

Shiva dancing the Ananda Tandava inside a ring of fire, one foot on the dwarf of heedlessness and one raised. A Chola bronze that became the most widely reproduced image in Indian art, and a compressed statement of the five acts by which the world is made, held, ended, hidden and released.

Daughter of the Mountain

Shiva's consort and the benign form of the Goddess — daughter of the Himalaya, mother of Ganesha and Kartikeya, and the figure through whom the ascetic Shiva is drawn back into the world.

Son of Hari and Hara

The deity of Sabarimala in Kerala, born of Shiva and Vishnu in his Mohini form. His pilgrimage — a 41-day vow of austerity followed by a forest trek — draws tens of millions each season, making it among the largest annual pilgrimages in the world.

The Lord Who Is Half Woman

One body split down its length — Shiva on the right, Parvati on the left, with one earring of each kind and half a moustache. Not a couple standing together but a single figure, and the tradition's most direct statement that Shiva without Shakti cannot act at all.

The Horseman of Jejuri

Shiva as a warrior on a white horse with a dog at his heels, worshipped on a hill in Maharashtra under a rain of turmeric. A folk deity of the Deccan whose two wives come from two different communities and whose devotees have included Marathas, Dhangars, Lingayats and Muslims.

The Bull Who Faces the Sanctum

The bull couchant on the axis of every Shiva temple, looking at the linga and never away from it. Mount, doorkeeper, chief of the ganas, first teacher of the Agamas — and, in the older layer of the tradition, not a bull at all.

The Teacher Who Faces South

Shiva as the teacher: seated under a banyan, young, facing south, with four aged sages at his feet and nothing being said. The image in the south wall of nearly every Tamil Shiva temple, and the one everybody walks past.

The Wrath That Was Sent

Born from a lock of Shiva's hair struck on the ground when he heard that Sati was dead, and sent to destroy Daksha's sacrifice. He blinded Bhaga, knocked out Pushan's teeth, beheaded Daksha — and then stood guard at the end of the Matrika row for the next fifteen hundred years.

The Pillar With No Ends

Shiva as an infinite column of fire, with Brahma flying up it as a swan and Vishnu digging down it as a boar. Carved on the back wall of almost every South Indian Shiva temple, and it is an argument.

The Boy Who Held On

A boy fated to die at sixteen who held on to a linga when Yama came for him, and was given deathlessness instead. The Markandeya Purana is named for him, and the Devi Mahatmya is inside it.

The Form Made to Stop Another God

Shiva as a winged, eight-legged bird-beast, created to subdue Narasimha after the killing of Hiranyakashipu. The Vaishnavas wrote a rebuttal in which Narasimha wins, and both versions were carved.

The Guardian at the Edge of the Village

The Tamil village guardian who rides the boundary at night on a terracotta horse. Thousands of open-air shrines, tens of thousands of clay horses, and one of the oldest continuously living cults in India.

The Beggar With the Skull

Shiva naked on the road with a skull for a begging bowl, serving a penance for killing Brahma's fifth head. The Chola bronzes of this form are among the finest sculptures ever made anywhere.

The Ten-Headed Scholar

The Ramayana's antagonist, burned in effigy every Dussehra and worshipped in temples on the same day. A Vedic scholar, musician and Shiva devotee who abducted another man's wife.

The Rope They Churned With

The serpent king who was used as the rope to churn the ocean, vomited poison doing it, and wears no injury — and who spends the rest of eternity wrapped three times around Shiva's throat.

The Curse That Starts the Plot

The sage whose temper starts more Hindu stories than any other single cause — the churning of the ocean, Shakuntala's ring, Karna's birth and the Pandavas' worst night all begin with him being annoyed.