Shiva
Śiva (IAST)Translation: "Auspicious"
From Mandukya Upanishad (Verse 7, 12)
A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy
Sanskrit: शिव
Transliteration: Śiva
Translation: "auspicious; the Ultimate Reality; Lord"
Definition:
- According to the Śaiva schools, Śiva is the supreme Godhead. The concept is traced to the Ṛg Veda and He is the same as Rudra.
- Literally Śiva means “good or auspicious.”
- Lord Śiva exercises five functions: creation (Sṛṣṭi), maintenance (Sthiti), dissolution (Saṃhāra), obscuration (Tirodhāna), and grace (Anugraha).
- According to Śaiva Siddhānta, Śiva has eight qualities: independence, purity, self-knowledge, omniscience, freedom from Mala, boundless benevolence, omnipotence, and bliss.
- According to Śaiva Siddhānta, Śiva appears in eight forms: earth, water, air, fire, sky, the sun and the moon, and in human beings. See the benedictory (Nāndī) verse of the Abhijñāna-Śakuntala of Kālidāsa.
- According to Vīra Shaivism, Śiva manifests in six forms.
- A name for the all-pervasive supreme Reality. As one member of the Hindu trinity, He represents God as the destroyer. He is the personal God of the Śaivites. In His personal form, He is portrayed as a Yogi wearing a tiger skin and holding a trident, with snakes coiled around His neck and arms.
- According to Kashmir Shaivism, Śiva has five principles: Vidyā, Īśvara, Sadaśiva, Śakti, and Śiva. He also has five faces: Sadyojāta, Vāmadeva, Aghora, Tatpuruṣa, and Iśana.
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
Definition: "Śiva, one of the great gods of Hinduism (with Viṣṇu and Brahman), auspicious controller of Karma and Saṃsāra, destroyer but also giver of life. He is worshiped in Shaivism with his consort Śakti. A variety of deities are regarded in Shaivism as forms of Śiva, with the consequence that polytheism is moved substantially toward monotheism.
The Masks of God, Oriental Mythology (Joseph Campbell)
"A second Vedic figure who supplied a point of juncture with the other system was the fierce god Rudra, to whom but three Vedic hymns are assigned, and whose name, from the root rud, "to cry out," seems to mean "Howler." He became identified in later cult with the meditating Lord of Beasts, discussed above as a proto-Śiva. The epithet Śiva, "Auspicious One," is itself a Sanskrit word and so cannot have been the name of that god in pre-Vedic times. It is addressed in the Vedas, however, to the god Rudra, who, though terrible and destructive, is beneficent as well. He is called a bull and is the father of a great golden troop of young male gods, the Maruts, whose mother was a cow. These hold the lightning in their hands, are decked richly with ornaments, and are as broad as the sky through which their chariots thunder, spilling rain.
O Rudra, Wielder of the Bolt, the best of what
Is born, in glory, mightiest of the mighty:
Transport us in all safety to the farther shore,
Beyond distress, warding off all threats of mischief.
The yonder shore beyond ill, the mighty bolt, the howling host, the bull and cow, the fierce and yet protective character, and the universal rule of the god Rudra, ever young: these are all attributes of the Śiva of later days. However, the emphatically phallic character of the later Hindu god cannot have been derived by any argument from the Vedas; nor his character as the lord of Yoga."
References:
- Grimes, John (1996). A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English. Albany: State University of New York Press
- Audi, Robert (1999). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Second Edition. New York: Cambridge University Press
- Campbell, Joseph (1991). The Masks of God, Vol. 2: Oriental Mythology. London: Secker & Warburg. p. 208-209.
