Lord Shiva is Confused! We can’t have that, Can We?

Lord Shiva is Confused! We can’t have that, Can We?

Maybe it is true all over India and as I know only about Tamil Brahmin (in particular, the Smartha community), I would address only them.

The picture (sourced from the Net) showsthe crescent of the moon, in the third evening after a New Moon day. I truly envy the photographer who happened to take this picture on an evening with no clouds, no haze in the atmosphere, no human being around to spoil Lord Shiva’s meditation! Typically, you do not get to see Lord Shiva in human form in the Shiva temples in Tamil Nadu. What you see in the sanctum sanctorum is a column (the Siva Lingam) that is circular, hexagonal, octagonal or hexadecagonal (6 + 10 = 16, in simple terms) embedded in a base (it may also be a combination of two shapes).

If for whatever reason you need to fix the cardinal directions at a place you are visiting for the first time, don’t fret. All you need to do is locate the direction the drain leads from the stem of the Siva Lingam in a temple. That direction−as you see from the front or the back−is North. This direction finder never fails in Tamil Nadu and it is a lot easier than getting it from a compass you might be carrying (your smart watch, perhaps).

The drain points to the bottom portion of the right side of the picture and this indicates North.You are facing westward while looking at the idol from the front. The other cardinal directions are fixed, per what you learnt in your UKG!

It is hardly ever you find an anthropomorphic image of Lord Shiva in a Tamil Brahmin house (my parents’, for example). It is considered inauspicious. Yet, in North India, such pictures are galore.

I now come to images of Lord Shiva in some weird human form, with matted hair either in a top knot or free flowing, in a meditative pose or otherwise, offering sometimes a double vision to His devotees. Given below are a number of such pictures, every one of which carries the crescent moon (the third phase after a New Moon; no other phase would have such a sliver of a crescent against a not-dark sky; it is dusk, I can confidently assert).

I had to post quite a number of pictures merely to make the point that the supposed "democratizing" of art in the hands of people with supposedly an artistic bent of mind and not grounded in astronomy and myths of a religion do injustice to astronomy (this is to be condemned) and injustice to myths (you decide what to do with them, condem or congratulate). They confuse Lord Shiva, to boot!

From the images I can come only to the conclusion that the deity shown is lost and confused as in which direction he faces is a mystery, perhaps to Lord Shiva Himself. Even a mariner of the fifteenth century CE would have been confused! 

It is no wonder, then, Hindus are at a loss to make a consistent presentation not only to others but to even themselves about their religion and Gods. 

Freedom lets you go wherever you please, no map or atlas with you.

Such is the pity.

Raghuram Ekambaram