Shiva (Sanskrit शिव Śiva) - transcribed sometimes by Siva or Çiva , “the good, the nice one, which carry happiness” - is a Hindu god, element of the Trimûrti (trimūrti), Raghunath Manet in its choreography of Trimurti or the seven dances of Shiva presents a new view with Michel Portal of the “Hindu trinity”.

For the shivaïtes, Shiva is the personification of the Absolute, the destroying principle and at the same time regenerator of the world, dispenser of died and rebirth.

It is a god of origin dravidienne, former to the Aryan invasions.

Functions

In Trimûrti, Shiva is the destructor, whereas Brahma (Brahmā) and Vishnou (Viṣṇu) is respectively the creator and the conservative. However, although it represents the destruction, it is regarded as a positive force, since, after the destruction, occurs regenerating creation. Besides it saves the world in at least three circumstances, when it interposes between the ground and the feet of Kâlî made furious because it lost against him at the time of a contest of Bharata Natyam, when Kâlî, after having drunk the blood of Raktabija, is taken of a frantic dance shaking the ground, and at the time of the Barattage of the milk sea when it swallowed the cut of poison that this one generated, poison which left him a blue trace on the throat.

In fact, Shiva represents less the evil than the transcendence, the pit which separates the human one from divine in front of which the man is seized by crowned terror (see Mysterium tremendum Rudolf Otto). Shiva is the destructor and the creator, but this antagonism is only apparent; they are indeed perceived like reciprocally dependant, a paradoxical complementarity to some extent. When Shiva is presented in Natarâja, the Lord of the dance, it marks of his heel the ternary rate/rhythm of will tandara, symbolizing creation, permanence and the destruction (each point of the three-pronged fork).

He is the beginning and the end, the yogi ascetic and the luxurieux tantrique one, kindness and the fury, alpha and the omega. Shiva is not known Veda, it could be a form of Rudra (literally “Red” also called “Hurleur”, a terrifying god) which evolved/moved later on.

Shiva is the interior fire ( typed ) which devours the ascetics, the time which destroys and recreates the world. It is usually represented by a Phallus stylized, called shiva Lingam (liṅgaṃ), symbol of creation sometimes associated with the Yoni , the female body, the matrix of the world.

Shiva is still paśupati. Under this aspect, it protects the cattle (paśu), pledge of richness, but more symbolically, it protects and releases the hearts controlled in and by will samsāra. The texts play of three words: suffered, the Lord or the Master; paśu, the herd (of the excessively pious people), the individual heart; pāśa, the bond (of transmigration).

Its residence is the mount Kailash (Kailāsa) and its vehicle ─ vahana in Sanskrit ─ is Nandi or Nandin (Nandī), the ox, the bull, the calf. The parèdre of Shiva, its Shakti (śakti) presents several forms, Pârvatî (Pārvatī), the girl of the Himalayas (Himālaya), Durga (Durgā), the inaccessible one, Kâlî (Kālī), the goddess of death. Shiva was also married with Satî (Satī), the girl of Daksha (Dakṣa), which was opposed to their marriage.

The crowned city of Shiva is Vârânasî (Bénarès).

Its admirers, the shivaïtes, regard it as only creator. The Shivaïsme is one of the two principal branches of the hindouism today, the other being the Vaishnava.

Shiva and Parvati are the parents of Skanda - also called Karttikeya (Kārttikeya) or Subrahmanya (Subrahmaṇya) - and of Ganesh (Gaṇeśa), the god elephant who draws aside the obstacles. Traditionally and with the difference of Vishnu, Shiva does not have a misadventure S.

Nayanars - or Nayanmars - 63 devout poets of the India of the south, who lived between the {{VIIe}} and 10th centuries are at the origin of the development of the worship of Shiva.

Representation or Mûrti

• its chignon ─ Jatâmukuta (jaṭāmukuṭa) ─ the seat of its capacity of ascetic,
• the crescent of the moon fixed on its hair,
• the Third eye closed because its destroyed glance,
• the cobra Kundalinî (kuṇḍalinī), sexual energy, like collar,
• a skin of tiger symbolizing its control of Nature.

Like ascetic but also like lord of the places of cremation, it covers the body of ash. Shiva protects the ground from the force of Gangâ, the Gange (Gaṅgā), it calms the heat of its floods by filtering them in its loops. It often carries a conch in a hand and has a three-pronged fork , symbol which concentrates, for its admirers, the capacities of the Trimûrti, i.e. creation, perpetuation and destruction.

According to the legend, Shiva and Vishnou went in a forest to fight 10.000 heretics. Furious, those sent to attack Shiva a tiger, a snake and a black and wild dwarf armed with a bludgeon. Shiva killed the tiger ─ it traditionally sat on a skin of tiger, because main of nature Pashupati ─ tamed the snake which it put around its neck as a collar (symbol of the control of passions), posed its foot on the dwarf and carried out a dance developing such a power that the dwarf (see illustration) and the heretics recognized in him them lord.

Shiva sometimes is represented mixed with its Shakti forming a being hermaphrodite, Ardhanari.

Hanuman is seen like an incarnation of Shiva.

The symbol of the lingam

Shiva is usually represented by a Phallus stylized, called shiva Lingam (liṅgaṃ), symbol of creation associated with the Yoni , a stone slab representing the female body, the matrix of the world. By the union of the linga and yoni, the Absolute which is spread in the world proves that it overcomes antagonism male-female or spiritual-material. The linga also represents cosmos, but also the capacity to know, the conscience like centers reality. Directed either towards the natural purpose of force of life and incarnation, the phallus drawn up towards the sky represents the gathering of energies of the yogi on the significant plan and their conversion towards a subtle level.

In old India, the lingam was the symbol of the phallus, representing the prince original creative EP such that Shiva incarnates it, the god of the Alive one.

This phallic symbol constitutes a recall of the old prehistoric worships of fruitfulness, and its scultée image is, in its stylization, very far away from nature: the lingam resembles in fact a section of column, and points out sometimes the symbol Méditerranéen of the Omphallos]]

One of the representations among most common, among most famous of the Hindu Art, closely associated with the Bronze S Tchola, because very frequent at that time, is sumptuous Shiva (or Çiva in Tamoul) Natarâdja , Seigneur of the Danse - or the Dancers.

Shiva achieves the cosmic Danse of the destruction and the creation of the universe.

Its Chevelure is spread wildly while he dances, transported by the rate/rhythm of small the drum in form of Sablier or Clepsydre ( damaru ) that he holds in highest of his Main S right-hand sides. This rate/rhythm is the Pulsation cosmos ( mâyâ ) which is born with the life thanks to the beneficial action from the creative dance, by creating, with each beat, the Air, the fire, the Eau and the Ground, and thus awaking the life; but it is of this same dance that the spark will spout out which will destroy the world. Cosmos is illustrated by the Cercle which contains the divinity; it spouts out fertile Bouche S of the will makara placed on the base of the Statue