......... contd. ......... TRYING TO UNDERSTAND SHIVA

Among the Aryan Gods there was a God named as Rudra. Who was this Rudra? Let us try and understand the concept of Rudra. The Vedic people had no idol worship. They only believed in ‘homa’ and ‘yagya’ to the elements of Nature. Rudra, in the Vedas is the God of thunder, he is the father of the Maruts – the thunderstorms. Rudra is also AGNI – Agni in the skies is the lightning of the thunder and Agni on Earth is Fire – the fire of their ‘yagya’. Agni is genealogically his own child i.e. UNCREATE, Fire is born from fire. He is the bull who is also the cow – Agni is complete with the simultaneous male-female duality! Two stones or two wooden twigs when struck together produced Fire. Taking another example, when certain elements, compounds react, they produce fire. Well, people in the hoary past probably may have thought that Fire already existed in those materials in the unmanifest form and became manifest when interacting in a particular way. Thus Fire could not be CREATED – it was UNCREATE, it could be only produced. Thus Fire – Agni according to the Vedic people’s understanding was the complete wholeness of being. One can understand the importance which the Vedic people attached to Agni. Agni gave them the much needed warmth and light (literally their lifeline) during their long, long wintry night. It helped keep the animals at bay in the darkness, it helped cook, it carried their offerings to the Gods - as it had the capacity to naturally rise. No other elements of nature have the natural tendency to rise up. So Agni was different, it was sacred. But it also had the capacity to burn practically any natural material – that is, it destroyed, and if not handled carefully or left unchecked, it could cause havoc – a complete destruction of whatever God or Man had created! Hence Agni was also the Destroyer - the God of Destruction.

From the artifacts excavated at Harappa, we know today that Indus valley people worshipped Rudra – the God sitting in the yogic posture. With the advent of the Aryans on the Indian sub-continent, the rulers (Aryans) may have tried to assismilate some of the religious ideas of the original inhabitants as a way to woo those whom they ruled. This must have helped the Aryans to reduce or stop the constant skirmishes which they must have had to encounter with the original inhabitants (which must have caused considerable damage to life, crop and property). Also when two different races live parallel, there is bound to be a healthy exchange of ideas between the two peoples. Thus Rudra – the God in yogic posture of the Indus valley civilization and Rudra- the God of Destruction of the Aryans, merged to later become known as Siva in the latter scriptures of Hinduism – who was also worshipped in the Linga form!
..................................To be contd.

Dr. Poonam Mehra