Thursday, October 10, 2013

Lord Shiva in Srimad Bhagavatam


Har Har Mahadev,

Please find some quotes dedicated to Lord Shiva from Srimad Bhagavatam, describing the Lord as  'Supreme Brahman' 

For convenience I am quoting SB from vedabase, a site dedicated to spreading teachings of Srila Prabhupada. If you are a not a Vaishnava, specially if you are not a Gaudiya Vaishnav, at times you will have to ignore purports.


Taking refuge in Lord Shiva, the saviour


SB 8.7.19: O King, when that uncontrollable poison was forcefully spreading up and down in all directions, all the demigods, along with the Lord Himself, approached Lord Śiva [Sadāśiva]. Feeling unsheltered and very much afraid, they sought shelter of him.

SB 8.7.20: The demigods observed Lord Śiva sitting on the summit of Kailāsa Hill with his wife, Bhavānī, for the auspicious development of the three worlds. He was being worshiped by great saintly persons desiring liberation. The demigods offered him their obeisances and prayers with great respect.

SB 8.7.21: The prajāpatis said: O greatest of all demigods, Mahādeva, Supersoul of all living entities and cause of their happiness and prosperity, we have come to the shelter of your lotus feet. Now please save us from this fiery poison, which is spreading all over the three worlds.


Shiva, the creator


SB 8.7.22: O lord, you are the cause of bondage and liberation of the entire universe because you are its ruler. Those who are advanced in spiritual consciousness surrender unto you, and therefore you are the cause of mitigating their distresses, and you are also the cause of their liberation. We therefore worship Your Lordship.


SB 8.7.23: O lord, you are self-effulgent and supreme. You create this material world by your personal energy, and you assume the names Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Maheśvara when you act in creation, maintenance and annihilation.



SB 8.7.24: You are the cause of all causes, the self-effulgent, inconceivable, impersonal Brahman, which is originally Parabrahman. You manifest various potencies in this cosmic manifestation.


Shiva as source of OM


SB 8.7.25: O lord, you are the original source of Vedic literature. You are the original cause of material creation, the life force, the senses, the five elements, the three modes and the mahat-tattva. You are eternal time, determination and the two religious systems called truth [satya] and truthfulness [ṛta]. You are the shelter of the syllable oḿ, which consists of three letters a-u-m.


Universe is inside Shiva


SB 8.7.26: O father of all planets, learned scholars know that fire is your mouth, the surface of the globe is your lotus feet, eternal time is your movement, all the directions are your ears, and Varuṇa, master of the waters, is your tongue.


Shiva Stuti


SB 8.7.27: O lord, the sky is your navel, the air is your breathing, the sun is your eyes, and the water is your semen. You are the shelter of all kinds of living entities, high and low. The god of the moon is your mind, and the upper planetary system is your head.

SB 8.7.28: O lord, you are the three Vedas personified. The seven seas are your abdomen, and the mountains are your bones. All drugs, creepers and vegetables are the hairs on your body, the Vedic mantras like Gāyatrī are the seven layers of your body, and the Vedic religious system is the core of your heart.

SB 8.7.29: O lord, the five important Vedic mantras are represented by your five faces, from which the thirty-eight most celebrated Vedic mantras have been generated. Your Lordship, being celebrated as Lord Śiva, is self-illuminated. You are directly situated as the supreme truth, known as Paramātmā.

SB 8.7.30: O lord, your shadow is seen in irreligion, which brings about varieties of irreligious creations. The three modes of nature — goodness, passion and ignorance — are your three eyes. All the Vedic literatures, which are full of verses, are emanations from you because their compilers wrote the various scriptures after receiving your glance.


Shiva, the Brahman


SB 8.7.31: O Lord Girīśa, since the impersonal Brahman effulgence is transcendental to the material modes of goodness, passion and ignorance, the various directors of this material world certainly cannot appreciate it or even know where it is. It is not understandable even to Lord Brahmā, Lord Viṣṇu or the King of heaven, Mahendra.


Shiva, The destroyer


SB 8.7.32: When annihilation is performed by the flames and sparks emanating from your eyes, the entire creation is burned to ashes. Nonetheless, you do not know how this happens. What then is to be said of your destroying the Dakṣa-yagya, Tripurāsura and the kālakūṭa poison? Such activities cannot be subject matters for prayers offered to you.


Shiva Stuti


SB 8.7.33: Exalted, self-satisfied persons who preach to the entire world think of your lotus feet constantly within their hearts. However, when persons who do not know your austerity see you moving with Umā, they misunderstand you to be lusty, or when they see you wandering in the crematorium they mistakenly think that you are ferocious and envious. Certainly they are shameless. They cannot understand your activities.

SB 8.7.34: Even personalities like Lord Brahmā and other demigods cannot understand your position, for you are beyond the moving and nonmoving creation. Since no one can understand you in truth, how can one offer you prayers? It is impossible. As far as we are concerned, we are creatures of Lord Brahmā's creation. Under the circumstances, therefore, we cannot offer you adequate prayers, but as far as our ability allows, we have expressed our feelings.

SB 8.7.35: O greatest of all rulers, your actual identity is impossible for us to understand. As far as we can see, your presence brings flourishing happiness to everyone. Beyond this, no one can appreciate your activities. We can see this much, and nothing more.

SB 8.7.36: Śrīla Śukadeva Gosvāmī continued: Lord Śiva is always benevolent toward all living entities. When he saw that the living entities were very much disturbed by the poison, which was spreading everywhere, he was very compassionate. Thus he spoke to his eternal consort, Satī, as follows.

SB 8.7.37: Lord Śiva said: My dear Bhavānī, just see how all these living entities have been placed in danger because of the poison produced from the churning of the ocean of milk.

SB 8.7.38: It is my duty to give protection and safety to all living entities struggling for existence. Certainly it is the duty of the master to protect his suffering dependents.

SB 8.7.39: People in general, being bewildered by the illusory energy, are always engaged in animosity toward one another. But devotees, even at the risk of their own temporary lives, try to save them.

SB 8.7.40: My dear gentle wife Bhavānī, when one performs benevolent activities for others, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Hari, is very pleased. And when the Lord is pleased, I am also pleased, along with all other living creatures. Therefore, let me drink this poison, for all the living entities may thus become happy because of me.

SB 8.7.41: Śrīla Śukadeva Gosvāmī continued: After informing Bhavānī in this way, Lord Śiva began to drink the poison, and Bhavānī, who knew perfectly well the capabilities of Lord Śiva, gave him her permission to do so.

SB 8.7.42: Thereafter, Lord Śiva, who is dedicated to auspicious, benevolent work for humanity, compassionately took the whole quantity of poison in his palm and drank it.

SB 8.7.43: As if in defamation, the poison born from the ocean of milk manifested its potency by marking Lord Śiva's neck with a bluish line. That line, however, is now accepted as an ornament of the Lord.

SB 8.7.44: It is said that great personalities almost always accept voluntary suffering because of the suffering of people in general. This is considered the highest method of worshiping the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is present in everyone's heart.

SB 8.7.45: Upon hearing of this act, everyone, including Bhavānī [the daughter of Mahārāja Dakṣa], Lord Brahmā, Lord Viṣṇu, and the people in general, very highly praised this deed performed by Lord Śiva, who is worshiped by the demigods and who bestows benedictions upon the people.

SB 8.7.46: Scorpions, cobras, poisonous drugs and other animals whose bites are poisonous took the opportunity to drink whatever little poison had fallen and scattered from Lord Śiva's hand while he was drinking.

SB 4.4.11: The blessed goddess said: Lord Siva is the most beloved of all living entities. He has no rival. No one is very dear to him, and no one is his enemy. No one but you could be envious of such a universal being, who is free from all enmity.

SB 4.4.12: Twice-born Daksha, a man like you can simply find fault in the qualities of others. Lord Siva, however, not only finds no faults with others' qualities, but if someone has a little good quality, he magnifies it greatly. Unfortunately, you have found fault with such a great soul.

SB 4.6.35: The demigods saw Lord Siva situated in his perfection as the master of the senses, knowledge, fruitive activities and the path of achieving perfection. He was the friend of the entire world, and by virtue of his full affection for everyone, he was very auspicious.

SB 4.6.36: He was seated on a deerskin and was practicing all forms of austerity. Because his body was smeared with ashes, he looked like an evening cloud. On his hair was the sign of a half-moon, a symbolic representation.

SB 4.6.37: He was seated on a straw mattress and speaking to all present, including the great sage Narada, to whom he specifically spoke about the Absolute Truth.

SB 4.6.38: His left leg was placed on his right thigh, and his left hand was placed on his left thigh. In his right hand he held rudraksha beads. This sitting posture is called virasana. He sat in the virasana posture, and his finger was in the mode of argument.

SB 4.6.39: All the sages and demigods, headed by Indra, offered their respectful obeisances unto Lord Siva with folded hands. Lord Siva was dressed in saffron garments and absorbed in trance, thus appearing to be the foremost of all sages.

SB 4.6.40: Lord Siva's lotus feet were worshiped by both the demigods and demons, but still, in spite of his exalted position, as soon as he saw that LordBrahma was there among all the other demigods, he immediately stood up and offered him respect by bowing down and touching his lotus feet, just as Vamanadeva offered His respectful obeisances to Kasyapa Muni.

SB 4.6.41: All the sages who were sitting with Lord Siva, such as Narada and others, also offered their respectful obeisances to Lord Brahma. After being so worshiped, Lord Brahma, smiling, began to speak to Lord Siva.

SB 4.6.42: Lord Brahma said: My dear Lord Siva, I know that you are the controller of the entire material manifestation, the combination father and mother of the cosmic manifestation, and the Supreme Brahman beyond the cosmic manifestation as well. I know you in that way.

SB 4.6.43: My dear lord, you create this cosmic manifestation, maintain it, and annihilate it by expansion of your personality, exactly as a spider creates, maintains and winds up its web.

SB 4.6.44: My dear lord, Your Lordship has introduced the system of sacrifices through the agency of Daksha, and thus one may derive the benefits of religious activities and economic development. Under your regulative principles, the institution of the four varnas and asramas is respected. The brahmanas therefore vow to follow this system strictly.

SB 4.6.45: O most auspicious lord, you have ordained the heavenly planets, the spiritual Vaikuntha planets and the impersonal Brahman sphere as the respective destinations of the performers of auspicious activities. Similarly, for others, who are miscreants, you have destined different kinds of hells which are horrible and ghastly. Yet sometimes it is found that their destinations are just the opposite. It is very difficult to ascertain the cause of this.

SB 4.6.46: My dear Lord, devotees who have fully dedicated their lives unto your lotus feet certainly observe your presence as Paramatma in each and every being, and as such they do not differentiate between one living being and another. Such persons treat all living entities equally. They never become overwhelmed by anger like animals, who can see nothing without differentiation.


Shiva Advaita - Shiva is one, there is no second


SB 4.6.47: Persons who observe everything with differentiation, who are simply attached to fruitive activities, who are mean minded, who are always pained to see the flourishing condition of others and who thus give distress to them by uttering harsh and piercing words have already been killed by providence. Thus there is no need for them to be killed again by an exalted personality like you.

SB 4.6.48: My dear lord, if in some places materialists, who are already bewildered by the insurmountable illusory energy, sometimes commit offenses, a saintly person, with compassion, does not take this seriously. Knowing that they commit offenses because they are overpowered by the illusory energy, he does not show his prowess to counteract them.

SB 4.6.49: My dear lord, you are never bewildered by the formidable influence of the illusory energy, Maya.Therefore you are omniscient and should be merciful and compassionate toward those who are bewildered by the same illusory energy and are very much attached to fruitive activities.

Note: Ignore the purport on this verse by Srila Prabhupada


Shiva Advaita


SB 8.12.8: My dear Lord, Your Lordship alone is the cause and the effect. Therefore, although You appear to be two, You are the absolute one. As there is no difference between the gold of a golden ornament and the gold in a mine, there is no difference between cause and effect; both of them are the same. Only because of ignorance do people concoct differences and dualities. You are free from material contamination, and since the entire cosmos is caused by You and cannot exist without You, it is an effect of Your transcendental qualities. 

ekas tvam eva sad asad dvayam advayam ca
svarnam kritakritam iveha na vastu-bhedah
ajnanatas tvayi janair vihito vikalpo
yasmad guna-vyatikaro nirupadhikasya

SYNONYMS

ekah -- the only one; tvam -- Your Lordship; eva -- indeed; sat -- which is existing, as the effect; asat -- which is nonexistent, as the cause; dvayam -- both of them; advayam -- without duality; ca -- and; svarnam -- gold; krita -- manufactured into different forms; akritam -- the original source of gold (the gold mine); iva -- like; iha -- in this world; na -- not; vastu-bhedah -- difference in the substance; ajnanatah -- only because of ignorance; tvayi -- unto You; janaih -- by the general mass of people; vihitah -- it should be done; vikalpah -- differentiation; yasmat -- because of; guna-vyatikarah -- free from the differences created by the material modes of nature; nirupadhikasya -- without any material designation.

TRANSLATION

My dear Lord, Your Lordship alone is the cause and the effect. Therefore, although You appear to be two, You are the absolute one. As there is no difference between the gold of a golden ornament and the gold in a mine, there is no difference between cause and effect; both of them are the same. Only because of ignorance do people concoct differences and dualities. You are free from material contamination, and since the entire cosmos is caused by You and cannot exist without You, it is an effect of Your transcendental qualities. 

SB 8.12.9: Those who are known as the impersonalist Vedantists regard You as the impersonal Brahman. Others, known as the Mimamsaka philosophers, regard You as religion. The Sankhya philosophers regard You as the transcendental person who is beyond prakriti and purusha and who is the controller of even the demigods. The followers of the codes of devotional service known as the Pancaratras regard You as being endowed with nine different potencies. And the Patanjala philosophers, the followers of Patanjali Muni, regard You as the supreme independent Personality of Godhead, who has no equal or superior.

Canto 8: Withdrawal of the Cosmic Creations
Bhaktivedanta VedaBase: Srimad Bhagavatam 8.12.9

tvam brahma kecid avayanty uta dharmam eke
eke param sad-asatoh purusham paresam
anye 'vayanti nava-sakti-yutam param tvam
kecin maha-purusham avyayam atma-tantram

SYNONYMS

tvam -- You; brahma -- the supreme truth, the Absolute Truth, Brahman; kecit -- some people, known as the Vedantists; avayanti-- consider; uta -- certainly; dharmam -- religion; eke -- some others; eke -- some others; param -- transcendental; sat-asatoh -- to both cause and effect;purusham -- the Supreme person; paresam -- the supreme controller; anye -- others; avayanti -- describe; nava-sakti-yutam -- endowed with nine potencies;param -- transcendental; tvam -- unto You; kecit -- some; maha-purusham -- the Supreme Personality of Godhead; avyayam -- without loss of energy; atma-tantram -- supremely independent.

TRANSLATION

Those who are known as the impersonalist Vedantists regard You as the impersonal Brahman. Others, known as the Mimamsaka philosophers, regard You as religion. The Sankhya philosophers regard You as the transcendental person who is beyond prakriti and purusha and who is the controller of even the demigods. The followers of the codes of devotional service known as the Pancaratras regard You as being endowed with nine different potencies. And the Patanjala philosophers, the followers of Patanjali Muni, regard You as the supreme independent Personality of Godhead, who has no equal or superior.

|| Om Namah Shivaya ||

7 comments:

Sivamjothi said...

God is one,

while creation he is called brahma
while maintain - vishnu
while destroy - rudhra
while hide in maya - maheswara
while bless with grace - sadasiva.

God is in the form of divine light.
Our athman is a divine light.

More details at www.vallalyaar.com

Indiaspirituality Blog said...

Namaste,

Yes God is one.

God is not light in reality, but is prakASa svarUpa. light has nature of giving knowledge and hence AtmA is called as prakASasvarUpa and not prakASa.

ISvara is GYAnasvarUpa, it is pure consciousness.

Hari OM

Roumesh Thimmadoo said...

Bhagavad Gita
ASitis.com

Chapter 10: The Opulence of the Absolute
TEXT 23
Of all the Rudras I am Lord Siva;

Hydra said...

Sorry. The text in Bhagavad Gita says among Rudras Lord Krishna is Shankara, (Shiva is not mentioned). The eleven Rudras are manifestations of Lord Shiva. That means Krishna is an avatar of Lord Shiva, one(Shankara) among Shiva's manifestations (Rudras)

Indiaspirituality Blog said...

Namaste,

The comment by @Hydra is in response to a comment by @Roumesh Thimmadoo

Unknown said...

How it means that krishna the supreme father is the avatar of lord Shiva. As we know lord Shiva is Param vaishnav as per srimad bhagavatam.

Anonymous said...

Sorry , Sadashiv father of krishna and he himself worship Shiva and his greatest devotee as per Mahabharat. Moreover shiva acts like that only, he does not worship anyone. All krishna name are of Shiva as in haribansa puran

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