Why are the Puranas, composed by Brahmins, spreading Brahmanical ideology, telling stories of gods like Shiva and Vishnu beheading Brahmins? Is the academic and activist quest to view Puranas as promoting Brahminical hegemony distorting our view of Hindu scriptures?
Most Popular. When Ambedkar lost election. From Others. The life of a simple billionaire How much alcohol is safe to drink? How Dr Jagannath Dixit became a messiah Who is a Hindu? POLL Have you taken your vaccine shot? Lord Brahma stood silent, inwardly enjoying this act of respect.
It was then, that Lord Shiva walked in. His anger erupted. Shakti looked up, and seeing the livid face of Lord Shiva, she at once realized her mistake and ran away from the spot.
Lord Brahma became four-headed as we know him today and meekly walked away, his heads hung in shame. However, that was just the beginning of an untold misery for Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva was aghast at this unseen complexity. Now he was stuck with the skull on his hand. In his anxiety he asked Agni, the supreme purifier of everything, to blow off the Kapala from his hand.
But, however much Agni tried he was unsuccessful. To make it worse, Agni also contracted the Dosha. Lord Shiva was now terror-struck. He went all around the world searching for a remedy. Go to various Sthala and take bhiksha in the Kapala.
The place where the Kapala overflows will be where you will be freed from the Dosha. Accordingly, Lord Shiva went from one place to another in search for liberation from the curse, as Bikshadanar, bearing the Kapala in his palm. Wherever he got bhiksha, it would immediately disappear on touching the Kapala and the Kapala continued to remain empty.
And so, hopping from one place to another he finally came to Thirukkandiyur. Goddesses Mahalakshmi too came out in all her glory and started emptying bhiksha into the Kapala. The Kapala at once overflowed and fell to the ground Some legends also claim that Lord Maha Vishnu cut his chest and offered the pouring blood into the Kapala.
Shiva was released from the curse at once and thanked Lord Vishnu for his timely help. Lord Shiva remained in the place as Brahma Sira Khanedeeshwarar. The temple is situated across the street from the Hara Saaba Vimochanar temple. Manmadh was a devotee of Lord Brahma and after a long tapa he was granted with three arrows, which when used on anyone would increase the love and romance in that person. Overcome with rage and humiliation, she cursed him and cast herself into the sacrificial flames.
When Shiva learned what happened, he was enraged. He cast two locks of hair on the ground which turned into his avatars Veerbhadra and Bhadrakali, and instructed them to kill Daksha. Most scary image I could find of Veerbhadra killing Daksha. Veerbhadra held Daksha down and cut off his head, tossing it in the sacrificial fire. Jayadratha was a nasty sort; he was married to Dushala, the only sister of the hundred Kauravas, but he had once tried to abduct Draupadi, the wife of the Pandava brothers.
But they let him go — an unwise choice, considering that he was consumed by the lust for vengeance. He did severe penance to Shiva, who was pleased with him and granted him a boon that he could, in any future war, for any one day, beat any warrior of the opposite side except for Arjuna. He took advantage of this boon on the thirteenth day of the Kurukshetra war when Dronacharya launched the battle formation chakravyuha. Only Arjuna knew how to penetrate it, but Arjuna was busy fighting elsewhere.
His son Abhimanyu could enter the formation but did not know how to escape it. Once he had entered, Jayadratha used his boon to hold off the Pandava brothers and all their forces, preventing them from following Abhimanyu, who was brutally killed. Arjuna vowed revenge. He swore to kill Jayadratha before sunset the next day or immolate himself.
Happily, Arjuna succeeded, with some assistance from the wily Krishna. Guess what happened? The goddess decapitates herself to feed her followers! Three jets of blood spurt out of her neck, one feeding her own severed head, and the others being drunk by two attendants, Jaya and Vijaya. The legend goes that one day the goddess Parvati had gone to the river to bathe.
Her attendants became very hungry and begged her for food. The generous and merciful goddess slashed her head off with her nails and fed them her own blood to satisfy their hunger. As you can see, the iconography is full of contradictions.
The major theme is that of self-sacrifice for the good of the world. But there are paradoxes. She is both food and eater of food, devourer and devoured. She is a self-sacrificing mother, the maternal ideal. But see how her feet rest on a divine copulating couple possibly Rati and Kamadeva? She is also the subduer and life-taker.
Actually, AFAIK, Indra was the one who taught this art to Rishi Dadhichi, warning him that he could not pass this knowledge to anyone else, because it could be used to gain immortality. The enraged Indra showed up and beheaded Rishi Dadhichi. I must add that Dadhichi is an important character in Indian mythology, and he is one of the greatest devotees of Shiva. The most famous legend about him tells of how he sacrificed his life so the gods could make a divine weapon of his bones to defeat the asuras.
He had a boon from Lord Shiva that his bones would be diamond hard. When the gods requested his help, he meditated his life away. He was very devout and served as temporary guru to the gods when their usual guru Brihaspati had abandoned them in anger.
Apparently, one of his heads was responsible for drinking, the second for observation, and the third for reading the Vedas. Talk about multi-tasking! Anyway, he was partial to the asuras, and Indra saw that he was offering them the remains from yajnas rituals that were meant for the gods.
Afraid that he would side with the asuras, an angry and fearful Indra cut off his three heads. The heads transformed into three kinds of birds: a francolin partridge, a sparrow, and a common partridge.
What does it all mean? I have no clue. Incidentally, when Vishwakarma heard what happened, he created a serpent demon called Vritrasura to kill Indra. It was to defeat Vritrasura that Indra requested Dadhichi to part with his bones. Indra battles the demon Vritrasura. Unknown Artist. Renuka was beheaded by her son Parashurama an avatar of Vishnu on the order of his father, the sage Jamadagni. This is what happened. Apparently, she was so chaste that even an unbaked pot would hold water for her.
0コメント