The Story Of Lord Shiva’s Marriage With Parvati

[Note—^1 This verse has two meanings: One is a literal meaning, and the other is the
allegoral meaning. Now let us examine them.
The literal meaning is this: Unable to cope with the ferocity of attack by the army of
Kaamdeo, the virtue of ‘Vivek’ (in a personified form) thought it prudent to escape from
being annihilated completely by withdrawing itself and confining its principles to the
pages of good books so that when evil times ended and good times came again, these
principles could be resurrected and made to live again. The generation that survived the
onslaught of evil and sins perpetuated by Kaamdeo, would be able to revive the ancient
principles of ‘Vivek’ (wisdom) and once again lead a life in accordance with the path
shown by the sacred books. The virtue of ‘Vivek’, i.e. the fundamental principles that
help the world to decide what is good for it and what is not, would once again be
available to the world if it reads the sacred or good books when the bad times are over.
It is just like the case of a wise king who does not show false daredevilry in the
battle-field and gets killed, but rather shows prudence by escaping from there and hiding
in a cave along with his close associates to wait for an opportune time to come out alive
to reclaim his kingdom when the time is right and the enemy is gone.
The allegorical meaning is that all the virtues associated with the term ‘Vivek’
(wisdom; the principles upon which one relies to discriminate between the right and the
wrong) vanished from the world when it was overcome by Kaamdeo. In other words,
when one is overcome with passions, lust, yearnings and desires to gratify the sense
organs of the body and its natural urges to enjoy the material world and its comforts and
pleasures, one’s wisdom fails him. Under the onslaught of the negative virtues
symbolised by Kaamdeo, a person become blind and loses the foresight to see what is
good for his well-being and what is harmful for him. All his good virtues go for a big
toss.
The “associates of Vivek” mean the different aspects and components of the virtue of
wisdom that together help a person to decide what is righteous and what is not when he is
given a choice between two situations or things or deeds. When Kaamdeo became
dominant, this ability vanished.
Let us examine this phenomenon from the metaphysical perspective of the
Upanishads. The body of a living being consists of three basic components: viz. the gross
body, the subtle body and the causal body. The ‘gross body’ consists of the external
organs of perception (ears, nose, eyes, tongue, skin) and action (hands, legs, mouth,
genital and excretory). The gross organs are under the control and command of the subtle
body consisting of the Mana—i.e. the heart and the mind. Kaamdeo (which term refers to
the emotions of passion, lust, love, desires and yearnings, and sentiments attached to
them) has his seat in the heart, while the mind is the seat of wisdom (Vivek) and
intelligence (Buddhi). As long as the mind remains in charge, everything runs fine. When,
on the other hand, the emotions symbolising Kaamdeo take over and force the mind
(wisdom and intellect) to retreat, the things take a bad turn for the creature and his well-
being. A creature under the influence of Kaamdeo is tempted towards the comfort and
pleasure of the sense organs and their respective objects in the material world, desiring
self gratification and indulgences with no holds.
A life without the active control of wisdom and intellect becomes animal-like and
degenerated. Kaamdeo forces the creature to barter his long term spiritual welfare for
short term sensual pleasures and comforts that come from the world and its sense objects.
Another interesting point to note is that the principles that governed Vivek are said to
have hidden themselves in “pages of sacred or good books”. This means that at the point
of time when Kaamdeo unleashed his reign of moral terror and turpitude, the codes of
conduct for the society and principles of Dharma had already been ‘codified in writing, in
the form of books’. This is why these principles and glorious traditions survived without
distortation—because they had been written. Had they been still in the oral tradition of
remaining as “Srutis”, we would have perhaps lost knowledge of all the good virtues that
the sciptures originally contained; they would have been lost for good.