Hearing the command of Lord Shiva, their Master and Lord, all his attendants came
there and bowed their heads in respect at the holy feet of the Lord (Shiva). (5)
They had varying kinds of vehicles, and were in different forms and attires.
Even Lord Shiva could not resist at smiling at his own entourage! (6)
^1 Some of them had no mouths, while others had countless mouths.
Some of them had no legs or hands, while others had numerous limbs. (7)
Some had many eyes, while other had no eyes at all.
Some were well-fed and muscular, while others were emaciated and skinny.
(8)
[Note—Remember: It is an army of Lord Shiva who is the Lord responsible for
bringing to an end the life cycle of a creature who was created by Brahma (the
creator), and was sustained by Vishnu (the sustainer) till the time the creature lived in
this world.
The wise Supreme Being had to maintain some sort of ecological balance in his
creation—so he devised a method to ensure this. He decided that all who were born
would die one day. Otherwise, the earth will be overflowing with living beings and
there would be neither space left for the new generation nor would the earth be able
to sustain the increasing population which would be crowding its surface. Eventually,
when the surface of the earth would be full and no space left on it, its inhabitants
would be tumbling over to fill the space of the sky. If there was no such thing as
‘death’ then millions of years from the beginning of creation a time will come when
the entire unviverse would be chock-a-block with creatures who would be baying for
each other’s blood and grabbing each other’s throats to find place to make a foothold
and stand!
Therefore, Shiva, the ‘god of death’, is a necessity of creation. Being the patron
deity of death, Shiva is ‘surrounded by death’ at all times of his existence. Phantoms
and ghosts represent this aspect of creation—death and the period of time when the
dead creature lives as a ‘spirit’ till the opportunity comes to take a new birth once
again. This is an endless cycle constituting of birth and death.
Hence, Shiva’s companions have been depicted in the scriptures as consisting of
symbols of death—viz. spirits, ghosts and phantoms.
(^1) Some ate by absorbing nurtrition through their bodies because they had no
mouths, while others had countless little holes in their bodies to represent mouths.
Similarly, some simply rolled along like an amoeba because they had no limbs,
while others were like octupses with many tentacles representing as many limbs.
This basic idea applies to all the oddities in the attendants of Lord Shiva.]
¿U¢0. ß πËŸ ∑§Ù©U •Áà ¬ËŸ ¬ÊflŸ ∑§Ù©U •¬ÊflŸ ªÁà œ⁄¥U– 1–
÷Í·Ÿ ∑§⁄UÊ‹ ∑§¬Ê‹ ∑§⁄U ‚’ ‚l ‚ÙÁŸÃ ß ÷⁄¥UH 2H
π⁄U SflÊŸ ‚È•⁄U ‚Î∑§Ê‹ ◊Èπ ªŸ ’· •ªÁŸÃ ∑§Ù ªŸÒ– 3–
’„ÈU Á¡Ÿ‚ ¬ ̋à Á¬‚Êø ¡ÙÁª ¡◊ÊUà ’⁄UŸÃ Ÿ®„U ’ŸÒH 4H
chanda.
tana khīna kō'u ati pīna pāvana kō'u apāvana gati dharēṁ. 1.
bhūṣana karāla kapāla kara saba sadya sōnita tana bharēṁ. 2.
khara svāna su'ara sṛkāla mukha gana bēṣa aganita kō ganai. 3.
bahu jinasa prēta pisāca jōgi jamāta baranata nahiṁ banai. 4.