206 Part III: South Asia
ecstatic dance to music and verse are favorite forms of communication. The fla-
vor of the new passionate bhakti can be illustrated by one of the Tamil poet-
saints of the eleventh century, Sambandar. Myths grew up around him; it was
said that as a child he was suckled by Parvati, the wife of Shiva, and immedi-
ately produced 15 stanzas of poems in adoration of Shiva. Here is one of them:
He has put on the white crescent moon over his
Crested locks that bear the spreading waters;
He is the deceiver who steals away my heart so that
The white rows of beautiful bracelets slip off from my arms;
So that this is named the one great metropolis of earth with its many cities,
He hath come to Priama-puram, name renowned; our mighty one is he!
Is it not so!
This song celebrates the imagery of Shiva, with a crescent moon and Ganges
water in his hair. The singer adopts the voice of female lover, her heart stolen
by Shiva, “the deceiver.” The final lines suggest Shiva is presiding king-like in a
temple in the heart of a city made great by his presence. Sambandar, like many
of the bhakti saints, made regular journeys from temple to temple and town to
town, followed by a host of devotees, to sing in ecstasy in the great temples of
Shiva (Kumar 2005).Lord Shiva in calendar art. This paint-
ing captures all the traditional iconog-
raphy of Shiva. His long locks are
wound on top of his head in the man-
ner of a sadhu. The goddess Ganga is
caught in his hair, channeling the
Ganges River into the Himalayas,
from which it flows into North India.
The new moon is also caught in his
hair. The “third eye” is visible in his
forehead, denoting the higher con-
sciousness derived from his tapasya. A
naga is coiled around his neck, and the
trident is his special weapon. The
sacred sound, aum, is inscribed on his
neck and palm. In the upper left is a
lingam, a commonly worshipped form
of Shiva.