Whether one is from the rain-soaked lands of the North-East; the humid coastlines of India, the misty hill stations or dry and dusty plains—the glacial cool of Shiv Bhakti offers solace to the spiritual heart of a million Indians. Whether it be the inimitable vibration of hundreds chanting hymns together at Sreekandeshwaram, Kozhikode, Kerala; the procession of Prabhalu in Vijayawada, the mahadeep lifted atop the Lingaraj Temple, Bhubaneshwar: the inexplicable adoration and devotion towards this beloved, revered and awed deity is as ancient and widespread as Sanatan culture itself.
According to some Hindu lore, Mahashivratri is the day the world was saved from a devastating poison with no antidote; the dreaded halahal which was kept contained in Shiva’s throat; turning his throat blue and earning him the fond name of Neelkanth. Others suggest that Mahashivratri is also the day the reincarnation of Adi Shakti, and the rebirth of Devi Sati, Devi Parvati was bound in sacred matrimony to Mahadev himself. The significance of this is not lost to the Hindu masses who to this day associate spiritual detoxification, newfound prosperity, the union of the manifest and the transcendent and the elevation of souls on this auspicious occasion.
However, the beauty of Mahashivratri lies more so in the simple intricacies which makes it not a feature of our belief; but the essence of it—the energy as rural women spend the darkest hours of dawn picking the freshest flowers for their worship; the thousand-petal flower-shaped aarti, the stories that carry our Sanatan—eternal culture forward; because celebrating Mahashivratri is the same as celebrating the foundation of our philosophy as a spiritual civilization; to not only swallow the world’s poison, but to also open our heart to what is the polar opposite of us, to revere nature and the wild, to belong wholly to not only the brightest parts of society but also to the darkest parts which border the fringes and are shunned; to give the world not only prosperity but also salvation.
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