A key character in Hinduism, Shiva is particularly highly regarded by the gathering of Hindu religious groups known as Shaivites. Shiva is an ancient Hindu divinity who is held in high regard by Hindu communities everywhere throughout India and the remainder of the world.

Shiva is interconnected to the contradictory motifs of reincarnation and regeneration, sensuality and austerities, and sexual orientation and celibacy. He is concurrently represented in Hindu religious iconography and folklore as a great monk and as Shakti's founder of the spiritual realm.

In his embodiment as Nataraja, the master of dance, Shiva is commonly displayed either in meditative state or conducting the Tandava on the evil of misunderstanding. 

Shiva is regularly loved and respected as the Shiva linga, a phallic imagery that symbolizes the man's reproductive organ and, counterintuitively, symbolizes Shiva's austere restriction in addition to his imaginative restorative authority. However, due to the symbol's sexual overtones, it has commonly been perceived as controversial and chided by general public.

Shiva is also a prominent player in the Tantric doctrines, where the connection among Shiva and Shakti exists in for the continuing complex interactions of male and female sexual vitality, that is assumed to be the origin of the planet's regeneration. It's been theorized that a seal discovered during the digging of the Mohenjo-daro ancient excavation in the Indus River valley may represent a portrayal of a "proto-Shiva" figure. 

Shiva is commonly characterized as possessing a third eye that he employed to incinerate Urge (Kama) to do nothing. Based on a myth, Shiva ended up drinking the poison riled up from the universe's ocean, which is why the epithet "Nilakantha."

The grove of the moon is conducted by Shiva on his head. This trait is alluded to by the honorific Chandrasekhara. When Rudra first made headlines and evolved into the significant deity Rudra-Shiva, the moon's location on his head became a prevalent archetypal characteristic. Shiva's tangled hair is from where the Ganga emanates.

This characteristic is alluded to through the epithet Gangadhara. Among the nation's largest rivers, the Ganga, is widely speculated to have set up an abode in Shiva's head of hair.

Based on the Bhagiratha legend, the sage of just that title asked the divinities to transfer the godly Ganges to the planet to halt a drought and purge the remnants of his forefathers, but he was alerted that the earth couldn't really endure the Ganges' free fall from heaven.

As a direct consequence, he implored Shiva to begin receiving the Ganges when she fell from heaven and discharge her with a little less power. According to Hindu mythology, the Ganges would become entangled in Shiva's tresses and begin to emanate out of them in all portrayals of Shiva as a direct consequence.

He is represented as simultaneously a homeowner and an austere yogi, positions that seem to be completely at odds in Hindu society. He may be depicted seated and praying when he is depicted as a yogi.

Mahyogin is his moniker, making reference to his linkage to yoga. Whilst Vedic religion was previously based primarily on selflessness, the Epic period was seeing the emergence of the notions of tapas, meditation, and asceticism, and the appearance of Shiva as a monastic being contemplating life in serenity conveys these subsequent suggestions. He is a great father with two sons, Ganesha and Skanda, in addition to a wife called Parvati.

FAQS

Q1. Where does the name “Shiva” come from?

The adjective "siva," also widely recognized as "Shivam," in Sanskrit means "generous spirit," "sociable," "magnanimous," or "advantageous."

Q2. What is the relationship between Shiva and Rudra?

Shiva as humans recognise him presently shares numerous similarities with the Vedic deity Rudra, and in numerous Hindu traditions, both Shiva and Rudra are thought to be possessing the very same public persona.