Topic Research: Shiva's Family

Shiva: Ancient History

• Shiva's power and dominion
• Considered the most important deity in the Shaivism sect of Hinduism
• associated with creation and destruction, light and dark, and good and evil
• Shiva destroys the universe every 2,160,000,000 years to make space to create anew
• He is an ascetic, using meditation to achieve enlightenment which makes him a patron of Yogis and Brahmins
• Shiva's wife and her disapproving father
• Shiva married Sati, the daughter of the god Daksha who did not approve of the union
• Daksha held a sacrificial ceremony for all the gods but Shiva, outraged Sati threw herself into the sacrificial fire
• Shiva was devastated and created two demons, Virabhadra and Rudrakali, out of his hair to wreck havoc on the ceremony and kill Daksha
• other gods petitioned Shiva to stop the torment and he restored things to the way they were, but returned Daksha to life with the head of a ram
• He later found Parvati, Sati's reincarnation, and married her
• Parvati and Shiva's son, Ganesha
• created from earth and clay by Shiva to keep his wife company during his meditation journeys
• Shiva didnt recognize his son upon his return and summoned demons to lob off his head while he was guarding his mother's bath
• trying to amend his error, he replaced the boys head with the nearest creature they could find, an elephant

  

  Shiva is truly an shapeless and omnipotent force, but is often depicted as a large four armed diety