Devi Parvati-Pasupatinathini,Queen of all creatures

THE QUEEN

The forest was buzzing with spirits that dwelled in it; spirits which were mysteriously connected and seemed omnipresent. Peering piercingly on anyone or anything that entered, without them being aware, from where exactly they were being looked at: but nevertheless feeling a burn on the nape of their necks. It had its tongue and ears too, this magical forest, and the word passed on from one tongue to another. “She is coming, the Maid of the mountains; She is coming, to become the Mistress of the jungle.”
It began with the sensitive birds tweeting and shrieking loudly in their shrill pitch. Not to be left behind, the mischievous baboons also started shrieking, jumping wildly from one tree to another, in exaggerated exuberance. The much ‘calmer in contrast’ deer, looked up from the green grounds, their beautiful big eyes inspecting the whole landscape fervently, as if to spot a family member, another of their tribe. “Ah yes, there She is, the doe eyed princess from Himalayas, scion of mighty Himavat himself, pretty daughter of the most gracious Queen, Mena Rani.”
“ What a divine time!” said the langurs. The langurs prided themselves to have been granted a boon of being associated with all divine humans.
“Yes, it will be the return of the divine period,” spoke Peepla, the wise old peepal tree.
“Return of the divine?” asked the chimpanzees.
“Sati,” replied Peepla with a monosyllable, and shook his mighty shoulders, to release thousands of leaves, as if to confer timeless blessing to the forest ground.

Everyone was excited; from the tiny squirrels who couldn’t stop their teeth from incessant chattering, to the huge elephants, who were behaving like little children about to see their mother after a long gap.
Even the sulking wild tiger was smiling, displaying a fine array of pearl- like teeth matched by equally sharp paws, which he held up to his own face and smirked in self appreciation. “I am ready for you, Parvati… my Master from time immemorial, Master of the King of the jungle Himself, The one and only who can ride even me, as a mere vehicle,” he whispered. “What do these meek folk know about the back that is needed to carry a Goddess?” he beamed at his own fabulous physique.
“Hsss… hsss… what a stupid and vain animal,” hissed the snakes to each other. “What does a tiger know about love and longing, loyalty and lifelong association like we snakes do? What does this feline fool know about the secret songs and hymns that the Mother sang to us as Sati Ragini? He is just a driver, whereas we are co passengers! It is to us, as Shiva’s beloveds, that She sang, to exchange places with; to us it was, that Sati said She was envious – if only She could be the one wrapped around Shiva’s neck in embrace! Hsss… hsss… and now She comes again!” “Not long ago,” thought Peepla to himself. “He was here, in our midst as Pasupati, and now, here She is, in our midst, as His Queen.” “Hahaha! Peepla, you old fool!” laughed his best friend Vrikshavirata. “Not long, you say? Don’t gauge everything by tree years, it has been more than a thousand years since Rudra was here as Pasupati, and Sati was our Pasupatinathini.”

 ~ SHIVA, The Ultimate Time Traveller. series
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WHEN DURGA- THE GREAT MOTHER, BECAME A DAUGHTER

Once, Brahmaji went all the way to the Himalayas to meet their King Himavat.
"To what do i owe this great honour of your visit to my house?" asked the humble King.
“ King Himavat, you do know that after Sati's death, Shiva has left Kailash and already shifted to an unknown part in your mountains. He is already your guest. You are the greatest host, known for your immaculate hospitality,You cherish the ideal of Atithi devo bhava; in this case, the guest is literally God Himself! You have already provided venue to Shiva, and now…” said Brahma, closing in unto Himavat. “Your providing a venue to the great Goddess, shall actually provide the immaculate inception of Herself!”
“My Lord! I do not know what to say. Your harbingering today is too much for a simple mortal like me to digest.”

“Ah, yes. But you shall be assisted in this by your own spouse, Mena.”Smiled Brahma

“Mena?”

“Yes, you may not know, but Mena is the greatest yogini of Durga even from her past life. It is she who will have to invoke Durga to be born as her own daughter, just as I, standing on one leg in deep tapasya for a thousand years, invoked Shiva.”

“A thousand years…?”
“Perhaps even more, Himavat! But you know what… when God Himself becomes your child, when God Herself sits and plays on your lap, each moment is the bliss of a lifetime…”

“Mena is the yogini of Durga from a past life? Hers will be the lap for the Goddess to play?”

“Yes!” Brahma beamed. “Such is the magic of the child in a god; the lap of a parent is a delight!
 A communion of high merit for both!”

Even while Brahma was foretelling the future to Himavat, Queen Mena heard a voice in her Dhyana,   “Arise, O Yogini! You have prayed to me in the deepest solitude for more than five hundred years. You have not been bothered about hunger, nor have you let the changing seasons, the blistering sun, the thundering rains, or the biting cold affect you in any way. Not once have your lips stopped chanting, ‘Aum Aim Hreem Kleem Chamundaye Vichaye Namah.’ So ask, O Devi, what do you want?”

“Aum Aim Hreem Kleem Chamundaye Vichaye Namah,” repeated Mena.

“I know,” said Durga, pleased. “I heard you. Now ask for your boon, Yogini!”

“Aum Chamundaye Vichaye Namah. I want the great Durga to take birth on this earth, to save Mother Nature from the plundering it is being subjected to by vain and mindless men with large egos; I want you, the great Mother, to be born as my daughter.”

“Tat Astu! So be it!” smiled Durga widely. “I am the universal Devi, but you, Mena, are the Devi of my own heart. You, shall be my Ma, always.”

And so it was, that the great boon was secured from Durga: The boon of Her manifesting on earth, which would then secure all of life from vandals.”



~ From SHIVA, The Ultimate Time Traveller. part 2.
By Shail Gulhati
Available on amazon https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07HVY1PPS ( India)
and
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THE GREATEST LOVE STORY...

“Sati…” His voice worked like an awakening call.
“Sati…” He repeated. And He did not say anything else;
there was nothing else to say.
Shiva repeating Her name like a mantra on His lips,
sounded like a thousand poems sung, by a divine singer,
who voiced eternity in each moment.
“Shiva…” She managed to utter the mantra She had indeed been repeating a million times over.
‘’Yes, my dearest?” He answered.
“Shiva, will we be together?”
“We are together,” He smiled.
“No. I mean, will we be together always, like this?”
“Yes, we will always be together.”
“Is it possible for one to be conjoined by her Isha? Please don’t wake me up from this dream…”
“Humesha…” He whispered softly, and lifted Her, bringing Her face near His own.
“Humesha?” She asked.
“Hum, Isha. When the divine finds its plurality as One, it is forever.
A love so perfect, it becomes clear there never were two!
This is no dream, Sati… it is the coming true of the dream,”
He said, with a soft but sure voice, gently putting Sati’s feet back on the ground.
They stood face to face, His arm still around Her,
stilled in the moment where He had planted Her,
as if She had always been there, and whispered in sweet resonance, “Humesha…”


~ From the book ~ SHIVA, The Ultimate Time Traveller.
by Shail Gulhati  Available on Amazon as an E book
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and for INDIA exclusively:
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Art by Shivangee Sharma

SRISTI ISWARA MAHARAJ

Sati announced Her intention to go every morning to worship the ancient Shivlinga in the royal forest reserves. The Shivlinga was so old that no one knew its history, not even Daksha or the noble ministers of the court, nor too the sages who were rumoured to have meditated in the mountains long before the city of Daksha had come into full being.

But the Shivlinga was there, in its monumental presence.
An enormous and beautifully carved out marvel, in mystic grey granite. All around it was the lush green of the forest, and the contrast of grey and green gave it a yet greater mystic feel.
A snake or two were always seen cuddled around it, as though to assert that they were a permanent part of Shiva.
Flowers strung together as garlands, put on the Shivlinga by worshippers, were undoubtedly more transient than the snakes, but nevertheless lay alongside in devotion.
It was common for Shivlingas to have a name. Usually the devotee of Shiva who had constructed a Shivlinga would name it by adding the suffix of Ishwara to his own name, thus acknowledging Shiva’s supremacy and also immortalizing himself, in the bargain.
Almost all the devatas had ritually made a Shivlinga. So there were Indreshwara, Varuneshwara, Agnieshwara Shivlingas.
They were magical and purported to be standing in the winds, fire and the celestial sky itself.
They formed the earliest places of Shiva worship, much before the Jyotirlingas that would become popular in later times.
But this, the colossal forest Shivlinga, grounded as it was, had a magnetism to it, which none could compare. True to its enigma,
it was unnamed. No devata was even born before it existed; so who would name it?
But it did have an extraordinary title - ‘Sristi Iswara Maharaj’,
The Lord of all creation itself.

Sati loved Sristi Iswara Maharaj. Whenever She approached the forest, She felt Her feet breaking into a run; She could never just walk. In the forest, She thought She clearly heard the leaves rustling into a chorus of invitation, singing ‘Sristi Iswara Maharaj’.
She thought that they sang to Shiva, but in Her haste to get to Sristi Iswara, what She did not notice was that the leaves were actually bowing in Her direction when She ran deep into their midst.
This became a daily ritual: She would not stop running till She reached the enigmatic Shivlinga, Her heart beating and the leaves pulsating with Her run till she arrived at the Sristi Iswara.
Faster each day was the run and the pace of life, faster this divine heartbeat, the mystic crescendo that had become all -encompassing. So fast, that She would almost fall in sweet collapse at the Shivlinga.
And then She would remain there in bliss, for hours on end, day after each passing day. Till the days turned into months and the months into a year. Her entire life itself had become an offering, Her time a rosary count.
 And then, one day, Shiva appeared.

~ From the book ~ SHIVA, The Ultimate Time Traveller.
by Shail Gulhati  Available on Amazon as an E book
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017ECI6CU
and for INDIA exclusively:
https://www.amazon.in/dp/B017ECI6CU

Art: Rajeshwar Nyalapalli

SHIVA TAKES HIS BRIDE HOME, TO KAILASH

Shiva approached Daksha and requested,“Your Highness, it has indeed been a long day of tremendous joy and festivity. We have enjoyed your great hospitality and now, as dusk falls upon us, I beg leave to take Sati along with me to Kailash. The journey is long and we should begin now.”
Upon hearing this, Prasuti began to weep, quickly coming to Sati’s side, and fixing Her bridal garments and hair with the deft hands of a mother who had done this every day for twenty years;
A mother who had brought up this miracle for all Her life.
A mother, who knew, as all mothers do, that this sort of chance of tidying up her daughter like a little doll, would now not come again.
Daksha was secretly impressed with Shiva’s immaculate manner, which was doubly contrasted by the mannerisms of His party of goblins.
“Yes, of course!” I shall command my armies to escort you…” began Daksha.
Shiva did not allow him to finish. He gracefully raised His right hand in a gesture of estoppel.
“Thank you, your Highness. We will not require any such escort. Do not hitherto worry about your princess Sati. She is now the Queen of the mountains, which we know only too well. We do not need any scouts, just your good wishes will favour us along the way.”
It was Daksha’s first experience of Shiva’s resolute authority, and a complete overruling of His own.
“Ah, yes…” he managed to mutter. “Sound the guard then, make way for the royal party…uh… mountain party… to depart,” he corrected himself.

Everyone started moving towards the hall exit, and Sati bent to hug Her mother and father, yet again.
Nandi started stretching his legs and making small but forceful grunts; it was like he was igniting his engines in readiness for the ride he had dreamt of: carrying both Shiva and Sati, to Kailash. He bordered on impatience, and was just a little short of asking the bride’s side to hurry up, but one look at his master and he held his peace, grunting and stretching a bit more.Shiva was very patient. He hugged all the family and His newfound brothers-in-law, the ministers, and rishis, In turn , as each of them moved up to greet Him.

Shiva and Sati then began to move to the gateway, where Nandi had already positioned himself. They moved gracefully in rhythm, as One. Brahma, Saraswati, Vishnu and Lakshmi, along with all the celestials, began to shower them with rose petals.The musicians began a farewell tune, and amidst tears and goodbyes, the newly married couple exited the hallway into the wide open, where the sun was sliding down like an inebriated but happy soul about to rest in his cosy bed.

Shiva gently put one arm around Sati and lifted Her easily off the ground. He seated Her on Nandi, and then looking at the wedding party one last time, sat on Nandi Himself.

Nandi let out a bellow that startled everyone with its tenor. It was like the call of a truly happy celestial elephant. He got up steadily to his full height, careful that Sati would not feel a jerk, and hoisted his riders to a majestic position of an exalted throne.
The royal drummers started beating their drums, breaking out into a lilting rhythm. The Shiv ganas promptly drew out their damarus and started playing them with equal vigour. The confluence of the palace music and that of the mountain men was, indeed fabulous—a divine jugalbandi.
And thus began Sati’s journey to Her abode in Kailash, amidst drums and trumpets, roars and fanfare. Kailash, where She hoped to live happily ever after with Her Lord, Shiva, who was also the beloved Lord of the world.

~ Shiva Sati art: Devdass, Ranbireshwar Shiva Temple artist, Jammu.

 From the book ~ SHIVA, The Ultimate Time Traveller.
by Shail Gulhati  Available on Amazon as an E book
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017ECI6CU
and for INDIA exclusively:
https://www.amazon.in/dp/B017ECI6CU