Parvathi offering flowers to Lord Shiva

By Neelima

March 28, 2009

Tags: Kumarasambhava, Shiva Parvathi, watercolor painting

Category: The story of Shiv Parvathi

3 Comments »

 

So had they met on the summits of the world.

Like the still spirit and its unawakened force

Near were they now, yet to each other unknown,

He meditating, she in service bowed.

Closing awhile her vast and shadowy wings

Fate over them paused suspended on the hills.

 

               Painted on Arches 300gsm HP half sheet; Schminke Artists watercolors.

               The story continues like this…  Lord Shiva is mourning the loss of his wife, Sati devi and the poet asks ‘He who gives the fruits to all austerities, with what deep desire is He in meditation yoked?’ 

               Meanwhile,  Sage Narada fortells that Parvathi would be wedded to the Almighty God, Shiva; hearing this, her father’s (Himaloy’s) heart leaps with joy but he dares not approach Him for such a boon. So he sends his daughter to the Lord to serve him. She goes along with her maids/friends and offers him flowers and holy water morn, noon and eve; plucks and heaps the sacred kusha grass and sweeps the altar of the divine fire.

 

The sages ranging at their will the stars

Saw her and knew that this indeed was she

Who must become by love the beautiful half

Of the Almighty’s body and be all

His heart. This from earth’s seers of future things

Himaloy heard and his proud hopes contemned

All other than the greatest for her spouse.

Yet dared he not provoke that dangerous boon

Anticipating its unwakened hour,

But seated in the grandeur of his hills

Like a great soul curbing its giant hopes,

A silent sentinel of destiny,

He watched in mighty calm the wheeling years

She like an offering waited for the fire,

Prepared by Time for her approaching lord.

 

But the great Spirit of the world forsaken

By that first body of the Mother of all,             

Not to her second birth yet come, abode

In crowded worlds ascetic, stern,

And passionless and unespoused,

The Master of the animal life absorbed

In dreamings, wandering with his demon hordes,

Desireless in the blind desire of things.

At length like sculptured marble still he paused,

To meditation yoked. With ashes smeared

Clothed in the skin of beasts

He sat a silent shape upon the hills.

Below him curved Himadri’s slope; a soil

With fragrance of the musk-deer odorous |         

Was round, and there the awful Splendour mused.

Mid cedars sprinkled with the sacred dew

Of Ganges, softly murmuring their chants

In streams subdued the Kinnar minstrels sang.

Where oil-filled slabs were clothed in resinous herbs,

His grisly hosts sat down, their bodies stained

With mineral unguents; bark their ill-shaped limbs

Clad and their tremendous hands

Around their ears had wreathed the hillside’s flowers.

On the white rocks compact of frozen snow

His great bull voicing loud immortal pride

Pawed with his hoof the argent soil to dust.

Alarmed the bisons fled his gaze; he bellowed

Impatient of the mountain lion’s roar.

Concentrating his world-vast energies,

He who gives all austerities their fruits

Built daily his eternal shape of flame,

In what impenetrable and deep desire ?

The worship even of gods he reckons not

Who on no creature leans; yet worship still

To satisfy his awe the mountain paused

And gave his daughter the great Soul to serve.

She brought him daily offerings of flowers

And holy water morn and noon and eve

And swept the altar of the divine fire

And plucking heaped the outspread sacred grass,

Then showering1 over his feet her falling locks

Drowned all her soft fatigue of gentle toils

In the cool moonbeams from the Eternal’s head.

Though to austerity of trance a peril

The touch of beauty, he repelled her not

Surrounded by all sweetness in the world

He can be passionless in his large mind,

Austere, unmoved, creation’s silent king.

So had they met on the summits of the world.

Like the still spirit and its unawakened force

Near were they now, yet to each other unknown,

He meditating, she in service bowed.

Closing awhile her vast and shadowy wings

Fate over them paused suspended on the hills.

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