Maha Shivratri

Maha Shivratri, on March 8, falls on the moonless night of the end of the Krishna Paksh or dark fortnight of the month of Phalguna. It8217;s honoured as the anniversary of Shiva8217;s marriage to Parvati and curiously, it coincides with International Women8217;s Day this year. My favourite story about Shivratri is in the Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata, told by the dying Bhishma. As the Kuru grandsire on that bed of arrows in Kurukshetra, discoursing on Dharma to Yudhishtira, he recalls the observance of Maha Shivratri by King Chitrabhanu of the Ikshwaku race. As the king and his queen fasted, along came Sage Ashtavakra he of the eight body bends, resulting from how he winced in the womb overhearing his father8217;s scholastic mistakes. He wanted to know the purpose behind the fast. The king revealed that in his previous birth he was a hunter called Suswara, in the region of Varanasi. His livelong task was to hunt animals and birds in the jungle and sell them dead or alive. One day he stayed too long to evade the dark and had to climb a bel tree for shelter, dragging up the carcass of a freshly-killed deer. He stayed awake through the night, shedding tears for his hungry wife and children who waited in vain for their dinner and dropped bel leaves all night long on the ground below to help him pass the time.

At daybreak he clambered down and took his kill home. As he was about to eat, a stranger appeared, whom he fed sumptuously before he broke his own fast.

When it was time to die, Suswara was approached by two messengers of Lord Shiva. He was felicitated on the great merit he had unknowingly acquired by fasting all night, laving the Shivling hidden in the dark at the bottom of the bel tree, with tears as pure as water because they sprang from sincere feeling, and offering sacred bel leaves, so pleasing to Shiva, all night long to Him.

Having worshipped the Great Lord quite without meaning to, he had unwittingly qualified among the devout and his soul8217;s reward was a body upgrade, to be reborn as a good and virtuous king, before passing into the 8220;eternal bliss of Shivaloka8221;.

I love this story because it connects in my modern head with Tolstoy8217;s old shoemaker who expected God to visit his shop but while waiting, kept up a stream of good deeds to the passing poor. At bedtime, when he reproached God for not showing up, God pointed out that he had 8212; repeatedly, as many people. Shiva tattva, indeed, to behave sincerely and uncalculatedly without thought of direct payoffs. It8217;s what the Christians so powerfully call 8216;casting your bread upon the waters8217;, isn8217;t it?