The Passion Of Siva

Brahma said,

“They arrived at his dwelling, a labyrinth of caves and an enchanted garden on the loftiest mountain. Siva dismissed his ganas and Nandiswara so he could be alone with Sati. He said to them, ‘You will come to me only when I call you.’

They vanished from there. He was a novice at making love, the great God Maheswara. Though inflamed by her presence, he began his courtship shyly. So far, she had been bashful, not even looking at his face along the journey, except when she could not help herself for the beauty of him. Now, as soon as he came and perched himself at her side, she took the passionate lead at love. She took his white, ash-smeared hand and brought it to her breast, dark as night.

Siva drew a sharp breath at the first touch of her velvet skin, her nipple alive against his palm. She cried out softly and Rudra bent to kiss her. First her hand, then tiny fluttering kisses all the way up her bare arm, he came to her neck and kissed her there; she trembled in her storm of love. Her red mouth found his lips and they remained like that for an eternity, oblivious.

Daylight faded outside the cavern. Gasping, they broke away from each other. Rising in the vast mountain silence, he led her out into the dusk to watch the sun set iridescent over fabled peaks.

As they stood enraptured, he wove sylvan flowers into a wild garland for her and laid it around her slender neck. He began to whisper into her shell ear, sweet nothings brushing delicate ridges. She shut her eyes and leaned against him, lost. Her fragrant breath heaved like the universe.

As the sun sank lower, he whispered, ‘What is my name, do you know my name?’

She had yet to say a word to him. Not opening her eyes, she smiled and shook her head slightly. He insisted, ‘Say my name.’

Still without opening her eyes, she caressed his face with one hand, standing there as darkness stole over them. Her other hand she sent down like fire over his body, down madly to the root of him, his sacred maleness, her small, black, red-nailed hand. Siva shook with her fever. The stars, which now pin-pricked the twilight sky, quivered.

The sun had set. He carried her back in, light as a large lotus. When she opened her eyes again, she found she was alone in the cavernous chamber. Sculpted stalactites hung, breathtaking, from the lofty ceiling. The warm cave was strewn with a riot of garlands; soft lamps cast shadows on rock walls. She saw a mirror in a corner and, fearful lest she had spoilt herself for him, crossed to it to study her face. She smiled in the glass: never had she seen herself so radiantly beautiful. Even he, she allowed herself, would be pleased with her.

Suddenly, someone covered her eyes. She gave a little scream, but his touch was familiar. He stood behind her and his hands were on her face, her arms and her body: inhibition gone, the male in him in charge now. She melted in the laval desire licking her spine, waking the coiled serpent there; it fled up that stem to the thousand-petalled bloom unfurling in her head. His hands were everywhere, stroking her into a flame. Abruptly he stopped. Her breath came breathlessly and, opening her eyes, she saw his great chest also heaved.

She took his hand and stroked it to calm him, so that they could begin all over again. She said her first words to him now, ‘Siva, shall we wait a while?’

There was no reply, only his gaze. The silence in this place was deeper than any she had known. She was frightened; fear gave edge to her desire.

‘Siva hold me, I’m afraid!’

‘You said my name,’ he smiled.

His hands began to undo the straps that fastened her robe. His breath caught in his throat when her breasts were naked in the lamplight. The garment he had peeled from her fell from his hands. He sat her upon a couch of down. Her wedding necklace sparkled on her dark chest; she felt his kisses travel down her throat. She felt his hands slide down her body, those great and fine hands all over her making her delirious.

He drank from her. She rippled in waves; out from the singing rapturous point of her breast, down past her violet navel to the knot of her below, washing down to the soles of her red petal feet and up in a tide again to her head, exploding there in bursts of legend’s bright foam. She was sobbing now Narada, seeking him blindly with her fingers.

The sweet nectar of her was unbearably heady. He pulled away again, gently folding back her hand. With musk, he made marks like bees on her breasts. Laughing, he said of a mole on her, ‘this kaalika is a tiny you, as black, as irresistible!’

Beside himself, he drew away, but still her hand sought him recklessly. He cupped it to his own, stopped it, whispering hoarsely, ‘wait.’

And she, ‘I cannot, my Siva!’

The goddess in her would not be denied this experience of incarnation: the loving for which they had taken human form. He let her have her way with him in the worshipful dark.

Brahma paused, as if trying to fathom what happened in the Himalayan dark. Narada cried, “don’t stop Pitama!”

Shutting his eyes to better recall that sacred lovemaking, Brahma went on, “now she called his thousand names, the Kotirudra with which she had worshipped him. Her fingers were in his matted jata, holding him down to her without shame. Everywhere her hands flew over him, birds freed from a cage. She was no more her own mistress than he was master of himself. Another thing held them in its frenzied clutch, a love older than the sky or stars.

At last he rose from where he knelt. With a hundred kisses, he pushed her gently onto her hack; neither of them could wait any more. Like a flower opening, she raised her legs and draped them over his shoulders, while she smiled sweetly at him though a daze film her eyes. She took his linga, radiant as a deity, in her hands. She breathed, ‘my blood is for you Siva, mark yourself with it.’

At that moment, Siva was lost in her ocean, in the tide that surged deeper than he know. With a cry he thrust himself into his beloved and the blood of her maidenhood greeted him like aradhana. Her scream uncurled the nebulae and Siva was installed in the temple of Sati’s divine body.

‘The universe breathed anew, as if born again, as he began to crest her waves and her wild cries pierced everything,’ said Brahma, peerless raconteur, to Narada muni.

“Matsyagandhi’s great poet son, Vedavyasa, told me once, long ago,” says the Suta to the rishis.

[Reproduced without permission from the book Siva: the Siva Purana Retold, by Ramesh Menon]