GREATNESS OF SHIVA-NAME, RUDRAM CHAPTER & TRYAMBAKA MANTRA

GREATNESS OF SHIVA-NAME, RUDRAM CHAPTER & TRYAMBAKA MANTRA

Shiva’s greatness, as well as the greatness of the name Shiva, comes out forcefully in the censure by Sati, wife of Shiva in her earlier manifestation, of her father Daksha-prajApati, in Bhagavatam (Skanda four, chapter 12).

No one, except you, father,  says Sati, would antagonize Lord Shiva who is unsurpassed and to whom no one is dear or hateful, who is the beloved Self of all embodied beings. People like you discover faults even in the virtues of others but there are some pious souls who never do so: doshhAn pareshhAM hi guNeshhu sAdhavo gRRihNanti kecin-na bhavAdRRishA dvija / 

My dear father,  She continues, you are committing the greatest offense by envying Lord Shiva, whose very name, consisting of two syllables, shi and va, uttered with the tongue even once and that too casually, purifies one of all sin. His command is inviolable. Lord Shiva is always pure, and no one but you envies him:

Yat dvyakshharaM nAma gireritaM nRRiNAM sakRRit-prasangAd-aghamAshu hanti taM /Pavitra-kIrtiM tamalanghya-shAsanaM bhavAnaho dveShTi shivaM shivetaraH //

Him whose lotus feet are resorted to by great devotees, honey-bees as it were in quest of the nectar of the bliss of Brahman, to Him who is the friend and benefactor of the universe, to Him who showers every kind of blessing on those who seek it from Him, to Him you have added insult to injury.

Yat pAda-padmaM mahatAM manolibhiH nishhevitaM brahma-rasAsavArthibhiH /

Lokasya yad-varshhati chAshishho’rthinaH tasmai bhavAn druhyati vishva-bandhave //

The ‘Shiva’ name is said to be the ‘Gem of all Life’ (JIva-ratnaM). Literally ‘Shiva’ means auspicious. The Lord is so full of Love that Love itself is said to be Shiva. ‘anbe Shivam’ says the Tamil scriptures. Just the two letters Shi and va when vocalized removes all sins. The five-lettered mantra Om namah-ShivAya has been extolled as representative of the entire Vedas. The five syllables na, ma, Shi, vA and ya represent respectively the five fundamental elements Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space; they are indicative of the five psychic centers of the body starting from the mUlAdhAra upto viSuddhi. The sixth center namely, the AjnA cakra is indicative of OM.

All this is only the thin end of the wedge as far as the greatness of the ‘Shiva’ name is concerned. It has an added importance in that it occurs in the Rudram chapter. One of the most thrilling and spiritually satisfying Vedic recitations is that of the Rudra-prashna of Krishna Yajurveda. It is seen in all the 100 branches of the Yajurveda and so it is also called Shata-rudrIyam. It is one of the five scriptural texts chosen by the ancients for constant repetition and meditation. The other four are: Vishnu Sahasranama, Bhagavad-Gita., Purusha-sUktam and the Upanishad of one’s own branch of the Veda. It is also known as Rudropanishad, because the three hundred prostrations to Shiva which constitute the central part of Rudram take one to Ultimate Self-Realisation itself. The theme is that Rudra-Shiva is all pervasive; He is behind and beyond all forms of Divinity; nay, even all forms of human and sub-human beings. The Lord is worshipped as the indwelling presence of the entire universe, including all the high and the low, the good and the bad, the virtuous and the debased. For instance He it is who sports as the Chief of Thieves – ‘taskarANAm pataye namaH’. (Recall B.G. 10-86: dyUtam chalayatAm-asmi. I am the gambling of the fraudulent’). To hear it chanted according to the South Indian style collectively in a full-throated fashion is itself a spiritual flight to heavenly Bliss and beyond. The Jabala Upanishad says, ‘By the repetition of the Shatarudra one gains immortality, for the names of God therein are nectarine’. The Kaivalya Upanishad says; ‘He who recites the ShatarudrIyam is cleansed of all sins as if by fire. He becomes free from the sins of theft, man-slaughter or commission of a prohibited act. He is like one who has taken refuge in the city of Avimukta (Varanasi). By this a man attains that knowledge which destroys the sea of samsAra. Thus knowing he enjoys the fruit of Kaivalya or Bliss’.

The ‘Shiva’ name occurs as the mantra ‘namah-ShivAya’ in the Rudram chapter almost in the center of the middle Veda, namely the yajur-Veda. The latter consists of 7 volumes (kANDas), each of which is divided into several chapters (praShnas). Each praShna is divided into paragraphs (anuvAkas) and each paragraph is counted in terms of subparagraphs (pancAShat). Every pancAShat contains fifty words or when it is the ending subparagraph of a paragraph, it may contain a few more or a few less. The following statistics will now show that the mantra namah-ShivAya occurs in the middle kANDa, and very near the middle praShna, the middle anuVAka, and the middle pancAShat; in fact, amidst a total of around 110,000 words it misses the center of the yajur-Veda by just around a thousand :

	kANDas	praShnas	anuvAkas	pancAShat’s	Words
In the full yajur-Veda	7	44	651	2198	109287
Number elapsed upto the occurrence of namah-ShivAya	3	23	340	1115	55769

The MahA-mRtyunjaya-mantra, also known as the tryambaka-mantra

 Tryambakam yajAmahe sugandhiM pushTivardhanaM /

urvArukamiva bandhanAt mRtyor-mukshIya mA-(a)mRtAt //

occurs in Rgveda VII-59-12 and also in Shukla Yajurveda 3-60. Among all mantras it is rated as a supreme one, next only to the GAyatrI. It is always invariably recited at the end of the Rudram recital from Krishna-Yajurveda, though it is not part of it.

It means: Tryambaka, the three-eyed God we worship, sweet augmentor of prosperity. As from its stem a cucumber, may I be freed from bonds of death, but not from Immortality. (The cucumber, releasing itself from its stalk effortlessly is one of the happiest metaphors in the Vedas.)

The sun, the moon and Fire are the three illuminations that constitute the three eyes of Rudra. The third eye (of Fire) is situated on his forehead; it is the spiritual eye which he opened for destroying Manmatha. Very rarely does he cause it to open. Tamil literature has a story of Nakkirar, the leading poet of the Tamil Sangam period, who was the victim of the opening of the third eye on one occasion, but of course was later pardoned by the Lord.

‘May I be freed from bonds of death’. This can be interpreted in more than one way. ‘Let me have full length of life and not be a victim of untimely death’. ‘Let me not die of any violent accident like fire, drowning or murder’. ‘Let me not die bedridden, of a wasting and protracted illness’. In fact a standard prayer at the end of daily pUjA is for a painless and easy death (anAyAsa-maraNam). Philosophically, coming back to samsAra by being born again is also a death in the absolute sense. So let me not come back to samsAra. All these meanings are legitimate.

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