Mahā-kāla is another form in which Shivŭ is worshipped in the character of the destroying deity. The image is of a smoke-coloured boy, with three eyes, clothed in red garments. His hair stands erect; his teeth are very large; he wears a necklace of human skulls, and a large turban of his own hair; in one hand he holds a stick, and in another the foot of a charpāī; his body is swollen, and his appearance terrific. Images of this form of Shivŭ are not made in Bengal, but a pan of water, or an emblem of Mahadēo, are substituted; before which bloody sacrifices are offered. Except before this image, such sacrifices are never offered to Shivŭ.
MAHADÉO, OR MAHĀ-DEVA.
Shivŭ appeared on earth in the form of a naked mendicant, with one head, two arms, and three eyes, and was acknowledged as Mahadēo, the great god: when he was about to be married to Pārvatī, the daughter of the Himalaya, her friends treated the god in a scurrilous manner, and cried out, “Ah! ah! ah! this image of gold, this most beautiful damsel, the greatest beauty in the three worlds, to be given in marriage to such a fellow,—an old fellow, with three eyes, without teeth, clothed in a tiger’s skin, covered with ashes, encircled with snakes; wearing a necklace of human bones; with a human skull in his hand; with a filthy jŭta—that is, hair matted about his head in form of a tiara; who chews intoxicating drugs, has inflamed eyes, rides naked on a bull, and wanders about like a madman. Ah! they have thrown this beautiful daughter into the river!” The asoca is a shrub consecrated to Mahadēo, and is planted near his temples. The biloa, otherwise called Malura, is also sacred to him; he alone wears a chaplet of its flowers, and they are offered in sacrifice to no other deity; and if a pious Hindū should see any of its flowers fallen on the ground, he would remove them reverently to a temple of Mahadēo. The Hindū poets call it Srīphul, the flower of Srī.
I have a beautiful image in white marble, highly gilt and ornamented, representing Mahadēo as a white man, young and handsome, sitting on a platform, with Pārvatī on his left knee. His hair is braided into the shape of a conical turban around his head, about which a serpent is twisted; and from the top of his head flows Gunga, in a heavy stream, to the ground. His moustache is brilliantly jet black, and his forehead adorned with the triple eye in the centre of a crescent. Below Mahadēo in the centre of the platform, is a small image of his son Ganesh, on whose right is the Nandi, the white bull couchant, and on his left, below Pārvatī, is a yellow tiger. Mahadēo is represented with four hands, one bearing the tri-forked flame, another a warlike weapon, a third a short rosary of beads, the fourth, the hand-drum, the form of which is like an hour-glass. His hands and feet are dyed with hinnā; his dress is yellow; a large snake is around his neck, and his body profusely adorned with jewels.
GANESH.
The history of Ganesh, the son of Mahadēo and Pārvatī, having been fully detailed in the Introduction, is here omitted. This god is the guardian to the entrance of the heaven of Shivŭ. Vishnŭ, in the form of Parashu-Rāma, wished to have an interview with Shivŭ, which was denied him by Ganesh; upon which a battle ensued, and Parashu-Rāma tore out one of his tusks. No public festivals are held in honour of Ganesh in Bengal; many persons, however, choose him as their guardian deity. Stone images of Ganesh are worshipped daily in the temples by the side of the Ganges, at Benares, and at Allahabad.
KARTIKEYA.
The second son of Mahadēo and Pārvatī is the god of war, and commander of the celestial armies; he is represented as six-headed, six-armed, six-mothered, and sometimes riding a peacock.
An account of the three great gods of the Hindū triad having been given, I will add a short description of the three principal goddesses, Lachhmī, Saraswatī, and Dūrga.