Читать книгу Ashtanga Yoga - Gregor Maehle - Страница 196

Exhaling, draw back into Downward Dog. We are now ready to jump through to sitting.

MYTHOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

Shiva’s Wrath

Virabhadra was a fierce warrior of Lord Shiva’s army. The head priest, Daksha, was an orthodox rule-maker and preserver of traditional society. Against his consent, his beautiful daughter Sati married Lord Shiva. Shiva destroys the world at the end of each world age, and he also destroys the ego. He is therefore the Lord of Mystery.

For various reasons Daksha considered Shiva impure. Shiva had peculiar habits such as meditating in burial grounds smeared with the ashes of the dead, and meditating on mountaintops for long periods, rather than participating in society. But the main reason for Daksha’s disdain was that Shiva always carried a skull with him. The story behind this was that, to punish him for his vanity, Shiva had once cut off one of the five heads of Lord Brahma, whereupon Brahma laid a curse on Shiva: that the skull would stick to his hand. To this day some worshipers of Shiva always carry with them a skull.

At one time Daksha organized a great ceremony to which he invited all deities and dignitaries with the exception of Shiva and Sati. Against Shiva’s advice, Sati attended her father’s ceremony. Before the thousands of guests she asked her father why he had not invited her husband. Daksha responded by exclaiming that Shiva was a despicable character, an outcast who did not know the conventions of society.

With this insult to her husband, Sati’s anger was so aroused that she burst into flames and was reduced to ashes. When Shiva, in his solitude, heard of Sati’s death he became terribly angry, jumped up and danced the dance of destruction.

Eventually he tore out one of his jatars (dreadlocks) and smashed it to the ground. From the impact the terrible warriors Virabhadra and Bhadrakali arose. Shiva ordered them to proceed to Daksha’s festival, destroy the hall, kill everybody one by one, behead Daksha, drink his blood, and throw his head into the fire.

The story continues, but as far as our posture is concerned we can leave it there. Virabhadrasana is dedicated to this terrible warrior.