The shivlinga has many iconographic and symbologic interpretations.

The most popular, which has caught the fancy of the Westerners, is that the linga is a phallus of Shiva. This phallus cult is 2. The entire composition is composed to be sung in raga Bhairava. Raga Bhairava is assumed to be the original creation of music by Shiva through his drum called DamarU 1. If you take rst Sanskrit syllable from each of the shloka above and arrange them horizontally you get AUM namaH shivaaya (I bow down to Shiva)

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.. shivaShaDakShara stotram ..
var.

Philosophic comments: This Shivastrotra is unique in many ways. I list some of the unique aspects of the strotra below: Comments Uniqueness: 3. However, each of the shloka can be sung in seven basic ragas of Hindustani classical. Pundit Bhimsen Joshi has done it. He has sung each sloka in dierent raga.

relatively young cult and the reasons surrounding its developments are not clear. The original Vedic Iconography indicates that Shiva was a pall of re spreading many light years in all direction that emerged just after the quantum chaos at the beginning of the universe. Many Sanskrit scholars believe that the quantum chaos was indeed the pashupata-astra pf ptA/that Shiva is supposed to be wielding. Iconographic interpretation of shivlinga as a enormous power locked inside a hard black stone cooled perpetually by water and guarded vigilantly by a security in form of Vasuki- the most venomous snake is also popular (not to miss the shape which resembles the modern Nuclear reactor). The above strotra, it may not be wrong to argue, has its ideological

origins in the original school of adhikrut sankhya( )

Comments by Surin Usgaonkar (written in memory of Bharatratna MM Late Dr P V Kane whose work will always be a source of great inspirtion.) usgaonkar at hotmail.com

Please send corrections to sanskrit@cheerful.com Last updated July 5, 2006

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