Thou art Chandramas (Moon),
Thou art Surya,
Thou art the planet Saturn,
Thou art the descending node (of the moon),
Thou art the ascending node,
Thou art Mangala (Mars), and
Thou art Brihaspati (Jupiter) and Sukra (Venus),
Thou art the Budha (Mercury),
Many of these names need comments to be intelligible. Ketu is no plant. Hindu astronomers call the descending node of the moon by that name. Similarly, Rahu is the
ascending node of the moon. Graha is that which seizes, and Grahapati is Mangala, so called for its malevolence. Varah is Brihaspati or Jupiter who is the counter-self of
Sukra or Venus. In Hindu mythology, Sukra is a male person, the preceptor of the daityas and asuras. Atri is Budha or Mercury.
Thou art the worshipper of Atri’s wife,
Atri’s wife gave birth to Durvasas through a boon of Mahadeva.
Thou art he that shot his shaft in wrath at Sacrifice when Sacrifice fled away from him in the form of a deer,
Daksha’s Sacrifice sought to fly away from Siva, but the latter pursued it and shot His shaft at it for destroying it outright.
Thou art sinless,
Thou art possessed of penances that have conferred upon Thee the power of creating the universe,
Thou art possessed of penances that have rendered Thee capable of destroying the universe,
Thou art high-minded (in consequence of Thy great liberality towards Thy devotees),
Thou fulfillest the wishes of all who resign themselves to Thee,
Thou art the maker of the year (for it is Thou who settest the wheel of Time revolving, by assuming the form of the sun and the planets),
Thou art Mantra (in the form of Pranava and other sacred words and syllables),
Thou art the authority for all acts (in the form of the Vedas and the scriptures),
Thou art the highest Penance,
Thou art devoted to yoga,
Thou art he that merges himself in the Brahman (by yoga-abstraction),
Thou art the great seed (being the cause of causes),
Thou art the displayer of what is un-manifest in the manifest form in which the universe exits,
Thou art possessed of infinite might,
Thou art he, whose seed is gold,
Thou art omniscient (being as Thou art all things and the great knower),
Thou art the cause of all things,
Thou art he that has the seed of action (that is, ignorance and desire) for the means of sojourning from this world to the other and the other to this,
The Jiva carries the seed of acts, that is, ignorance and desire with it. As a consequence, the Jiva travels from one world into another without end. This seed is, therefore,
the means of locomotion of the Jiva. Mahadeva is Jiva. The soul is the rider and the body is the vehicle that carries the soul.
Thou hast ten arms,
Thou hast wink-less eyes (for Thou seest at all times),
Thou hast a blue throat (in consequence of Thy bearing in Thy throat the poison that arose upon churning the ocean and which, if not so borne, was capable of destroying
the universe),
Thou art the Lord of Uma,
Thou art the origin of all the infinite forms that occur in the universe,
Thou art he, whose superiority is due to him,
Thou art a hero in might (in consequence of Thy having achieved such grand feats as the quick destruction of the triple city of the asuras),
Thou art inert matter (which cannot move unless co-existing with the Soul),
Thou art all the tattvas (subjects of enquiry as counted in the Sankhya philosophy),
Thou art the ordainer and ruler of the tattvas,
Thou art the chief of those beings that wait upon Thee and are called Ganas,
The Ganas are mighty beings that wait upon Mahadeva. Ganapati is Ganesa, the eldest son of Mahadeva,
Thou coverest infinite space,
The word in the text is digvasas, meaning nude. The Puranas say that for stupefying the wives of certain ascetics, Mahadeva became nude on one occasion. The real
meaning appears to be that He is capable of covering, and does actually cover even infinite space. In the sense of nude, the word means one that has empty space for one’s
cover or vestments.
Thou art Kama, the god of desire,
Thou art conversant with mantras (in the sense of Knowledge being Thy penance),
This implies that, with Mahadeva, penance is Knowledge instead of being mere physical austerities.
Thou art the highest Mantra (for Thou art that philosophy which consists in the ascertainment of the nature and attributes of the Soul and its differences from the Non-soul),
Thou art the cause of the universe (since all that exists has sprung from Thy Soul),
Thou art universal destroyer (for all that ceases to exist becomes merged unto Thee who art the un-manifest Brahman),
Thou bearest in one of Thy hands the calabash, in another thou holdest the bow; in another hand thou bearest shafts and in another thou bearest a skull,
