Storytelling Week 11: The Yogi and his Wife

One day as Shiva meditated at Kailas a disciple came to him and told him of some heretical rishis in the Taragam forest.  The disciple told him that they believed that the universe was eternal and that performance of works alone was sufficient for salvation and that the souls had no lord.  Naturally, Shiva was intrigued about the rishis so he went to the Taragam forest to ascertain the truth.  Once there, he discovered ten thousand rishis who did indeed believe as his disciple said.  Wishing to convey the truth upon them, Shiva left the Taragam forest and went to heaven, where Vishnu currently resided.  He then spoke to Vishnu saying, “In the Taragam forest there resides ten thousands heretical rishis and their families, and come let us go and teach them the truth of the world.”

Vishnu then replied to Shiva saying, “I agree let us go and disguise ourselves as a wandering yogi and his wife.  We shall sow disorder in their ranks with our beauty.  They will then attempt to get rid of us but we shall then show our glory to them.”

So Shiva disguised himself as a yogi and Vishnu his wife and they went to the Taragam forest.  When they arrived at the hermitage news of their arrival spread like wildfire.  All the women began to struggle to get a look at Shiva and all the women became madly in love with him. Like with Shiva all of the rishi were madly in love with Vishnu.  When the whole camp had gathered and were declaring their love for Shiva and Vishnu, some of the rishi began to suspect that something was suspicious about the couple that had just arrived in their hermitage.  The rishi then gathered together and it was then decided to curse the couple and when the curse failed the rishi were surprised and began to cast even greater curses on them.  When these had all failed, they prepared a sacrificial fire and summoned a tiger to kill Shiva and Vishnu.  Shiva then simply picked up the tiger, skinned it with pinky finger, and wrapped the skin around himself.  Astonished the rishis summoned a serpent, which was even more powerful than the tiger but again Shiva simply picked the serpent up and wrapped it around his neck. 

Shiva Dancing (Source: wikimedia)

Finally, the rishis summoned the most powerful beast they could summon, which was a goblin with a club.  Shiva then pressed his foot on the back of the goblin, stood on its back, and began to dance.  As he was dancing the heavens opened up and the rishis saw the gods and the splendor of heaven.  The rishi quickly threw themselves at the feet of Shiva and Vishnu and began to worship them. 

Author’s Note:

This tale is similar to the original story of Shiva’s Dance from the book Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists by Sister Nivedita.  The original story is shorter so I decided to expand on it and go into more details.  I added in the dialogue between Vishnu and Shiva and at the beginning of the story I added in the paragraph.  The original story does not say how he found out about them.  So I thought of one of the possible ways that it could have happened.  

Bibliography:

Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists by Sister Nivedita, With illustrations by artists under direction of Abanindro Nath Tagore (1914)