The Elephant Demon and the Hide

A son's revenge

When the goddess killed Mahiṣāsura, the buffalo demon, his son Gajāsura — the elephant demon — swore to avenge his father. He went to a cave in the Himālaya and, arms raised, eyes on the sky, standing on the tip of one toe, performed tapas so fierce that fire rose from his head, rivers and seas dried up, stars fell from the sky and the ten directions blazed. The gods fled to Brahmā.

The clever boon

Brahmā came to him and offered a boon. Gajāsura had thought carefully. “Let me not be killed,” he said, “by any man or woman who is overcome by desire. Let me be mighty, unbeatable by the gods, and enjoy the wealth of all the guardians of the world.” It sounded as good as immortality: who in all the worlds is free of desire? Brahmā granted it.

The conqueror

Gajāsura conquered the directions and the three worlds. He moved into Indra's palace in heaven and made the gods bow at his feet. Yet nothing satisfied him. In time he turned to tormenting sages and the devout on earth, and at last he came to Kāśī, Śiva's own city. He was so vast, the Śiva Purāṇa says, that the earth shook under his feet, trees fell from the wind of his passing, clouds fled the sky where his crown brushed them — and as he went he boasted: “No one ruled by desire can kill me.”

The one without desire

The gods and the people of Kāśī called on Śiva. And Śiva came — the one being in all creation who had burnt Kāma, desire itself, to ash with a glance of his third eye. Gajāsura's boon could not protect him from Śiva.

Śiva came, trident in hand, roaring, and Gajāsura roared back. They fought with every kind of weapon; Śiva cut the demon's arrows to pieces before they reached him. Then Gajāsura rushed at him with a sword, shouting, “Now you are dead!” — and Śiva, knowing no one else could kill him, struck him with the trident.

Pierced, Gajāsura's pride fell away. “I know you,” he said. “You are the destroyer of Kāma. To die at your hand is the greatest blessing.” Śiva smiled and told him to ask a boon. Gajāsura asked: wear my hide, purified by the fire of your trident, for ever. Let it never burn, in sun or in flame. And from today let your name be Kṛttivāsa.

Kṛttivāsa

Śiva granted it, and said more: here in Kāśī, the field of liberation, your holy body will become my liṅga, Kṛttivāseśvara — the foremost of liṅgas, destroyer of great sins, giver of liberation to all. Then he took the vast hide and wore it. There was a great festival that day in Kāśī; Viṣṇu, Brahmā and the gods bowed to him, and from then on he has been called Kṛttivāsa, “the one clothed in a hide”.

In temple sculpture this form is called Gajasaṃhāra-mūrti: Śiva dancing inside the stretched-out elephant skin, which forms an arch behind him like the sky.