The Pillar Without End

An argument in the dark

Before the worlds were set in order, there was only water and darkness. Brahmā, the creator, came upon Viṣṇu resting on the cosmic waters, and something in him rose up. “Who are you,” he asked, “lying here as if you were lord of all? I am the creator. Everything comes from me.”

Viṣṇu was not pleased. “You yourself were born from the lotus of my navel,” he replied. “How can you call yourself the source of everything?” Word followed word. The argument grew hot, and the two great gods were on the edge of war.

The column of fire

Then, between them, a light broke through the darkness. It was a column of fire, blazing, without smoke — and it went up beyond sight and down beyond sight. It had no base that could be seen and no top that could be reached. The two gods fell silent.

They agreed on a test. Whoever found the end of this pillar would be the greater of the two. Viṣṇu took the form of a great white boar, Varāha, and began to dig downward. Brahmā took the form of a swan, Haṃsa, and flew upward.

The search

Viṣṇu dug for what felt like a thousand years. He passed through every layer of the earth and beyond, and found nothing but more fire going down. At last he returned to the place he had begun, tired and humbled, and said honestly: I could not find its root.

Brahmā flew upward for just as long, and he too found only fire. But as he flew, a ketakī flower came drifting down past him. It had been falling from the top of the pillar for ages. Brahmā had an idea. “Come with me,” he said, “and tell them that you saw me reach the top.”

Truth and a lie

Brahmā came back down and announced: “I have seen the summit. This flower is my witness.” The ketakī agreed.

At that moment the pillar opened, and Śiva stepped out of the fire. The column had been himself all along — endless, without beginning, without end. He praised Viṣṇu for his honesty and declared that Viṣṇu would be worshipped as his equal.

To Brahmā, whose lie was plain, he was stern. In the Śiva Purāṇa's telling, Śiva declared that Brahmā would not receive temple worship of his own — which is why so few temples of Brahmā exist — and that the ketakī, for its false witness, would never again be offered to Śiva.

What the Liṅga means

This is the story of the Liṅgodbhava — Śiva emerging from the Liṅga. It explains what the Liṅga is: not a thing among things, but a sign of the boundless, shown in a form that people can approach and worship.

Many traditions connect that first night of the pillar of light with Mahāśivarātri. And at Tiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu, the hill of Aruṇācala is revered as that same pillar, cooled into stone — every year, at the Kārttikai Dīpam festival, a great fire is lit on its summit.