Pārvatī's Tapas and the Wedding of Śiva

Into the forest

After Kāma was burnt, Pārvatī went home to her father's palace, but she could not rest. She told her parents she would win Śiva through tapas. Her mother Menā begged her: “U mā — oh, don't!” — and so, the poets say, she came to be called Umā.

But Pārvatī went. She put away her silks and jewels and wore bark cloth. She let her hair grow matted like an ascetic's. On a peak of the Himālaya she began austerities that grew harder with every season.

The fierce austerity

In the summer she sat surrounded by four fires, with the blazing sun as the fifth above her. In the monsoon she sat on bare rock through the rain. In winter she stood in freezing water through the night. First she ate only fruit, then only fallen leaves — and then not even leaves. So she was called Aparṇā, “she who does not eat even a leaf.”

The heat of her tapas spread through the worlds. Wild animals lost their fear around her; lions and deer sat together at her hermitage. Even the gods began to feel it.

The young stranger

One day a young brahmacārī came to her hermitage — a student with a staff and deerskin, shining with the light of learning. Pārvatī received him with respect. He sat down and asked her kindly: why was someone so young and so lovely wasting herself in such hardship? What could she possibly want?

Her companion Vijayā answered for her: she wanted Śiva for her husband.

The young man laughed. Śiva? he said. That wanderer of the cremation grounds? He smears himself with the ash of the dead, wears a snake round his neck and an elephant's hide for clothing. He rides an old bull. Nobody knows his family. Would she really place her hand, which should hold a wedding thread, in a hand wrapped in serpents?

Pārvatī's anger

Pārvatī's lips trembled with anger. You do not know him, she said. The great are beyond the understanding of small minds. He owns nothing — and he is the source of all wealth. He lives in the cremation ground — and he is the lord of the three worlds. Whatever he is, my heart is fixed on him, and I will not listen to another word. She turned to leave.

The student caught her hand — and he was no longer a student. Śiva stood before her, smiling. From today, he said, I am your servant, bought by your tapas.

The proposal

Śiva sent the seven great sages, the Saptarṣis, with Arundhatī, to Himavān's court to ask formally for Pārvatī's hand. Himavān and Menā agreed with joy, and the whole mountain kingdom prepared for the wedding.

The strangest wedding procession

When the procession arrived, Menā went up to the palace roof to see her son-in-law. First came the gods in splendour, and she asked each time: is that him? No, she was told. Then came Śiva's own hosts — ghosts, goblins and spirits of every shape, some with no heads, some with many — and in their midst Śiva himself on his bull, covered in ash, with serpents and a necklace of skulls. Menā fainted.

When she woke she wept and refused to give her daughter to such a husband. Viṣṇu himself sat with her and explained who Śiva truly is, and at last Menā said: if he takes a beautiful form, I will give her. Nārada hurried to Śiva with the request — and Śiva smiled and became Sundareśvara, the Beautiful Lord: radiant as a million suns, adorned with jewels and silk, more handsome than Kāma himself.

The wedding

So Śiva and Pārvatī were married. Himavān gave his daughter's hand in kanyādāna, Brahmā led the rites, and the whole universe was witness. From their union the son would be born who would end the demon Tāraka — and Śiva, the great ascetic, became also the great householder.