Saturday, January 23, 2010

Dighambhara...

Lord Shiva has an another name saying "Dighambhara". Dighambhara literally means Naked or Without clothes.
So arises a question, is Lord Shiva Naked, isn't being Naked against the dharma and isn't shameful. How can a god be naked.
It can be said that because its god he can do anything, he can be naked or he can be half dressed or fully dressed. But thats not right. Even god has to follow the dharma because he is the one who created it.

Lets say there was a very wealthy man in a village, he had kilos of gold in his house. One day he decided that he would wear only gold, so he wears all kinds of ornaments made of gold right from the Mukuta (head gear) to the Padukas (Slippers) without even a single piece of cloth over his body and walks out. What would be your immediate feelings once you see him. Your eyes will not catch the glammor of gold but would immediately say, although he has everything made of gold doesn't he have few more money to buy some garments. Simillary you see another person who is very poor, has no ornaments but has covered his body with neat clothes, our immediate reaction would be.. Oh...poor guy, but a civilized person. So its not the ornaments that you wear that makes you civilized, its just a piece of cloth. So how can our god be naked. Does it mean that he is uncivilized. But that would be a total contradiction. How can a person who has taught you about civilization can be called an uncivilized person. Time to think...............

Dighambhara apart from meaning naked has other meanings as well. Its also means the person who has directions as his garments. Since Shiva is everywhere and as you cannot imagine a place without shiva, He is called Digambhara.
Dighambhara here means a person who has the 10directions as his clothes.

There's one more meaning to it. Clothes are a symobol of showing devotion to the person who created you. Thats the reason why we wear cleanly washed clothes after taking bath every morning and then say our daily prayers. As Shiva is the person who created everyone and there is no person above him to whom he can show devotion to he has no need to wear clothes, hence he is Dighambhara.

4 comments:

  1. sridar hatsoff to you, i don't know where you have got this but it's completely sounds reasonable. good post yaar !!

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  2. Great Post.Truely said.Lord Shiva is the supreme god he is the ultimate.
    He is the Shrusthi - creator Shethe - preserver and the pralayakartha - destroyer he is also called anishwara meaning no one above him.
    I totally agree to what you have written regarding why lord shiva is also called as Digambara.
    Thankyou very much for sharing such a beautiful article and increasing my knowledge.

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  3. JAI SRIMANNARAYAN!
    Hi sridhar,
    If yor a true believer of vedas,then it says that
    lord srimannarayan is the supreme lord.
    plz refer chinnajeeyar.org

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  4. Hi Sridhar, a very beautiful insight into the origins of our GOD.You come across as an educated religious person.I am not any of that but this is what I think about Digambara:
    Creation itself is naked,when a child is born into this world he is born without clothes because that is the way we are supposed to be.But guilt ,shame and a lot of other negative emotions stop us from truly showing who we are and this is the work of Maya to keep us enshrouded so that we cannot see the ultimate truth.When we do that we become one with GOD,our GOD who is pure and hence free from all this malignant emotions.Digambara is naked because he is the ultimate truth,he has nothing to be ashamed of ,infact shame guilt and earthly rules dont touch him at all.That is why he is in his natural state,the way Creation meant all of us to be.

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