ŚIva [first Edition]
ŚIVA [FIRST EDITION]. The ancient name of Śiva is Rudra, the Wild God. His seminal myth is told in the most sacred, most ancient Indian text, the Ṛgveda (c. 1200–1000 BCE; hymns 10.61 and 1.71). When time was about to begin he appeared as a wild hunter, aflame, his arrow directed against the Creator making love with his virgin daughter, the Dawn. They had the shape of two antelopes. Some of the Creator's seed fell on the earth. Rudra himself as Fire (Agni) had prepared the seed, from which mankind was to be born. From a rupture of the undifferentiated plenum of the Absolute some of the seed fell on the earth. Rudra's shot failed to prevent its fall; time, which was about to begin, came in between, in the shape of the flight of his arrow. The Creator, Prajāpati, terribly frightened, made Rudra Lord of Animals (Paśupati) for sparing his life (Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā 4.2.12; after 1000 BCE). The gods, as they witnessed the primordial scene, made it into a mantra, an incantation, and out of this mantra they fashioned Vāstoṣpati, "lord of the residue (vāstu)," "lord of the site (vāstu)," or "lord of what is left over on the sacrificial site." However, Paśupati—"lord of animals," "lord of creatures," "lord of the soul of man"—is Rudra-Śiva's most significant name.
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