There is an excellent article by "Windy Doniger" in her book "The Hindus - An alternative story' on Lord Shiva
This article itself says lot of things.
" THE RISE OF SECTARIAN HINDUISM
Despite (or because of) the rise of Buddhism in this period, both Vedic sacrificers and
members of the evolving Hindu sects of Vaishnavas and Shaivas (worshipers of Vishnu and
Shiva) found new sponsors among the ruling families and court circles.20 The keystone for the
Brahmin establishment was the new economic power of temple cities.21 From about 500 BCE,
kings still performed Vedic sacrifices to legitimize their kingship,22 but the sectarian worship of
particular deities began partially to replace Vedic sacrifice.23 As the gods of the Vedic pantheon
(Indra, Soma, Agni) faded into the background, Vishnu and Rudra/Shiva, who had played small
roles in the Vedas, attracted more and more worshipers. Throughout the Ramayana and
Mahabharata, we encounter people who say they worship a particular god, which is the start of
sects and therefore of sectarianism.
Pilgrimage and puja are the main forms of worship at this time. Pilgrimage is described at
length in the Mahabharata, particularly but not only in the “Tour of the Sacred Tirthas”
(3.80-140). Sacred fords (tirthas) are shrines where one can simultaneously cross over (which is
what tirtha means) the river and the perils of the world of rebirth. As in Ashoka’s edicts, the
“conquest of the four corners of the earth” (dig-vijaya), originally a martial image, is now
applied to a grand tour of pilgrimage to many shrines, circling the world (India), always to the
right. Puja (from the Dravidian pu [“flower”])24 consisted of making an offering to an image of a
god (flowers, fruits, sometimes rice), and/or moving a lamp through the air in a circular pattern,
walking around the god, and reciting prayers, such as a litany of the names of the god. Krishna in
the Bhagavad Gitafa says that pious people offer him a leaf or flower or fruit or water (9.26).
Sometimes the image of the god is bathed and dressed, and often the remains of the food that has
been offered to the god is then distributed to the worshipers as the god’s “favor” or “grace”
(prasada), a relic of the leftovers (ucchishta) from the Vedic sacrifice.
There is rich evidence of the rise of the sectarian gods. The Mahabharata includes a
Hymn of the Thousand Names of Shiva (13.17), and in 150 BCE Patanjali, the author of the
highly influential Yoga Sutras, foundational for the Yoga school of philosophy, mentions a
worshiper of Shiva who wore animal skins and carried an iron lance. Gold coins from this same
period depict Shiva holding a trident and standing in front of a massive bull, presumably the bull
that is Shiva’s usual vehicle. In the first century BCE, under the Shungas, artisans produced what
is generally regarded as the earliest depiction of the god Shiva: a linga just under five feet high,
in Gudimallam, in southeastern Andhra Pradesh. (See page 22.) Its anatomical detail, apart from
its size, is highly naturalistic, but on the shaft is carved the figure of Shiva, two-armed and also
naturalistic, holding an ax in one hand and the body of a small antelope in the other. His thin
garment reveals his own sexual organ (not erect), his hair is matted, and he wears large earrings.
He stands upon a dwarf. A frieze from the first or second century CE suggests how such a linga
might have been worshiped; it depicts a linga shrine under a tree, surrounded by a railing, just
like the actual railing that was discovered beneath the floor in which the image was embedded.25
The Mahabharata tells a story about the circumstances under which Shiva came to be
worshiped:
SHIVA DESTROYS DAKSHA’S VEDIC SACRIFICEOnce upon a time, when Shiva was
living on Mount Meru with his wife, Parvati, the daughter of the mountain Himalaya, all the
gods and demigods thronged to him and paid him homage. The Lord of Creatures named Daksha
began to perform a horse sacrifice in the ancient manner, which Indra and the gods attended with
Shiva’s permission. Seeing this, Parvati asked Shiva where the gods were going, and Shiva
explained it to her, adding that the gods had decided long ago not to give him any share in the
sacrifice. But Parvati was so unhappy about this that Shiva took his great bow and went with his
band of fierce servants to destroy the sacrifice. Some put out the sacrificial fires by dousing them
with blood; others began to eat the sacrificial assistants. The sacrifice took the form of a wild
animal and fled to the skies, and Shiva pursued it with bow and arrow. The gods, terrified, fled,
and the very earth began to tremble. Brahma begged Shiva to desist, promising him a share of
the sacrificial offerings forever after, and Shiva smiled and accepted that share (12.274.2-58).
This important myth, retold in various transformations several times in the Mahabharata
26 and in other texts through the ages, is in part a historical narrative of what did happen in the
history of Hinduism: Shiva was not part of the Vedic sacrifice, and then he became part of the
Hindu sacrifice. The gods, particularly Daksha (a creator, mentioned in the Rig Veda hymn of
Aditi [10.72.1-5]), exclude Shiva from their sacrifice because Shiva is the outsider, the Other, the
god to whom Vedic sacrifice is not offered; he is not a member of the club of gods that sacrifice
to the gods.27 He appears to Arjuna, in a pivotal episode of the Mahabharata, in the form of a
naked Kirata, a tribal hunter (3.40.1-5). The myth of Daksha’s sacrifice verifies Shiva’s
otherness but modifies it so that Shiva is in fact given a share in some sacrifices, still not part of
the Vedic world but the supreme god of the post-Vedic world, at least in the eyes of the Shaivas
who tell this myth.28
In the Ramayana, the god Rama is on his way to becoming one of the great gods of
sectarian Hinduism. The god Krishna too now enters the world of Sanskrit texts, in the
Mahabharata. The grammarian Panini, in the fifth century BCE, mentions a Vasudevaka, whom
he defines as a devotee (bhakta) of the son of Vasudeva (Krishna), an avatar of Vishnu. This was
the time of the beginning of the Bhagavata sects, the worship of Bhagavan, the Lord, a name of
Vishnu or Shiva. In 115 BCE, Heliodorus, the son of a Greek from Taxila and himself the Greek
ambassador to one of the Shungas,29 set up a pillar in Besnagar in Madhya Pradesh (not far from
the Buddhist stupas at Sanchi), topped by an image of Vishnu’s eagle (the Garuda bird) and an
inscription. Heliodorus said he had done this in honor of the son of Vasudeva and that he himself
was a Bhagavata.30 This is significant evidence of the conversion of a non-Indian not to
Buddhism but to a new form of Hinduism. These are the early stirrings of communal sects that
were beginning to supplement, sometimes to replace, the royal and domestic worship of the
Vedic gods."
This article itself says lot of things.
" THE RISE OF SECTARIAN HINDUISM
Despite (or because of) the rise of Buddhism in this period, both Vedic sacrificers and
members of the evolving Hindu sects of Vaishnavas and Shaivas (worshipers of Vishnu and
Shiva) found new sponsors among the ruling families and court circles.20 The keystone for the
Brahmin establishment was the new economic power of temple cities.21 From about 500 BCE,
kings still performed Vedic sacrifices to legitimize their kingship,22 but the sectarian worship of
particular deities began partially to replace Vedic sacrifice.23 As the gods of the Vedic pantheon
(Indra, Soma, Agni) faded into the background, Vishnu and Rudra/Shiva, who had played small
roles in the Vedas, attracted more and more worshipers. Throughout the Ramayana and
Mahabharata, we encounter people who say they worship a particular god, which is the start of
sects and therefore of sectarianism.
Pilgrimage and puja are the main forms of worship at this time. Pilgrimage is described at
length in the Mahabharata, particularly but not only in the “Tour of the Sacred Tirthas”
(3.80-140). Sacred fords (tirthas) are shrines where one can simultaneously cross over (which is
what tirtha means) the river and the perils of the world of rebirth. As in Ashoka’s edicts, the
“conquest of the four corners of the earth” (dig-vijaya), originally a martial image, is now
applied to a grand tour of pilgrimage to many shrines, circling the world (India), always to the
right. Puja (from the Dravidian pu [“flower”])24 consisted of making an offering to an image of a
god (flowers, fruits, sometimes rice), and/or moving a lamp through the air in a circular pattern,
walking around the god, and reciting prayers, such as a litany of the names of the god. Krishna in
the Bhagavad Gitafa says that pious people offer him a leaf or flower or fruit or water (9.26).
Sometimes the image of the god is bathed and dressed, and often the remains of the food that has
been offered to the god is then distributed to the worshipers as the god’s “favor” or “grace”
(prasada), a relic of the leftovers (ucchishta) from the Vedic sacrifice.
There is rich evidence of the rise of the sectarian gods. The Mahabharata includes a
Hymn of the Thousand Names of Shiva (13.17), and in 150 BCE Patanjali, the author of the
highly influential Yoga Sutras, foundational for the Yoga school of philosophy, mentions a
worshiper of Shiva who wore animal skins and carried an iron lance. Gold coins from this same
period depict Shiva holding a trident and standing in front of a massive bull, presumably the bull
that is Shiva’s usual vehicle. In the first century BCE, under the Shungas, artisans produced what
is generally regarded as the earliest depiction of the god Shiva: a linga just under five feet high,
in Gudimallam, in southeastern Andhra Pradesh. (See page 22.) Its anatomical detail, apart from
its size, is highly naturalistic, but on the shaft is carved the figure of Shiva, two-armed and also
naturalistic, holding an ax in one hand and the body of a small antelope in the other. His thin
garment reveals his own sexual organ (not erect), his hair is matted, and he wears large earrings.
He stands upon a dwarf. A frieze from the first or second century CE suggests how such a linga
might have been worshiped; it depicts a linga shrine under a tree, surrounded by a railing, just
like the actual railing that was discovered beneath the floor in which the image was embedded.25
The Mahabharata tells a story about the circumstances under which Shiva came to be
worshiped:
SHIVA DESTROYS DAKSHA’S VEDIC SACRIFICEOnce upon a time, when Shiva was
living on Mount Meru with his wife, Parvati, the daughter of the mountain Himalaya, all the
gods and demigods thronged to him and paid him homage. The Lord of Creatures named Daksha
began to perform a horse sacrifice in the ancient manner, which Indra and the gods attended with
Shiva’s permission. Seeing this, Parvati asked Shiva where the gods were going, and Shiva
explained it to her, adding that the gods had decided long ago not to give him any share in the
sacrifice. But Parvati was so unhappy about this that Shiva took his great bow and went with his
band of fierce servants to destroy the sacrifice. Some put out the sacrificial fires by dousing them
with blood; others began to eat the sacrificial assistants. The sacrifice took the form of a wild
animal and fled to the skies, and Shiva pursued it with bow and arrow. The gods, terrified, fled,
and the very earth began to tremble. Brahma begged Shiva to desist, promising him a share of
the sacrificial offerings forever after, and Shiva smiled and accepted that share (12.274.2-58).
This important myth, retold in various transformations several times in the Mahabharata
26 and in other texts through the ages, is in part a historical narrative of what did happen in the
history of Hinduism: Shiva was not part of the Vedic sacrifice, and then he became part of the
Hindu sacrifice. The gods, particularly Daksha (a creator, mentioned in the Rig Veda hymn of
Aditi [10.72.1-5]), exclude Shiva from their sacrifice because Shiva is the outsider, the Other, the
god to whom Vedic sacrifice is not offered; he is not a member of the club of gods that sacrifice
to the gods.27 He appears to Arjuna, in a pivotal episode of the Mahabharata, in the form of a
naked Kirata, a tribal hunter (3.40.1-5). The myth of Daksha’s sacrifice verifies Shiva’s
otherness but modifies it so that Shiva is in fact given a share in some sacrifices, still not part of
the Vedic world but the supreme god of the post-Vedic world, at least in the eyes of the Shaivas
who tell this myth.28
In the Ramayana, the god Rama is on his way to becoming one of the great gods of
sectarian Hinduism. The god Krishna too now enters the world of Sanskrit texts, in the
Mahabharata. The grammarian Panini, in the fifth century BCE, mentions a Vasudevaka, whom
he defines as a devotee (bhakta) of the son of Vasudeva (Krishna), an avatar of Vishnu. This was
the time of the beginning of the Bhagavata sects, the worship of Bhagavan, the Lord, a name of
Vishnu or Shiva. In 115 BCE, Heliodorus, the son of a Greek from Taxila and himself the Greek
ambassador to one of the Shungas,29 set up a pillar in Besnagar in Madhya Pradesh (not far from
the Buddhist stupas at Sanchi), topped by an image of Vishnu’s eagle (the Garuda bird) and an
inscription. Heliodorus said he had done this in honor of the son of Vasudeva and that he himself
was a Bhagavata.30 This is significant evidence of the conversion of a non-Indian not to
Buddhism but to a new form of Hinduism. These are the early stirrings of communal sects that
were beginning to supplement, sometimes to replace, the royal and domestic worship of the
Vedic gods."
