Chapters 230-271 of the Shiva Purana

Shata Rudra Samhita

The fourth of this edition's seven Samhitas: a doctrine of Shiva's many avataras. Opens with the five faces, eight pervading forms and the Arddha-Nari-Nara form, then the 28-Vyasa prophecy ending in Lakulisha that underlies the Pashupata lineage, Nandi's and Kalabhairava's origins, the eleven Rudras, Durvasa and Hanuman, a long run of devotee-testing avataras (Vrisha, Pippalada, Vaishyanatha, Dvijeshvara, Sureshvara/Upamanyu, Ashvatthama), and closes with Arjuna's forest duel against Shiva-as-Kirata for the pashupata weapon and the canonical list of twelve jyotirlingams.

1. Chapter 1: Shiva's Five Avataras

   Across five successive kalpas, Brahma's meditation produces five sons each time - Sadyojata, Vamadeva, Aghora, and the rest - who turn out each time to be Shiva himself, teaching Brahma creation before vanishing. These become the five canonical faces of Shiva (Ishana, Tatpurusha, Aghora, Vamadeva, Sadyojata), each presiding over a different bodily faculty and element.

2. Chapter 2: Shiva's Eight Forms

   The Ashtamurti doctrine: Shiva pervades the universe as eight forms - Sharva, Bhava, Rudra, Ugra, Bhima, Pashupati, Ishana and Mahadeva - identified respectively with earth, water, fire, wind, space, the individual soul, the sun and the moon, with the atman itself as an implicit ninth, all-pervading form.

3. Chapter 3: Arddha-Nari-Nara Avatara

   Brahma's mental creation fails to multiply because no women exist in his lineage; through austerities he obtains Shiva's half-male-half-female form, which separates Devi Shivaa from Shiva's own body so that a feminine lineage - and sexual creation - can begin. Shivaa agrees, on the condition that she will later be born as Daksha's daughter.

4. Chapter 4: Story of Rishabha

   Shiva foretells to Brahma, in advance, a chain of twenty-eight future births across the twenty-eight dvapara yugas of the Vaivasvata manvantara, each alongside a named Vyasa and with four ascetic sons of his own - reaching, in this chapter, the ninth of these, Rishabha, who revives a poisoned prince named Bhadrayu and arms him against his enemies.

5. Chapter 5: Nineteen of Shiva's Avataras

   The prophecy continues through the tenth to the twenty-seventh dvapara yugas, naming each avatara-name, hermitage-mountain and set of four disciple-sons in turn, before reaching the twenty-eighth and climactic birth: Shiva will be born as Lakuli (Lakulisha) alongside Krishna Dvaipayana as Vyasa, with four disciples, founding the Pashupata lineage whose later followers - the 112 ash-smeared, rudraksha-wearing, lingam-worshipping Pashupatas - are named explicitly.

6. Chapter 6: The Nandikeshvara avatara

   Sanatkumara asks Nandi directly how he came to be born as Shiva's own portion. Nandi explains that his father Shilada, denied by Indra a son immune to death, won exactly that through a thousand years of termite-eaten austerities directed at Shiva himself - and that two visiting sages' prophecy of Nandi's death within a year is answered by the boy's own calm declaration that only worship of Mahadeva, not any amount of learning, can defeat death.

7. Chapter 7: Nandikeshvara's Abhisheka and Marriage

   Nandi's austerities earn him Shiva's garland, transforming him instantly into a three-eyed, ten-armed being; Shiva has him consecrated as leader of all the ganas and married to Suyasha, daughter of the Maruts, with Parvati granting Nandi's wife her own matching boon - three eyes and freedom from rebirth.

8. Chapter 8: Bhairava Avatara

   Brahma and Vishnu, deluded by Shiva's own maya, each separately insist to a company of devarshis that they alone are the supreme being; even the four Vedas, invoked as impartial witnesses, name Rudra alone as the truth, yet the two remain unconvinced. When Brahma's fifth head mocks the resulting apparition as merely an earlier emanation of his own, Shiva's wrath produces Bhairava, who tears off that head on the spot.

9. Chapter 9: Bhairava Avatara's Pastimes

   As Kalabhairava wanders the tirthas as a begging kapalika still unable to shed the guilt of Brahma's killing, he visits Vishnu and Lakshmi, who recognise and praise him at length and receive alms from him in turn; only on reaching Varanasi does Brahma's skull finally fall from his hand, giving rise to Kapalamochana tirtha and the practice of Bhairava-worship that frees devotees from even the gravest sins.

10. Chapter 10: Nrisimha's Conduct

    After briefly noting Virabhadra as an avatara already told in full elsewhere, Nandi recounts Vishnu's own Narasimha avatara - killing Hiranyakashipu after his austerity-won boon from Brahma - and the problem that follows: Narasimha's rage does not subside even after the kill, forcing the terrified gods to appeal to Shiva for a way to pacify him.

11. Chapter 11: Prelude to Sharabha Avatara

    Shiva sends Virabhadra first, in peaceful form, to try to talk Narasimha down by reminding him of his own debts to Shiva across his avataras - but the still-raging Narasimha answers with an extended boast of his own supremacy over all the gods, dismissing Virabhadra outright and setting up the confrontation to come.

12. Chapter 12: Prelude to Sharabha Avatara

    Narasimha lunges to seize Virabhadra, and Shiva's energy condenses into the monstrous winged, taloned Sharabha, who physically seizes Vishnu-as-Narasimha, batters him helpless, and carries him through the sky while Narasimha - now humbled - praises Shiva with a hundred and eight names and begs forgiveness for his pride.

13. Chapter 13: Prelude to Grihapati Avatara

    The sage Vishvanara, pressed by his wife Shuchishmati for a son equal to Mahesha, undertakes a year of escalating austerities at Shiva's Vireshvara lingam in Kashi - and on the thirteenth month, is answered by an eight-year-old child manifesting inside the lingam itself, who turns out to be Shiva, pleased enough by Vishvanara's eight-verse hymn to promise the son directly.

14. Chapter 14: Grihapati Avatara

    Grihapati is born amid cosmic celebration attended by dozens of named sages and the gods themselves; at nine, Narada examines the boy's auspicious signs but warns of a coming danger from fire and lightning in twelve months - a warning that devastates his parents but leaves the child calmly resolved to counter it through worship of Mrityunjaya alone.

15. Chapter 15: Grihapati Avatara Continued

    At Kashi, Grihapati undertakes a year of his own escalating austerities before Vishveshvara; in his twelfth year, Indra arrives in disguise to pressure him into worshipping Indra instead, which Grihapati rejects outright even under threat of the vajra - and Shiva then appears directly, revealing the whole test, granting him the status of Agni and a named lingam, Agnishvara.

16. Chapter 16: Yaksheshvara Avatara

    After the ocean-churning and the devas' victory over the asuras for amrita, Vishnu and the gods grow insufferably proud; Shiva appears among them as an unassuming Yaksha and challenges them to sever a mere blade of grass with their weapons - all of which fail - until a voice from the sky reveals that the Yaksha is Shiva himself, instantly dissolving their delusion.

17. Chapter 17: Ten Avataras of Shiva

    A compact tantric list: ten avataras of Shiva paired with their corresponding Shaktis - Mahakala/Mahakali, Tara/Taraa, Bala/Balaa, Shrividyesha/Shrividya Shodashi, Bhairava/Bhairavi, Chinnamastaka/Chinnamastakaa, Dhumavat/Dhumavati, Bagalamukha/Bagalamukhi, Matanga/Matangi and Kamala/Kamalaa - echoing the Mahavidya goddesses under Shiva's own avatara framework.

18. Chapter 18: Eleven Avataras

    When the gods are routed by daityas, Kashyapa's austerities at Shiva's lingam in Kashi produce eleven simultaneous Rudra-sons through Surabhi and Kashyapa, who turn the tide of the war decisively - the eleven Rudras of later tradition, each commanding a crore of followers and still radiant in the firmament today.

19. Chapter 19: Story of Durvasa

    Three divinities - Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva - each grant sage Atri and his wife Anasuya a son from their own portion (Chandra, Dattatreya and Durvasa respectively); Durvasa then spends the chapter testing famous devotees' adherence to dharma - King Ambarisha, Rama, Krishna and Droupadi - each episode resolving in the tested devotee's favour once their sincerity is proven.

20. Chapter 20: Hanuman Avatara

    Shiva, momentarily agitated at the sight of Vishnu's Mohini form, lets fall semen that the saptarshis carry to Anjani's ear, producing Hanuman - identified here directly as Shiva's own portion born specifically to serve Rama - whose entire Ramayana career (crossing to Lanka, burning it, fetching sanjivani, killing Mahiravana) is retold as that avatara's single sustained pastime.

21. Chapter 21: Mahesha Avatara

    A brief, unusual pastime: Parvati, playfully disguised as a madwoman, is mistaken by her own doorkeeper Bhairava for a desirable stranger and detained by him - earning him a curse of human rebirth from an angry Parvati, which Shiva softens by taking a matching human birth of his own alongside him as Mahesha and Sharada.

22. Chapter 22: Prelude to Vrisha Avatara

    The churning of the ocean is retold in full detail - Mandara's uprooting, Vasuki as rope, the emergence of Lakshmi, amrita, poison and the amrita-born celestial women - but this telling follows Vishnu's own subsequent transgression: pursuing those amrita-born women into Patala and fathering troublesome sons on them, setting up the need for Shiva's corrective Vrisha avatara.

23. Chapter 23: Vrisha Avatara

    Shiva assumes the form of a bull, Vrisha, and kills Vishnu's unruly sons by the amrita-born women outright; when Vishnu himself attacks in response, the two fight until Vishnu, exhausted and ashamed, recognises his own lord and submits - surrendering his old Sudarshana chakra, receiving an even more powerful replacement from Shiva, and being barred, along with the other gods, from re-entering Patala's pleasures by a permanent curse.

24. Chapter 24: Pippalada Avatara

    The sage Dadhichi gives up his own vajra-hard bones so the gods can fashion the weapon that kills Vritra, dying in the process; his widow Suvarcha, about to follow him into the fire, is stopped by a voice from the sky revealing she is pregnant, and instead cuts open her own womb to deliver Pippalada - Shiva's own portion, born explicitly to avenge his father's death on the ungrateful devas.

25. Chapter 25: Pippalada Avatara Continued

    Grown and worldly, Pippalada demands and marries Padma, daughter of King Anaranya, by terrifying the king with his own radiance; discovering widespread suffering caused by the planet Shani, he issues a permanent decree exempting children under sixteen and all Shiva devotees from Shani's harm - a protection still invoked today.

26. Chapter 26: Vaishyanatha Avatara

    Shiva tests a devoted courtesan, Mahananda, by disguising himself as a vaishya and trading a bejewelled lingam for three nights as his wife; when the lingam is accidentally burned, the vaishya insists on entering the fire himself rather than live without it, and Mahananda's resolve to follow him into death - honouring her pledge over her own survival - reveals the test was genuine and earns her and her household emancipation.

27. Chapter 27: Dvijeshvara Avatara

    King Bhadrayu, already shown favour once as the recipient of Shiva's Vrisha avatara, is tested again: a maya-conjured tiger 'kills' a brahmana's wife right before his eyes despite his best efforts, and when the grieving brahmana demands Bhadrayu's own queen as recompense, the king chooses to give her up rather than fail in a kshatriya's duty to protect - a sacrifice Shiva reveals, just before the king enters the fire himself, was entirely staged.

28. Chapter 28: Yatinatha Brahma-Hamsa Avatara

    A devoted hunter couple's hospitality - the husband sleeping outside with the weapons so a visiting ascetic can share the house properly, and being killed by wild animals as a result - is rewarded by Shiva with a future reincarnation as Nala and Damayanti, with Shiva himself later serving as the golden swan who carries messages between them.

29. Chapter 29: Krishna-Darshana Avatara

    Nabhaga, cheated out of his inheritance by his own brothers and told by his father that nothing less than performing a sacrifice's leftover rites will support him, unknowingly claims wealth that belongs to Shiva himself; rather than punishing the mistake, Shiva - appearing as the being Krishna-darshana - rewards Nabhaga's honesty once his father correctly identifies the true owner of anything left over from any sacrifice.

30. Chapter 30: Avadhuteshvara Avatara

    A near-identical retelling, under this Samhita's Avadhuteshvara framework, of the episode already told in the Yuddha Khanda: Indra and his guru encounter a silent naked ascetic on Kailasa, Indra raises the vajra against him and is paralysed, and the resulting third-eye fire - flung into the ocean once Brihaspati's praise secures Indra's pardon - becomes Jalandhara.

31. Chapter 31: Bhikshuvarya Avatara

    An orphaned infant - his father King Satyaratha killed in battle, his mother devoured by a crocodile moments after giving birth - is found crying alone in the forest by a widowed brahmana woman; Shiva, disguised as a wandering bhikshu, persuades her to raise the child, explains both children's karmic backstories in detail, and sets both boys on a path that ends with one of them, Dharmagupta, restored to a kingdom.

32. Chapter 32: Sureshvara Avatara

    Young Upamanyu, denied real milk and fobbed off with a flour-paste substitute by his impoverished mother, undertakes his own austerities for an ocean of milk; Shiva, disguised as Indra, tries to lure him away from Rudra-worship entirely and is met with a furious theological rebuttal and a weapon aimed straight at him - at which point Shiva reveals himself, rewards the boy's devotion with oceans of milk, and adopts him permanently as his and Parvati's own son.

33. Chapter 33: Brahmachari Avatara

    A faithful retelling, under the Jatila/Brahmachari name, of the familiar episode from the Rudra Samhita's Parvati Khanda: Shiva disguises himself as an aged brahmachari to test the reborn Sati's devotion during her forest austerities, mocking Rudra to provoke her, and reveals himself only once her furious, unwavering defence of Shiva makes clear her resolve is genuine.

34. Chapter 34: Sunartaka-Nata Avatara

    Another faithful retelling of a familiar courtship beat - Shiva, having already privately promised to marry Parvati, visits her father Himalaya's courtyard disguised as a dancing mendicant, Sunartaka-nata, performs a captivating show, and demands Parvati herself as alms, finally convincing her parents of his true identity only by cycling rapidly through the forms of Vishnu, Brahma, Surya and Rudra before their eyes.

35. Chapter 35: Avatara as a Virtuous Brahmana

    Anxious that Himalaya's devotion to Shiva through the marriage will earn him premature emancipation, the gods try repeatedly to find someone willing to discourage the match, and finally persuade Shiva to discourage it himself - which he does, disguised as a brahmana named Sadhudvija, by delivering an extended, deliberately self-deprecating list of his own flaws to Himalaya in person.

36. Chapter 36: Avatara as Ashvatthama

    Drona's austerities for an invincible son are answered by the birth of Ashvatthama as Shiva's own portion; during the Kurukshetra war, when Ashvatthama's brahmastra threatens both Arjuna and Uttara's unborn child, only an even greater weapon granted by Shiva - and Krishna's own recognition that Ashvatthama's violence serves Shiva's will - can counter it.

37. Chapter 37: Prelude to Kirata Avatara

    Exiled in the forest and humiliated by Duryodhana's engineered visit from the volatile sage Durvasa, the Pandavas are advised first by Krishna, then by Vyasa, that only direct worship of Shiva - not Indra - can see them through the coming war; Vyasa singles out Arjuna as the one to undertake it and sends him to Indrakila to begin austerities toward the pashupata weapon.

38. Chapter 38: Arjuna's Austerities

    Arjuna departs for Indrakila and undertakes escalating austerities before a hand-built parthiva lingam; his energy draws Indra's own spies, and Indra himself arrives disguised as an aged brahmachari to test him, needling him about whether his austerities aim at a kingdom or emancipation before revealing himself and redirecting Arjuna from Indra-worship to Shiva-worship specifically.

39. Chapter 39: Slaying of Muka Daitya

    Duryodhana's agent, the shape-shifted daitya Muka, approaches Arjuna in the form of a threatening boar; Shiva, disguised as a bhilla hunter, pursues the same boar from the opposite direction, and both men fire at the same instant - their two arrows passing clean through the boar's body in opposite directions, killing it, and setting up the dispute over whose arrow deserves the kill.

40. Chapter 40: Conversation between the Bhilla and Arjuna

    A tense dispute over which arrow killed the boar escalates through two rounds of messengers between Arjuna and the disguised Shiva's attendant, each side refusing to yield the point of honour, until Arjuna - reasoning that fighting an inferior opponent is beneath him but that he will gladly face the bhilla-chieftain himself - forces the confrontation Shiva has been angling toward all along.

41. Chapter 41: Kirateshvara Avatara

    Arjuna and the disguised Shiva fight an extraordinary duel - weapons, bare wrestling, even flight through the air - until Arjuna, catching Shiva by the feet in the final exchange, is rewarded rather than punished for the audacity; Shiva reveals his true form, forgives the 'offence' as his own design all along, and grants Arjuna the invincible pashupata weapon directly.

42. Chapter 42: Twelve Jyotirlingams

    The Samhita closes with the canonical roll call of the twelve jyotirlingams and the devotee or circumstance behind each one's founding: Somanatha (Chandra's relief), Mallikarjuna (visited by Shiva himself), Mahakala (the asura Dushana's destruction), Omkara, Kedareshvara (Nara-Narayana), Bhimashankara, Vishveshvara of Kashi, Tryambaka (sage Goutama), Vaidyanatha (linked to Ravana), Nageshvara (the vaishya Supriya), Rameshvara (established by Rama) and Ghushmeshvara (the devotee Ghushma) - each one named as one of Shiva's own avataras in stone.

Retold in our own words from Bibek Debroy's English translation of the Shiva Purana (Penguin Classics). Names, numbers and the order of events follow the source.