Shiva's Twenty-Eight Incarnations in the Linga Purana
शिवावतार
One teacher in every age, ending with Lakuli
In chapter 24 of the Linga Purana, Shiva tells Brahma that he will take birth as a teacher near the end of the Dvapara age of each of the twenty-eight cycles of four ages in the present Varaha kalpa, every time with four disciples. The list ends with Lakuli, the figure the Pashupata line of Shaivism looks back to. This page gives the chapter's pattern and the names it states clearly, and says plainly where our copy of the book is too faint to read.
How the chapter begins
Brahma asks when and in which age the bodies of Shiva that everyone reveres will be seen by brahmins, and by what penance or meditation. Shiva answers that he is seen through meditation alone. Penance, good conduct, gifts, pilgrimages, sacrifices with large fees, Vedic study, wealth and learning of every kind do not show him to anyone. He then describes his future births in the present Varaha kalpa, whose Manu is Vaivasvata, the grandson of Brahma.
The pattern
The same frame is repeated in each of the twenty-eight cycles of four ages. A named sage becomes the Vyasa of that cycle, who arranges the Veda. Near the end of its Dvapara age, as the Kali age begins, Shiva is born under a stated name, often in a named place in the Himalayas or at a pilgrimage site. Four disciples are born to him, whom the text calls his sons and gives by name. They practise yoga, spread it among others, reach the yoga of Maheshvara, and go to Rudra's world, from which they do not return.
Cycles one to nine
In the first cycle Shiva is born as Sveta, with a tuft of hair, on the peak called Chagala in the Himalayas, with four disciples named Sveta, Shvetashikha, Shvetasya and Shvetalohita. In the second he is Sutara, and his four are Dundubhi, Shatarupa, Rijika and Ketuman. In the third he is Damana, with Vikesha, Vikosha, Vipasha and Shapanashana. In the fourth he is Suhotra. The names of the four disciples of the fourth and the name of the fifth incarnation are too faint in our copy to give with confidence. In the sixth he is Laugakshi, with Sudhama, Viraja, Shankhapada and Raja. In the seventh he is Jaigishavya, with Sarasvata, Megha, Meghavahana and Suvahana. In the eighth he is Dadhivahana, with Kapila, Asuri, Panchashikha and Bashkala. In the ninth he is Rishabha, with Parashara, Garga, Bhargava and Angiras. A footnote by the translators observes that Kapila, Asuri and Panchashikha are known only by name and that their works, if there were any, are lost.
Cycles ten to nineteen
In the tenth cycle Shiva is born as a brahmin sage on the Himalayan peak Bhrigutunga, with Balabandhu, Niramitra, Ketushringa and Tapodhana. In the eleventh he is Ugra, at Gangadvara, with Lambodara, Lambaksha, Lambakesha and Pralambaka. In the twelfth he is Atri, in the Haituka forest, with Sarvajna, Samabuddhi, Sadhya and Sarva. In the thirteenth he is Bali, in the Valakhilya grove on Mount Gandhamadana, with Sudhama, Kashyapa, Vasishtha and Viraja. In the fourteenth he is Gautama, born in the family of Angiras, and the grove is named after him, with Atri, Devasada, Shravana and Shravishthaka. In the fifteenth he is Vedashiras, on the bank of the Sarasvati below the slopes of the Himalayas, and the names of his four ascetic disciples are too faint to read in our copy. In the sixteenth he is Gokarna, and the forest where he teaches becomes known by that name, with Kashyapa, Ushanas, Chyavana and Brihaspati. In the seventeenth he is Guhavasin, on the peak Mahalaya, which the text says becomes a place of attainment, with Utathya, Vamadeva, Mahayoga and Mahabala. In the eighteenth he is Shikhandin, with Vachashravas, Richika, Shyavashva and Yatishvara. In the nineteenth he is Jatamalin, on the Himalayan peak Jatayu, with Hiranyanabha, Kaushalya, Laugakshi and Kuthumi.
Cycles twenty to twenty-seven
In the twentieth cycle he is Attahasa, on the mountain of that name, with Sumantu, Barbari, Kabandha and Kushikandhara. In the twenty-first he is Daruka, in a forest of deodars, with Plaksha, Darbhayani, Ketuman and Gautama. In the twenty-second he is Langalin, also called Bhava and Halayudha, at Varanasi, where the gods including Indra see him, with Bhallavi, Madhupinga, Shvetaketu and Kusha. In the twenty-third he is Sveta again, as the son of a sage, on a mountain that is named Kalanjara for that reason, with Ushika, Brihadashva, Devala and Kavi. In the twenty-fourth he is Shulin, in the Naimisha forest, with Shalihotra, Agnivesha, Yuvanashva and Sharadvasu. In the twenty-fifth he is Mundishvara, with a shaven head and a staff in his hand, with Chagala, Kundakarna, Kumbhanda and Pravahaka. In the twenty-sixth he is Sahishnu, who goes to the city of Bhadravata, with Ulika, Vidyuta, Shambuka and Ashvalayana. In the twenty-seventh he is the brahmin Somasharman at the holy place Prabhasa, with Akshapada, Kumara, Uluka and Vatsa.
The twenty-eighth: Lakuli
In the last cycle the Vyasa is Dvaipayana, the son of Parashara, whom the text calls Vishnu himself. At that time Vasudeva Krishna is born among the Yadavas, and Shiva too, by the power of yogic illusion, is born as a celibate student. Seeing a body left at a cremation ground with no one to claim it, he enters it for the good of brahmins, and then enters the holy cave of Meru, in company with Brahma and Vishnu according to one reading and with Vishnu alone according to the commentator, whom the translators cite. He is called Lakuli. The place where he entered the body is called Kayavatara, which means the descent into the body. His four disciples are Kushika, Garga, Mitra and Kaurushya. Later Pashupata and Lakulisha traditions trace themselves to this figure, and the Linga Purana is one of the older texts that tell of him. It is one passage of a long text and does not settle the history of those schools.
What the chapter teaches at the end
The Purana says that all these enlightened souls are devotees of Shiva who smear their bodies with ash and are always engaged in worshipping the linga. It says that the great Pashupata yoga can cut the ties of worldly life and light the path of knowledge, and that there are many paths of yoga and of knowledge but none brings lasting bliss without the five-syllable mantra, Namah Shivaya. A claim follows that even one day of Pashupata observance gives a result that other Vaishnava and Samkhya practice does not. These are the Purana's own claims for its own path and are reported as such. The chapter then closes the list, which runs from Manu to Krishna, and notes that the arrangement of the Vedas takes place in the kalpa when Krishna Dvaipayana is the Vyasa.
Brahma asks why Vishnu worships the linga
Brahma raises a puzzle. The Vedas say all the gods and all the ganas are identical with Vishnu and that there is no goal beyond him, so why does the lord of the gods worship Shiva in the linga? Shiva is pleased with the question and looks at Brahma as though he would drink him in through his eyes. He then explains the method of worshipping the linga. He says that Brahma, Vishnu, Indra and the sages reached their present places by worshipping it, that no one stays steady in devotion without such worship, and that this is why Vishnu worships him constantly. Shiva blesses Brahma, vanishes, and Brahma bows toward the place where he went, having been told to create the world afresh. The next chapter begins the instructions for that worship.
What to keep in mind
This is a Shaiva list from a Shaiva Purana, and its claim that Shiva takes a teaching form in every cycle sits beside the Vaishnava lists of the ten avataras, not on top of them. Our own Shiva Purana pages give a different list of avataras, in the Shata Rudra Samhita, and the two are not the same count, so the lists should not be merged. Several of the places named here, including Chagala, Bhrigutunga, Haituka, Mahalaya, Shikhandin, Jatayu and Bhadravata, are not identified today, as the translators say. The text's wording about who may be a disciple and about the cremation ground is stated as written and is not a recommendation.
Read the source chapters
Source note
Retold in our own words from the English translation of the Linga Purana by a board of scholars led by J.L. Shastri (Motilal Banarsidass), Part 1, chapter 24 (pages 90 to 100). Read from the printed text and its page images. Pages 115 and 118 of our copy are faint, so the disciple names for the fourth cycle and the fifteenth cycle, and the name of the fifth incarnation, are left out rather than guessed; the names given for the other cycles read clearly. The page is condensed and does not reproduce the translation.