The Lord Who Is Half Woman
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Brahmā creates and creates, but nothing he makes goes on to multiply. So he turns to Śiva — who appears as one body, half man and half woman — and from that body the Goddess steps out to give the world the power of the feminine.
A creation that would not grow
In the beginning Brahmā made the worlds and filled them with beings, all born from his mind. But they did not increase. However many times he created, the creatures stayed as he had made them, and the world did not grow. Brahmā was troubled.
Then a voice spoke from the sky: create through union. Brahmā resolved to do so — and found he could not. No woman had yet come forth from Śiva. Without her, there was no one through whom creation could continue.
Brahmā's tapas
Without Śiva's power, Brahmā understood, his creatures would never multiply. So he sat down to tapas. He held in his heart the image of Śiva joined with his supreme Śakti, Pārvatī, and meditated on them with great love.
His tapas was fierce, and before long Śiva was pleased. He came to Brahmā in a form no one had seen before: one body, the right half a man and the left half a woman — Ardhanārīśvara, the Lord who is half woman.
Brahmā fell full length on the ground, joined his palms and praised him. And Śiva spoke, in a voice deep as a rain cloud: my son, I know what you want. You did this tapas so that creatures would increase. I am pleased, and I will give you what you ask.
The Goddess steps out
Then Śiva drew the Goddess out from the left half of his own body, and she stood before Brahmā in her own form.
Brahmā bowed to her and said: Śiva made me at the start of creation and set me to this work. I have made the gods and every other being from my mind, again and again, and still they do not grow. Now I want to create through union — but no line of women has ever come forth from Śiva's body before you, so I have no power to create it. Every power comes from you. Mother, give me the power to create womankind, so that this moving and unmoving world may grow.
And he asked for one thing more: take birth, through a portion of yourself, as the daughter of my son Dakṣa.
A light from between her brows
So be it, said the Goddess, and gave Brahmā that power. Then from the space between her eyebrows she brought forth another Śakti, shining just as she did.
Śiva laughed when he saw her, and said to the Goddess: Brahmā has worshipped you with tapas — be gracious to him, and give him everything he asks. The Goddess accepted Śiva's word, and agreed to be born as Dakṣa's daughter. That daughter would be Satī.
Having given Brahmā that boundless power, the Goddess entered Śiva's body again, and Śiva vanished.
From that day, the Purāṇa says, women have had their share in creation. Brahmā rejoiced, and creation through union began.
Here the story ends
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How the tellings differ
- The Śiva Purāṇa tells this twice, almost word for word — once by Nandīśvara in the Śatarudra Saṃhitā, as the first of Śiva's forms taken for the world's sake, and once by Vāyu in the Vāyavīya Saṃhitā.
- Other Purāṇas turn it around. In the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, Rudra is born from Brahmā's anger already half male and half female, and it is Brahmā who tells him to divide himself — the male half becoming the eleven Rudras, the female half the many goddesses.
- A well-loved story told outside the Śiva Purāṇa gives another reason for the form: the sage Bhṛṅgi wished to circle Śiva alone and not the Goddess, so she became one body with Śiva and he could no longer separate them.