The Burning of Kāma

A demon only Śiva's son could kill

After Satī gave up her body, Śiva withdrew from the world. He went to the high Himālaya and sat in unbroken meditation, still as the mountain itself.

Meanwhile a demon named Tāraka had performed terrible austerities and won a boon from Brahmā: he could be killed only by a son of Śiva. Tāraka was clever. Śiva was a grieving ascetic who would never marry again — so, he reasoned, he could never die. He conquered heaven, drove out Indra and made the gods his servants.

Pārvatī at the mountain

But Satī had been reborn as Pārvatī, daughter of Himavān, king of the mountains, and his queen Menā. The sage Nārada told her parents that she was destined to be Śiva's wife. So Himavān brought her to the place where Śiva sat, and Pārvatī served him every day — bringing flowers, water and kuśa grass, sweeping the ground, waiting. Śiva did not open his eyes.

Kāma goes to war

The gods, desperate, turned to Kāma, the god of love. With his wife Rati and his friend Vasanta, the Spring, he set out for the mountain carrying his bow of sugarcane, strung with a line of humming bees, and his five arrows made of flowers.

As he arrived, spring broke out on the Himālaya out of season. Trees flowered at once. Bees hummed, cuckoos sang, the snow-cold air turned soft and warm. Every creature on the mountain felt it. Only Śiva sat unmoved.

Kāma waited for his moment. It came when Pārvatī stepped forward to offer Śiva a garland of lotus seeds, and for the first time his meditation stirred. Kāma drew his bow and loosed his most powerful arrow, Sammohana, the arrow of enchantment.

The third eye

Śiva felt the arrow. For an instant his mind turned towards Pārvatī's face. Then he became aware that someone had done this to him — and he looked around to see who. He saw Kāma crouching with his bow drawn.

The eye in the middle of Śiva's forehead opened. A flame burst from it. Before the gods could even cry out “Lord, restrain your anger!”, Kāma was ash on the ground.

Rati's grief

Rati fell weeping beside the heap of ashes that had been her husband. Her grief was so great that the gods pleaded for her. Śiva, his anger already gone, promised that Kāma would not be lost: from now on he would live without a body — Anaṅga, the bodiless one — present in every heart. And one day he would be born again with a body.

Then Śiva vanished from the place, leaving Pārvatī standing alone.

What Pārvatī learned

Pārvatī was ashamed. Her beauty had not won Śiva; it had only brought destruction. She understood that Śiva could not be reached by beauty or by charm — only by the same thing he himself possessed: tapas. She took off her ornaments and went into the forest to begin her own austerities. That is where the next story begins.