Shiv - Shakti (Ardha Nareeshwara)
Shiva-Shakti (Ardhanareeswara - half male and half female)
According to Hindu Mythology, Lord Siva and his consort Shakti are shown unified as a single individual with male form on the right half and female form on the left. This hermaphrodite form represents the nature of universal cosmic energy. Cosmic energy manifests itself in many forms. It is heat; it is light; it is electricity; it is mechanical energy; it is atomic energy and it could be chemical energy. Under special conditions, energy can transform into matter (as it is deduced to happen in quasar regions, millions of light years away, where baby galaxies are being formed from pure cosmic energy), or matter can dissipate into energy as it happens in nuclear reactions. The principle of "one in several and several in one" is symbolized by Siva-Shakti.
If we take life on earth, a fertilized egg from which a plant or animal develops, is neither male nor female. It remains undifferentiated for some time before its genes guide it to become a male or a female life form. So at the fundamental level, matter and energy are interchangeable; male and female are interchangeable. Ardhanareeswara is the anthropomorphic symbolism of the "unity in diversity" principle. Sivalinga is the non-anthropomorphic symbol of the same principle. Some people explain it as the unity of male and female organs (phallic theory visualizing the top spheroid as male and the circular base as the female). The featureless form of it denotes the undifferentiated nature of the universal force. It can be remembered that physicists are still exploring a method to explain the unification of the four universal forces, gravity, electro-magnetism, strong nuclear force and weak force, into one single theory. It is not strange that both Saivite and Vaishnavite women worship Mangala Gowri (another name for Siva-Shakti unity) to get a good husband or to beget children, or, in other words, to unify and proliferate.
According to Hindu Mythology, Lord Siva and his consort Shakti are shown unified as a single individual with male form on the right half and female form on the left. This hermaphrodite form represents the nature of universal cosmic energy. Cosmic energy manifests itself in many forms. It is heat; it is light; it is electricity; it is mechanical energy; it is atomic energy and it could be chemical energy. Under special conditions, energy can transform into matter (as it is deduced to happen in quasar regions, millions of light years away, where baby galaxies are being formed from pure cosmic energy), or matter can dissipate into energy as it happens in nuclear reactions. The principle of "one in several and several in one" is symbolized by Siva-Shakti.
If we take life on earth, a fertilized egg from which a plant or animal develops, is neither male nor female. It remains undifferentiated for some time before its genes guide it to become a male or a female life form. So at the fundamental level, matter and energy are interchangeable; male and female are interchangeable. Ardhanareeswara is the anthropomorphic symbolism of the "unity in diversity" principle. Sivalinga is the non-anthropomorphic symbol of the same principle. Some people explain it as the unity of male and female organs (phallic theory visualizing the top spheroid as male and the circular base as the female). The featureless form of it denotes the undifferentiated nature of the universal force. It can be remembered that physicists are still exploring a method to explain the unification of the four universal forces, gravity, electro-magnetism, strong nuclear force and weak force, into one single theory. It is not strange that both Saivite and Vaishnavite women worship Mangala Gowri (another name for Siva-Shakti unity) to get a good husband or to beget children, or, in other words, to unify and proliferate.
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