The First Mahashivaratri

Of all the festivals in the Hindu year, the night the Shiva Purana takes most seriously is Mahashivaratri — “the great night of Shiva.” It falls on the 14th night of the dark half of the lunar month of Phalguna (February-March). Devotees fast through the day and stay awake through the night, chanting Om Namaḥ Śivāya.

There are several origin stories. The Purana keeps the simplest one because it carries the lesson clearly.

There was a poor hunter named Suswara — no great devotee, no particular interest in any god. He was an ordinary man trying to feed his family.

One day Suswara went into the forest to hunt deer for his family’s meal. He had no luck during the day. As dusk fell, he was deep in the forest, far from home, with nothing to show. He decided to wait for game by climbing a tree near a small water-hole. Whatever animal came to drink during the night, he would shoot.

The tree he climbed was a bilva tree — the tree whose leaves are sacred to Shiva.

He settled himself on a branch. He had to stay awake to spot game. The night was cold. He had had nothing to eat since morning. To keep himself from falling asleep, he absently began to pluck the bilva leaves above him and drop them, one by one, downward.

He did not know that at the base of the tree, in the dim moonlight, was a small Shiva linga.

The leaves fell on the linga.

A bilva leaf falling on a Shiva linga is the simplest and most auspicious offering of all of Shiva worship.

The hunter did not know this. He had simply been picking leaves to stay awake. But all night, he kept doing it. He pulled them and let them fall, one at a time, slowly, for hour after hour.

Three times in the night, an animal came to the water-hole below. The first was a doe, who saw him in the tree and begged him for her life — she had not yet seen her young. He let her go.

The second was a younger deer, also begging — she was on her way to her mate, who was waiting. He let her go too.

The third was a stag — who, seeing the hunter, asked the same: to be allowed to go say goodbye to his mate before being killed. He would come back. The hunter let him go also.

In each case, the hunter — surprised at his own softness — could not bring himself to shoot a creature pleading for time.

Through all of this, the bilva leaves kept falling on the linga below.

By dawn, the hunter had not eaten. He had not killed. He had spent the whole night, by accident, doing the perfect Shiva worship: a long vigil, in fasting, in non-violence, with bilva leaves on the linga, all night.

And the third stag did return — with his whole family, as he had promised — and offered himself.

By that time, the hunter could not shoot any of them. He let them all go. He climbed down from the tree empty-handed.

Shiva, watching, gave him the merit of the night’s accidental worship as if it had been deliberate. The hunter and his whole family, the Purana adds, were liberated by the act.

That is the story of the first Mahashivaratri. The festival since has been observed in exactly that form: fast through the day, stay awake through the night, offer bilva leaves and water on the linga, chant the mantra. Many devotees do all-night vigils at Shiva temples — the chanting of Om Namaḥ Śivāya continuing in shifts as one group rests and another takes over.

The Purana’s lesson from the story is plain. Sincere worship does not require advanced knowledge. The hunter knew nothing about Shiva. He was not even trying to worship. He was just keeping awake under a tree, and dropping leaves on a stone below. The act of attention — for whatever reason — done all night, with non-violence preserved, was enough. Shiva’s mercy, the story implies, is much larger than the worshipper’s knowledge.

The next story is about the white bull who sits forever at his door.