Nīlakaṇṭha Stava (Vāyu Purāṇa)

The fifty-fourth chapter of the Vāyu Mahā Purāṇa tells how Bhagavān Śiva came to have a blue throat, and why he is called Nīlakaṇṭha, the Blue-throated One. The account comes through a chain of tellings placed one inside another. Sūta tells it at Naimishāraṇya. He tells what Bhagavān Vāyu said at a thousand-year satra. Bhagavān Vāyu tells what Bhagavān Kārttikeya told the ṛshi Vasishṭha at Kailāsa. At the centre is the act of Bhagavān Śiva drinking the terrible kālakūṭa visha (poison) that rose when the ocean was churned.

The first telling: the satra at Naimishāraṇya

The ṛshis gathered at Naimishāraṇya ask Sūta, son of Lomaharshaṇa: “O great luminous one! At what time and at what place did this holy Nīlakaṇṭha ākhyāna (account) happen? Tell us everything as it happened.”

Sūta answers: “I will tell you what I myself heard during the great thousand-year satra. Listen.”

The second telling: Vāyu at the thousand-year satra

At a thousand-year satra, Bhagavān Vāyu, the life-breath of the universe, was present. He spoke the words “Namo Nīlakaṇṭhāya” (salutation to the Blue-throated One).

The Vālakhilya munis heard him. They are 88,000 ūrdhvaretaska munis (munis who hold their seed upward in strict brahmacarya). They travel with the sun and live on leaves, water and air alone. They turned to Bhagavān Vāyu and asked:

“O Vāyu, you are the best of those who know! You said ‘Nīlakaṇṭha’, the most secret and most holy word. O master of pure action! Tell us why the throat of Bhagavān Śiva, the husband of Pārvatī, is blue. We wish to hear it from your own lips alone.”

Bhagavān Vāyu praised their question. He called it “most sacred, most purifying, supreme among holy things”. Then he said: “I will tell you what I heard from Kārttikeya, the long-armed son of Hara, the destroyer of the armies of the rākshasas.”

The third telling: Vasishṭha’s question to Kārttikeya

At Kailāsa the great ṛshi Vasishṭha came to Bhagavān Kārttikeya (Mahāsena, Kumārasvāmī) with deep devotion. He praised him with a stotra (hymn of praise) of twelve verses:

“Salutation to you, son of Hara. Salutation to you, born from the womb of Umā. Salutation to you, born from the womb of Agni. Salutation to you, born from the womb of Gaṅgā. Salutation to you, born from the reeds (nala). Salutation to you, son of the six Kṛttikā nakshatras. Salutation to you of twelve eyes and six faces. Salutation to the holder of the Śakti weapon. Salutation to you whose banner is divine and bright.”

After the stotra, Vasishṭha asked:

“The throat of Bhagavān Śiva is white as a lily, pure as the moon, and as fair as the moon. Yet it has a dark mark on it. O Kumāra! I ask you as one who is devoted, who controls his senses, who is your own. Tell me the Nīlakaṇṭha kathā (account), which is auspicious, makes pure, and destroys pāpa (sin). Tell it fully for my delight.”

Kārttikeya was moved by these words. He said: “O best of speakers, Vasishṭha! Listen to what I tell you. I will tell it as I heard it: the talk between the great-souled Śiva and Pārvatī at Kailāsa. I myself saw and heard it on that blessed peak.”

Kailāsa, where it happened

Kārttikeya first describes Kailāsa, where the talk took place.

The summit is lovely, streaked with veins of many coloured minerals. It is full of the calls of cakravāka birds, the humming of bees, and the cries of drunken krauñca birds and peacocks. The caves of the mountain ring with the music of the kinnaras. Siddhas and chāraṇas live on its peak. Below, the mist-covered gorges carry waterfalls whose spray mixes with flower pollen. Apsarās dance in the groves. The music of the vīṇā and the flute drifts through the valleys. A holy joy fills every corner and height of the mountain.

In this place Bhagavān Śiva, the great yogī, sat with Pārvatī Devī on his lap in his eternal home. There Pārvatī asked her question.

The innermost account

Pārvatī’s question

Pārvatī Devī, seated at Kailāsa, turned to Bhagavān Śiva and asked about the blue mark on his throat.

Śiva tells of the churning of the ocean

Bhagavān Śiva answered. He told in the first person what had happened at the samudra-manthana, the churning of the ocean.

The devas and the asuras together churned the Kshīrasāgara (the ocean of milk). The mountain Mandara was the churning rod and Vāsuki, king of the serpents, was the rope. When the churning began, the first thing to rise was not amṛta (the nectar of immortality) but a terrible visha, the kālakūṭa. It blazed with the brightness of the fire of pralaya (the end of the world) and rose like the flame of cosmic dissolution.

“That visha was like a black cloud, like a dark storm cloud, like the fire of pralaya itself. It rose with the brightness of a thousand suns at the time of final dissolution. Only by the glow of its rising, before anyone touched it, the white-bodied Janārdana (Vishṇu) was scorched and darkened.”

The devas, the asuras and all beings were afraid. The visha was so terrible that neither Bhagavān Vishṇu, nor the devas, nor any being in the three worlds could bear it. All looked to Bhagavān Śiva and begged him for help.

The devas said:

“O Mahādeva! You alone, and no one else in all the three worlds, can drink this visha. You are the first to enjoy the first fruit of the churned ocean. You alone have the power. O Prabhu Śiva, drink this!”

Śiva drinks the kālakūṭa

Bhagavān Śiva answered with full compassion and without fear. He accepted the plea of the devas and began to drink the terrible poison.

“Then I began to drink that visha, which was like Yama in its power to destroy. O noble one! As I drank the terrible kālakūṭa visha that frightened the devas, at once my throat turned blue-black. That visha was like the petal of a dark lotus, like a serpent clinging to the throat, like Takshaka, king of the nāgas, licking with his tongue. While the piśācas, uragas, rākshasas and all beings watched in wonder, I held it in my throat.”

So the kālakūṭa visha was held in the throat of Bhagavān Śiva for good. He did not swallow it further, which would have destroyed the world from within. He did not spit it out, which would have destroyed all creation. From that moment the throat of Mahādeva carried the mark of the kālakūṭa, blue-black.

“Therefore, O daughter of the mountain king! I am called Nīlakaṇṭha, the Blue-throated One. This mark is the sign of the visha I held to protect all the worlds.”

The dhyāna of Nīlakaṇṭha

The chapter gives a dhyāna-śloka (a verse for meditation) on Nīlakaṇṭha. He has a pale or greenish moustache. His body is decorated with the moon. He stands holding the trident, shining in his divine form. This is the Nīlakaṇṭha on whom the wise meditate.

Phalaśruti

The chapter ends with the phalaśruti (the fruit of hearing):

“This most sacred Nīlakaṇṭha account, secret among secrets and most purifying, destroys all pāpa. Any poison, of moving or unmoving origin, that touches one who has heard this account at once loses its power and dies. Even the most terrible and inauspicious force turns back before the one who has taken refuge in the account of Nīlakaṇṭha.”

One who reads even a quarter, a half or the whole of the Nīlakaṇṭha Stava gains the highest puṇya (merit). One who reads it with full devotion reaches the presence of Bhagavān Nīlakaṇṭha himself.

Sources

• Vāyu Mahā Purāṇa, Chapter 54