Śiva’s Stotra to Saṃkarshaṇa

This is the stotra that Bhagavān Śiva (Rudra) sings to Saṃkarshaṇa in Ilāvṛta-varsha. It is told in the seventeenth chapter of the fifth Skanda of the Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa. Śiva lives in Ilāvṛta-varsha for ever and worships Saṃkarshaṇa there without rest with this stotra. Saṃkarshaṇa is the form of Bhagavān Vishṇu in which tamo-guṇa rules.

The same chapter tells how the Gaṅgā came down from the foot of Bhagavān Vishṇu and how she flows in four streams through the regions of Jambū-dvīpa.

The setting

The seventeenth chapter of the fifth Skanda describes Ilāvṛta-varsha. This is the central varsha (region) of Jambū-dvīpa and it surrounds Mount Meru. It is a place of great holiness.

Because of a śāpa (curse) that holds in the present age, no male other than Bhagavān Śiva may enter Ilāvṛta. Any male who enters is turned into a woman by the curse of Durgā. Śiva himself lives in Ilāvṛta for ever. He is surrounded by ten crore attendants and by Devī Durgā with her own great company.

In this setting, with Bhagavān Śiva at the centre of the world in the lap of Ilāvṛta, the Purāṇa tells of his unceasing worship of Saṃkarshaṇa. The stotra is the spoken form of that worship.

The descent of the Gaṅgā

Before the stotra, the chapter tells how the Gaṅgā came down from Vaikuṇṭha to the earth.

Bhagavān Vāmana, in His Trivikrama form, measured the universe with three strides. The water that washed His lotus foot at the highest point of the world came down as the Gaṅgā, the Vishṇupādī (born from the foot of Vishṇu). The celestial river first fell into Brahmaloka. There she was held for a hundred divine years in the water-pot of Brahmā. Then she came down through the seven planetary worlds.

When the celestial Gaṅgā reached Dhruvaloka, Dharma, Śukra, Marīci and other ṛshis received her in their water-pots. She then came down to the moon (Candra-maṇḍala). At last she fell on the top of Mount Meru and split into four streams that flow in the four directions:

• Sītā flows east through Bhadrāśva-varsha.
• Alakanandā flows south through Bhārata-varsha. This is the Gaṅgā as she is known on earth, the most holy of all rivers.
• Cakshu flows west through Ketumāla-varsha.
• Bhadrā flows north through Kuru-varsha.

All four streams are equally holy, for they are the one Vishṇupādī flowing in four directions. To bathe in any of them, to drink their water, or even to remember them destroys the pāpa (sin) one has gathered.

The stotra of Śiva to Saṃkarshaṇa

Bhagavān Śiva, living in Ilāvṛta, worships Saṃkarshaṇa. This is the form of Bhagavān Vishṇu in which the tamo-guṇa of Prakṛti is held, and from which Rudra himself was born. The stotra shows the devotion of even the greatest of the devas before the highest form of Bhagavān Vishṇu.

Śiva prays to Saṃkarshaṇa in these ways:

• Saṃkarshaṇa carries the earth on His thousand hoods as if it were a small thing.
• He is the source of ahaṃkāra (the sense of “I”) in the unfolding of the world.
• He is the ground of all power, Śiva’s own included.
• Śiva asks Him to make pure Śiva’s manas (mind). Śiva’s mind carries the weight of tamo-guṇa because he is the agent of the dissolution of the world.

In the Purāṇa’s account, Śiva, who acts through tamas in the order of the world, is himself a showing of the power of Saṃkarshaṇa. So the stotra is at once worship, an acknowledgment of where he came from, and a prayer for the cleansing of the work of tamas that Śiva must do in his place in the world.

Śiva also prays that, through this remembering of Saṃkarshaṇa, the moksha of all beings who live in Ilāvṛta may be made easy. They are the beings he lives with and protects.

Who Saṃkarshaṇa is

Saṃkarshaṇa is the second of the four vyūha (forms) of Bhagavān Vishṇu. He is the form linked with the work of tamo-guṇa in the creation of the world. The name Saṃkarshaṇa means “the one who draws together” or “the one who joins the experiencer and the experienced”. This form is responsible for the principle of ahaṃkāra, the sense of one’s own identity, in the unfolding of Prakṛti. Saṃkarshaṇa is also one of the names of Balarāma, in the Vaishṇava Pañcarātra scheme.

In this chapter Saṃkarshaṇa is the form that the twenty-fifth chapter of the same Skanda describes as living below the seven pātāla worlds at the base of the world. He is Ananta Śesha in his cosmic form, worshipped by the nāgas and siddhas and carrying all the worlds on his thousand hoods.

Sources

• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 5th Skanda, Chapter 17
• Bhāgavata Mahā Purāṇa, 5th Skanda, Chapter 25 (the form of Saṃkarshaṇa as Ananta Śesha)