Mahakaleshwar and Omkareshwar: Rescue of the Devotee

Shiva arrives in the worst moment

Two Jyotirlingas, two devotees at their worst hour. At Ujjain the king Chandrasena and a five-year-old boy named Shrikhar are about to be overwhelmed by the asura Dushana. At Omkareshwar the sage Mandhata performs a long tapas on the island of Om in the Narmada. Shiva rises for both.

A Boy With Three Stones In Ujjain

The city of Ujjain sits on the bank of the Shipra river in central India, in what is today the western Madhya Pradesh district of Ujjain. In the era the Shiva Purana describes, the city is the seat of King Chandrasena, a Shaiva householder ruler who has spent his reign making the city the most ardent worshipper of Shiva on the subcontinent. Every street has a Shivalinga at one end. Every household begins the day with abhisheka. The temple at the centre, built around an old swayambhu linga, is the busiest in the kingdom. The wealth of the realm has not made the king proud. It has made him quieter. He spends his evenings on the temple steps, after the last devotee has gone home, with his eyes closed.

On one such evening, at the far edge of the city, a five-year-old boy named Shrikhar is walking home from the cattle pen. He is the son of a cowherd. He has spent the day in the field. He is barefoot, his feet caked with dust, his hair sun-bleached at the ends. He is humming something to himself.

He stops at the temple gate. He has seen the king inside many evenings in a row. Today he wants to do what the king does. He looks around. The temple is closed for the evening. The priests have gone home. The boy walks down to the riverbank, picks up three small smooth stones, comes back, and arranges them in a small triangle at the foot of a tree just outside the temple wall. He places one larger stone in the middle. He calls the larger one Shivalinga.

Then he begins. He has watched the king's abhisheka many times. He pours a small handful of river water on the stone. He places a yellow flower on top. He sings, in his small unsteady voice, the only line he knows. Om Namah Shivaya. He sings it again. He sings it for the rest of the evening. The sun goes down. The boy keeps singing.