Ganas: Kailasa's Court and the Eleventh Rudra

Why Shiva's court has no caste, and Hanuman's secret

Around Shiva on Kailasa sit the ganas: Nandi, Bhringi who refused to bow to Parvati, the bhutas and pisachas, the outcasts no other court would seat. There is no caste at the door. The lesson closes with the tradition that Hanuman is an amsha of Shiva, the Eleventh Rudra.

The Court With No Door

Late one afternoon in the high winter on Kailasa, a small group of devas climbed the last slope and stopped where the snow ends. They had come from Indra's bright assembly, where every seat is ranked and every visitor announced. They had expected something similar at the door of the greatest of gods. They found no door.

What they found instead was a wide, open ledge under a single peak, the snow swept clean by the wind. Shiva sat in the centre on a tiger skin, eyes half closed, ash on his skin. Around him, in a circle that had no head and no tail, sat his court.

The devas looked, and could not place anyone. A white bull lay near Shiva's right knee, breathing slowly. A skeletal sage stood balanced on three legs. Two figures with faces of dogs were curled together, asleep. A boy with a snake around his neck was laughing. A creature with no nose at all was eating an apple. There were small spirits, half-visible, sitting on the rocks. There were beings whose names the devas did not know in any heavenly register. There were a few humans. And every one of them was looking at Shiva with the same quiet, undivided attention.

One of the devas leaned to another. 'Where is the protocol?' he whispered. 'Where is the order of precedence? Who sits where?'

The other deva, older, had been to Kailasa before. He smiled. 'There is no order of precedence here,' he said. 'That is the order. This is the only court in the worlds where the door is not guarded by your birth.'

What that ledge taught the devas, and what it has been teaching the rest of us for as long as the Shiva Purana has been told, is the subject of this lesson. At the end is a quieter teaching about a particular monkey, sitting silent at the feet of a particular king, and the tradition that says he too is part of this same court.