Shiva Chandeshanugraha
    
by Gregorian Bivolaru

Initially, Chandesha’s name was Vichara Charmar. He was the son of a farmer called Ecadatan. One day, the man who was grazing the cows was found to often beat and torture them. Chandesha, who had a heart full of love and compassion for all beings, could no longer accept this situation and

replaced the violent shepherd, taking his place. As he was an ardent worshipper of Shiva, he would take the cows to the fields early in the morning, and during the day he took them to places where the grass was abundant. While the cows were eating, he meditated. When the evening came, Chandesha took the cows back; they were very well fed and very happy.
In this way, on the days when Chandesha grazed the cows they started to give a lot of milk. When Chandesha was meditating upon the Almighty Shiva, the cows used to come near him silently. After he ended his meditation and later on, when he milked the cows, they gave him more milk. Afterwards, Chandesha made a small altar, in the shape of a lingam, made of sand, and he started to make a secret ritual for worshipping Shiva – Shiva Puja, using the milk from the cows (which they offered to him in abundance and full of love) in order to oil the symbol of Shiva – Shiva Lingam.
One day an ignorant passed by Chandesha and without understanding anything of what Chandesha was doing, he foolishly thought that the young man was milking the cows and then just throwing away the milk onto the sand. He immediately went to Chandesha’s father and told him all that he thought he had seen, warning him that his son was wasting the milk of the cows of the village.
Revolted by what the stranger had told him, the next day his father snuck after Chandesha and without him knowing it, he watched him from behind of a bush. As usual, the cows came near Chandesha to offer him their milk. Shortly before he started the ritual for worshipping Shiva – Shiva Puja, Chandesha milked the cows, put the milk in a few pots and started to worship Shiva, putting the milk on Shiva’s symbol – Shiva Lingam, which he had built from sand, with his heart full of love, Bakhti, for Shiva.
Without realizing that his son was full of adoration for Shiva and that he was making a secret ritual for worshipping Shiva, his father started to beat Chandesha with a stick, thinking that in this way he would stop his son from wasting the milk from the cows. But Chandesha was so completely absorbed in worshipping Shiva full of love, that he did not even feel the beating from his father.
Ecadatan went towards the pots full of Milk, preventing Chandesha from using the milk, which was actually destined to oil the divine symbol of Shiva – Shiva Lingam. Seeing that the ritual for worshipping Shiva was about to be interrupted by the stupid action of an ignorant, Chandesha, in a state of beneficial trance, chased away Ecadatan, who he did not even recognize as being his father. Being completely submerged in his state of complete surrendering to Shiva, Bhakti, and with a complete state of balance in the mind, and even of inner neutrality, Chandesha sent away his father, as if he was any other unwelcome being.
Shiva was very content with his worshipper’s surrender and with his determination and appeared before him, wearing on his head a garland made of wonderful fresh flowers, a symbol of the priceless gifts of the love of his worshippers. Enchanted by the exemplary rapture, focus and intensity of the worshipping manifested by the young Vichara Charmar, Shiva called him Chandesha and honoured him by placing on his head the flower garland that He was wearing, as a sign of divine blessing, at the same time touching the top of his head with His hand.

Published by Natha.net

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