Shloka 14
Rudra-Śiva: Names, Two Natures, and the Logic of Epithets (रुद्रनाम-बहुरूपत्व-प्रकरणम्)
केशास्थिकलिले भीमे कपालघटसंकुले । गृध्रगोमायुबहुले चिताग्निशतसंकुले
keśāsthikalile bhīme kapālaghaṭasaṅkule | gṛdhragomāyubahule citāgniśatasaṅkule ||
Mahādeva said: “This dreadful cremation-ground is a mire of hair and bones; it is crowded with skulls and pots. It teems with vultures and jackals, and it is filled with hundreds of blazing funeral pyres.”
श्रीमहेश्वर उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse uses stark śmaśāna imagery to confront impermanence and fear: what is normally shunned as impure and terrifying becomes a setting that exposes the body’s fate and loosens attachment. In Śaiva ethical-spiritual context, dwelling amid death can symbolize transcendence of social fear, bodily identification, and conventional notions of purity.
Śrīmahēśvara describes the cremation-ground as a horrific place—choked with hair and bones, strewn with skulls and pots, swarming with vultures and jackals, and lit by countless pyres. The description functions as a response within a dialogue (implied by the surrounding prose in the edition) that questions why one would remain in such an impure, fearsome place.