Linga Purana — Purva Bhaga, Shloka 22

Vighneshvara-Prashna and Deva-Krita Shiva-Stava

Adhyaya 104

Devanagari script

ओङ्कारे त्रिविधं रूपम् आस्थायोपरिवासिने पीताय कृष्णवर्णाय रक्तायात्यन्ततेजसे

Transliteration

oṅkāre trividhaṃ rūpam āsthāyoparivāsine pītāya kṛṣṇavarṇāya raktāyātyantatejase

Translation

အိုမ်ကာရအက္ခရာ၌ တည်နေတော်မူ၍ သုံးမျိုးသော ရုပ်သဘောကို ခံယူတော်မူသည်—အထက်မြင့်၌ နေထိုင်သော အလွန်လွန်သခင်အဖြစ်; အဝါရောင်၊ အမည်းရောင်၊ အနီရောင်ဟူ၍ ပေါ်ထွန်းတော်မူပြီး၊ အဆုံးမဲ့ တေဇောဓာတ်တော်ကို ပိုင်ဆိုင်တော်မူ၏။

Word by Word

• ओङ्कारे (oṅkāre): in/within the Omkara (Oṃ)

• त्रिविधं (trividhaṃ): threefold

• रूपम् (rūpam): form

• आस्थाय (āsthāya): having assumed/taken refuge in

• उपरिवासिने (uparivāsine): to the One who dwells above/abides in the higher plane

• पीताय (pītāya): to the yellow-hued One

• कृष्णवर्णाय (kṛṣṇa-varṇāya): to the dark/black-complexioned One

• रक्ताय (raktāya): to the red-hued One

• अत्यन्ततेजसे (atyanta-tejase): to the One of extreme/infinite splendor

Speaker

Suta Goswami (narrating Linga Purana teachings to the sages of Naimisharanya)

Characters & Entities

• Shiva
• Omkara (Pranava)

FAQs

What is the importance of this verse in the context of Linga worship?

It identifies Oṃ (Pranava) as the subtle seat of the Linga-principle: the worshipper contemplates Shiva as the transcendent Pati who manifests in a threefold way, making Omkara-dhyana a direct support for Linga-upasana.

How does this verse describe the nature of Shiva (Shiva-tattva)?

Shiva is portrayed as atyanta-tejas (limitless consciousness-radiance) who remains ‘above’ as transcendent, yet expresses Himself through differentiated appearances (the three colors/forms), indicating both nirguna transcendence and saguna manifestation.

What ritualistic or Yogic practice is highlighted here?

Pranava-upasana: meditative absorption on Oṃ as Shiva’s sonic body, used in Pashupata-oriented contemplation to loosen pasha (bondage) and steady the pashu (soul) in awareness of the Pati.