Shiva Purana — Vayaviya Samhita, Shloka 48

समयाह्वय-संस्कारः — Rite of ‘Samayāhvaya’ and the Preparatory Layout

Maṇḍapa, Vedi, Kuṇḍas, Maṇḍala, Śiva-kumbha

Devanagari script

प्रोक्षणं ताडनं कृत्वा शिशोस्स्वात्मानमात्मनि । शिवात्मकमनुस्मृत्य स्फुरंतं विस्फुलिंगवत्

Transliteration

prokṣaṇaṃ tāḍanaṃ kṛtvā śiśossvātmānamātmani | śivātmakamanusmṛtya sphuraṃtaṃ visphuliṃgavat

Translation

ပရိုက္ခဏ (ရေဖြန်းသန့်စင်ခြင်း) နှင့် တာဍန (အနည်းငယ်ထိနှိပ်သော ရိတု) ကို ပြုလုပ်ပြီးနောက်၊ ကလေး၏ အတ္တကို မိမိ၏ အတ္တအတွင်း ထားရမည်။ ထို့နောက် ထိုအတ္တသည် သီဝသဘာဝဖြစ်ကြောင်း အနုသမရဏပြုကာ၊ မီးစက်ကဲ့သို့ တောက်ပလှုပ်ရှား၍ ပေါက်ထွက်လာသကဲ့သို့ စိတ်တွင် တရားသဘောဖြင့် စူးစမ်းရမည်။

Word by Word

• prokṣaṇam: sprinkling (rite)
• prokṣaṇam: Karma (कर्म)
• Type: Noun
• Root: prokṣaṇa (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: Napumsaka (नपुंसकलिङ्ग), Dvitīyā vibhakti (2nd/द्वितीया), Ekavacana (singular)

• tāḍanam: striking/tapping
• tāḍanam: Karma (कर्म)
• Type: Noun
• Root: tāḍana (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: Napumsaka (नपुंसकलिङ्ग), Dvitīyā vibhakti (2nd/द्वितीया), Ekavacana (singular)

• kṛtvā: having done
• kṛtvā: Kriyā (क्रिया; pūrvakāla)
• Type: Verb
• Root: √kṛ (धातु)
• Form: Ktvānta (absolutive/क्त्वान्त), pūrvakāla-kriyā (prior action)

• śiśoḥ: of the child
• śiśoḥ: Sambandha (सम्बन्ध/Genitive)
• Type: Noun
• Root: śiśu (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: Puṃliṅga (masculine/पुंलिङ्ग), Ṣaṣṭhī vibhakti (6th/षष्ठी), Ekavacana (singular)

• sva-ātmānam: one’s own self
• sva-ātmānam: Karma (कर्म)
• Type: Noun
• Root: sva (प्रातिपदिक) + ātman (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: Karmadhāraya (appositional/कर्मधारय: ‘svaḥ ātmā’), Puṃliṅga (masculine/पुंलिङ्ग), Dvitīyā vibhakti (2nd/द्वितीया), Ekavacana (singular)

• ātmani: in the self
• ātmani: Adhikaraṇa (अधिकरण)
• Type: Noun
• Root: ātman (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: Puṃliṅga (masculine/पुंलिङ्ग), Saptamī vibhakti (7th/सप्तमी), Ekavacana (singular)

• śiva-ātmakam: having the nature of Śiva; Śiva-constituted
• śiva-ātmakam: Karma (कर्म; object of anusmṛtya)
• Type: Adjective
• Root: śiva (प्रातिपदिक) + ātmaka (प्रातिपदिक)
• Form: Tatpuruṣa (determinative/तत्पुरुष: ‘śivasya ātmā’ → ‘śiva-ātmakam’), Napumsaka (नपुंसकलिङ्ग), Dvitīyā vibhakti (2nd/द्वितीया), Ekavacana (singular)

• anusmṛtya: having recollected/meditated upon
• anusmṛtya: Kriyā (क्रिया; pūrvakāla)
• Type: Verb
• Root: anu-√smṛ (धातु)
• Form: Ktvānta (absolutive/क्त्वान्त), pūrvakāla-kriyā (prior action)

• sphurantam: pulsating, flashing
• sphurantam: Karma (कर्म; qualifying the remembered entity)
• Type: Verb
• Root: √sphur (धातु)
• Form: Śatṛ-pratyaya present participle (वर्तमान-कृदन्त/शतृ), Puṃliṅga (masculine/पुंलिङ्ग), Dvitīyā vibhakti (2nd/द्वितीया), Ekavacana (singular)

• visphuliṅga-vat: like a spark
• visphuliṅga-vat: Kriyāviśeṣaṇa (क्रियाविशेषण)
• Type: Indeclinable
• Root: visphuliṅga (प्रातिपदिक) + vat (तद्धित)
• Form: Upamā-avyaya (simile adverb/उपमा-अव्यय), taddhita -vat (वत्) used adverbially

Speaker

Suta Goswami

Shaiva Theology

Tattva Level: pashu

Shiva Form: Dakṣiṇāmūrti

Shakti Dimension

Role: teaching

Characters & Entities

• Shiva

FAQs

What is the spiritual significance of this verse in the Shiva Purana?

It teaches a Shaiva contemplative rite: after outer purification, one turns inward and remembers the jiva as ultimately belonging to Śiva—awakening a vivid, spark-like intuition of Śiva-consciousness that loosens bondage (pāśa).

How does this verse relate to the worship of the Linga or Saguna Shiva?

The ritual actions (sprinkling and tapping) resemble preparatory saṃskāra-style purification found in Saguna worship; the inner step—remembering the Self as Śiva—transforms external worship into internal linga-bhāvanā, where the ‘mark’ (liṅga) is realized within consciousness.

What ritualistic or meditative practice is suggested here?

Begin with purification (prokṣaṇa), perform a gentle ritual touch (tāḍana), then practice śivātma-anusmṛti—steady recollection that the inner self is oriented to Śiva—visualizing awareness ‘flashing’ like a spark; accompany it with japa such as the Pañcākṣarī (Om Namaḥ Śivāya) if appropriate.