My fascination for Shiva's Trilogy

Starting from Mesopotamia, the world has witnessed many major civilizations putting humans who were nomads and hunters-gatherers once into an ordered and settled lifestyle. Every tradition has its own folk stories to spread the values of their evolved culture from generation to generation. And these stories had always been mythological with superhuman traits so that the people find a zealous inspiration and follow them without objecting much.

As far as I know, the great epics of India - Ramayana, and Mahabharatha cannot be matched by any grand text of the world. Both include a complex network of characters with unique characterizations, morals stuck with each character and incident, prescribing both Dos n Don’ts in one’s life, clearly explaining the cause and effect of every happening, etc. I always found them so fascinating and educating and this fascination originated during my 6th standard which made me complete these epics by then itself.




The same fonding always drove me towards historical texts and my recent pick was the famous Shiva’s Trilogy by Amish Tripathi. I have a huge crush sort of bonding with Lord Shiva and Lord Krishna out of this fascination. So I found these sequels more interesting. In Shiva’s trilogy, Amish has presented all familiar characters of our mythology as humans and tried to create a filmy presentation using them in a more convincing pattern. 

The first book ‘Immortals of Meluha’ introduces Shiva as a tribal chief along with his close friend Bhadra on the lofty hills of Kailash on the banks of the Manasarovar lake. From then the visualization starts in our inner mind taking us virtually to the location. Shiva seems to be so friendly, humorous, and practical with extra inherent talents much similar to the heroes of movies. We tend to forget his divine nature until the people of Meluha adores his Neelkanth i.e., blue throat. 

As the story moves on and Shiva executes all wonders at ease makes us believe that only Shiva can perform them and slowly get surrendered to his magic like the rest of the characters in the story. If someone who does not believe in the superpower of Shiva is none other than himself and this gives the balance between human and god form of Shiva. The other characters like Parvathi portrayed as Sati, Kali as the twin sister of Sati, Ganesh, Karthik, Nandi, Prahaspathi, etc are so familiar to us but presented in an interesting nexus, kudos to the creativity of the author.




The sequels ‘The secret of the Nagas’ and ‘Oath of the Vayuputras’ opens up all unanswered knots in the first part and thus concluding in a dramatic way no lesser than a commercial flick. I even had a thought that the ace director S.S.Rajamouli would have taken up reference for carving out the characterization of both Amarendra and Mahendra Bahubali from this wonderful series. Thanks to my visualizing capacity, it was a grand feast to mind and eyes.

My earlier fascinations were Ponniyin Selvan revolving around the great King of Kings Rajaraja Chozhan after reading which I visited Brihadeeswara temple. Similarly, Sivagamiyin Sabadham made me visit Mahabalipuram. In these places I was able to feel the presence of these mighty personalities. Now after completing Shiva’s trilogy I am eagerly waiting to trek the white paradise on the earth - the Himalayas, and wet my feet in the Manasarovar lake, and feel the ecstasy of standing on Shiva’s own land - the Kailash.

Disclaimer: Pictures are used only for reference. I don't own the copyrights.