AM'S DICTIONARY. _Vishnu._

Siva.

"A celebrated Hindu God, the Destroyer of creation, and therefore the most
formidable of the Hindu Triad. He also personifies reproduction, since the
Hindu philosophy excludes the idea of total annihilation without
subsequent regeneration. Hence he is sometimes confounded with Brahma, the
creator or first person of the Triad. He is the particular God of the
Tantrikas, or followers of the books called Tantras. His worshippers are
termed Saivas, and although not so numerous as the Vaishnavas, exalt their
god to the highest place in the heavens, and combine in him many of the
attributes which properly belong to the other deities. According to them
Siva is Time, Justice, Fire, Water, the Sun, the Destroyer and Creator. As
presiding over generation, his type is the Linga, or Phallus, the origin
probably of the Phallic emblem of Egypt and Greece. As the God of
generation and justice, which latter character he shares with the god
Yama, he is represented riding a white bull. His own colour, as well as
that of the bull, is generally white, referring probably to the unsullied
purity of Justice. His throat is dark-blue; his hair of a light reddish
colour, and thickly matted together, and gathered above his head like the
hair of an ascetic. He is sometimes seen with two hands, sometimes with
four, eight, or ten, and with five faces. He has three eyes, one being in
the centre of his forehead, pointing up and down. These are said to denote
his view of the three divisions of time, past, present, and future. He
holds a trident in his hand to denote, as some say, his relationship to
water, or according to others, to show that the three great attributes of
Creator, Destroyer, and Regenerator are combined in him. His loins are
enveloped in a tiger's skin. In his character of Time, he not only
presides over its extinction, but also its astronomical regulation. A
crescent or half-moon on his forehead indicates the measure of time by the
phases of the moon; a serpent forms one of his necklaces to denote the
measure of time by years, and a second necklace of human skulls marks the
lapse and revolution of ages, and the extinction and succession of the
generations of mankind. He is often represented as entirely covered with
serpents, which are the emblems of immortality. They are bound in his
hair, round his neck, wrists, waist, arms and legs; they serve as rings
for his fingers, and earrings for his e