Mahashivratri

Mahashivratri, 'the great night of Shiva', falls on the fourteenth of the dark fortnight of Maha (Maha Vad 14), on the night before Amavasya. It is among the most widely observed nights of the Hindu year: devotees fast through the day, keep vigil through the night, and worship Shivji with bilva leaves, water and the chanting of his names. The traditions remember it variously as the night of Shiv-Parvati's wedding and as the night of Shiva's cosmic tandav — a night when his grace is held to be especially near.

Falling in late winter, it arrives in the midst of the Pushtimarg Holi season — between Vasant Panchami's first gulal and the full blaze of Fagan — and the Vaishnav calendar notes it with reverence. Vraj itself holds Shiva dear: at Vrindavan he is worshipped as Gopeshwar Mahadev, the one who came in a gopi's form for the raas, and Vraj's people honour him as a kshetrapal, a loving guardian of the land of leela.

For Vaishnavs the beauty of this night lies in what Shivji himself is: the Shrimad Bhagavat says 'vaishnavanam yatha shambhuh' — among all Vaishnavs, Shambhu is the greatest. The lord of Kailash, ash-smeared and needing nothing, spends his nights absorbed in the name and meditation of Shri Krishna. The story of Gopeshwar Mahadev carries the same sweetness: longing to witness the raas, Shiva accepted the form of a gopi to enter Vraj's innermost leela — greatness bowing joyfully before love.

Pushtimarg is a path of ananya seva — the Vaishnav's heart, seva and nirodh belong wholly to Shri Krishna, to Shrinathji alone. So on Mahashivratri a Pushtimargiya bhav is not divided worship but admiring reverence: we look at Shivji the way one looks at the greatest of bhaktas, and learn from him. His simplicity, his contentment, his untiring absorption in Hari-smaran — these are qualities every Vaishnav can pray for. The night whispers its lesson gently: the higher a soul rises, the lower it bows before Prabhu.