2. Story of The Linga (Shiv Puran)

While they were thus engaged in fighting, a shining linga (Shiva's image) arrived on the scene. It seemed to have no beginning or end.

Vishnu said, Brahma, let us stop fighting. There is a third being here now. What on earth is this linga? And where did it come from? Let us try and find out what this is. You adopt the form of a swan (hamsa) and go up. I shall adopt the form of boar (varaha) and go down. Let us try and find the extremities of this linga.

Brahma agreed. He became a whilte swan and flew up. Vishnu became a white boar and went down. They looked for four thousand years, but could not find the end of the linga. So they returned to where they had started off from and began to pray. They prayed for a hundred years. After the hundred years were over, the sound of om was heard and a being with five faces and ten arms appeared before them. This was Mahadeva or Shiva.

Vishnu said, It is good that Brahma and I have been fighting. It is because of our fight that you arrived.

Shiva replied, We are all three parts of the same entity and have been divided into three. Brahma is the creator. Vishnu is the preserver and I am the destroyer. There is another being named Rudra who will be born form my body, but Rudra and I are really one and the same. Let Brahma create now. Shiva disappeared and Brahma and Vishnu gave up their forms of a swan and a boar.

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