The Shiva Purana names Shiva by many epithets, but Mahakala, the lord of time and dissolution, is the one modern readers tend to skip past. Mahakala does not destroy carelessly. The Purana is precise ...

Most gods sit on thrones. Shiva sits on a tiger skin, under open skies. Most gods are adorned in gold. Shiva wears ash from the cremation ground. In a pantheon filled with gods of order, law, and ...