I believe many people have seen the recently released film Dying to Survive. However, I don’t know how many people noticed this scene in the film: after selling medicine, Cheng Yongfu bought medicine from an Indian retail pharmacy and saw a group of Indians passing through the street with two statues. These two statues are blue in color and look strange, which is even more creepy in the lingering fog. So who are these two horrible gods? Let’s talk about their identity.
Dying to Survive stills
Let’s talk about the male idol, whose prototype is Shiva, also known as the "beast master", which is one of the most important and representative gods in Indian mythology. He is usually depicted as wearing a crescent moon accessory, with a third eye on his forehead, a cobra wrapped around his neck, an animal skin apron and a trident in his hand. There are one, three, four, five or a thousand faces, and the number of arms is not fixed. The common ones are two or four arms, and the skin color is blue or yellow. He was a god believed by Indian aborigines before the Aryan invasion. A seal from 3000 BC to 2000 BC was once unearthed in the Indus Valley, on which appeared a god with two horns on his head, three faces and staggered legs, surrounded by elephants, tigers, buffaloes and rhinoceroses. It was regarded as the prototype of Shiva.
Siva
From 1800 BC to 1500 BC, an Aryan entered India through the pass of Hindu Kush, and gradually conquered this land. Aryans, as conquerors, naturally didn’t pay attention to Indian local gods at first. Shiva’s name did not appear in the early Hindu classic Rigveda. It was not until around 200 BC that Shiva entered the Pantheon of Aryans and mingled with rudra, the god of storms in Rigveda.
The process of Shiva’s integration into Aryan mythology was not smooth sailing. It is recorded in Mahabharata, Gone with the Wind and Gone with Vishnu that Shiva married Sadie, the daughter of Dasha, but Dasha always regarded this son-in-law as a barbarian and refused to see him. On one occasion, Dasha held a festival and deliberately did not invite Shiva. Shiva’s wife, Goddess Sadie, came to the festival and accused her father and the gods of being arrogant and ignorant, not knowing the greatness of Shiva and daring to exclude him from the festival. Then, Sadie set herself on fire and died on the spot. After learning the bad news, Shiva led his men to destroy the whole festival, killing and injuring many gods, and cutting off Dasha’s head. Finally, the gods were afraid of Shiva’s power and promised to keep the most important seat in the festival for Shiva forever. This myth undoubtedly reflects the conflict between the beliefs of early aborigines and Aryans.
Sadie set herself on fire.
Later, Shiva and two other Aryan gods Brahma and Vishnu were listed as the three major gods of India. Among them, Brahma is the creator of the whole universe, Vishnu is responsible for maintaining the peace of the universe and Shiva is responsible for destroying the universe. In mythology, Shiva is usually said to be transformed by Brahma’s anger (this identity originated from rudra), but his strength is by no means inferior to Brahma. It is said that after Brahma gave birth to his daughter Gayatri, he saw Gayatri’s charming appearance and kept staring at her. Shiva saw that Brahma was old and disrespectful, so she radiated divine light from the third eye and destroyed one of Brahma’s five faces.
Indians believe that there is a fixed cycle in the universe. When a cycle ends, Shiva will dance and emit flames to destroy the universe. Although Shiva has been given the title of "Destroyer", he is by no means an evil god. His purpose of destroying the universe is to promote the renewal of the universe. Indians believe that as time goes on, the universe will gradually deteriorate, and at the end of the robbery, the universe will be full of evil. So Shiva had to stand up and destroy the universe, and then Brahma created a new universe.
Violent Dance
In fact, there are many myths that reflect Shiva’s kindness. For example, when the goddess of the Ganges introduced the Ganges from the sky to the earth, Shiva used her head under the water to divide it into several tributaries, thus reducing the impact on the earth. In the process of the gods stirring the milk sea, some venom emerged in the milk sea, which almost destroyed the world, and Shiva drank the venom in one gulp. As a result, when the venom flowed through Shiva’s throat, Shiva’s neck turned blue-black, so Shiva was awarded the title of "Green Neck God".
Shiva is also the god of reproduction. His representative is a pillar called "Linga", which symbolizes the male genitalia. There is also a circular pedestal at the bottom of Linga, which symbolizes female genitalia. The combination of the two embodies the idea of the integration of Yin and Yang. When worshipping Shiva, believers pour water, milk, ghee, coconut milk or honey from the top of Linga, which reflects the Indian worship of fertility. There is a myth that says:
Brahma once argued with Vishnu about who was the greatest god in the universe, when a pillar suddenly appeared in front of them. Brahma and Vishnu separately searched for the source of this pillar, but no matter how they searched, they could never find the end of this pillar. Finally, Vishnu admitted that no matter who the prototype of this pillar is, he is greater than himself. As a result, this pillar showed its prototype to Vishnu, and he is Shiva. Because Vishnu recognized Shiva’s status, he was blessed by Shiva. Brahma always refused to recognize Shiva’s status, so he was despised by Shiva.
Linga
The relationship between Shiva and Vishnu and Brahma is not fixed. There are many different religious sects in ancient India. Different sects often worship different gods as the highest god. Some sects worship Brahma, some sects worship Vishnu, some sects worship Shiva, and some sects worship other gods. In today’s India, Brahma is far less popular than the other two. Indians sometimes combine Vishnu and Shiva into a statue, which is called "Hari-Hara".
Huli-Hulo
Let’s talk about the female idol, whose name is Kali, which is the embodiment of the anger of Shiva’s wife, the Snow Mountain Goddess. The first wife of Shiva, Sadie, died of self-immolation at the ceremony of the gods. She was later reincarnated as parvati, the goddess of snow mountain, and married Shiva again.
On one occasion, two brothers, Shunba and Nishunba, king of Asura, led Asura to attack the gods. The gods were defeated and fled to the north of the Ganges, just in time to meet the goddess of snow mountain who was going to bathe in the Ganges. When the goddess saw that the gods were crying, she asked them why, and the gods told her about the defeat. After listening to the words of the gods, the goddess of snow mountain, who has always been famous for her gentleness, became angry this time, and a horrible goddess Carly was born out of her anger.
Shiva, Snow Mountain Goddess and their son Elephant God.
Carly led the gods to launch a counterattack against Asura. Shunba and Nishunba saw that the newcomers were not good, so they sent their most powerful Asura Laktaviga to fight. Laktaviga has a tricky skill, that is, every drop of blood he shed can be turned into a doppelganger to fight, so he is always invincible on the battlefield. None of the gods was an opponent of Laktaviga, so they had to ask the goddess Carly to fight with him. The fierce battle lasted for a long time, and finally the goddess Carly was better. She not only killed Laktaviga, but also ate all the avatars that changed from his blood and drank every drop of blood from him. Later, the goddess wiped out Shunba and Nishunba and completely defeated Asura’s army.
However, things did not end there. The goddess Carly killed her eyes because she had been at war with the enemy for too long. She couldn’t control herself and kept stomping on the earth with her feet. The whole earth trembled for this, the mountains began to collapse, cracks appeared on the ground, and the earth was about to be crushed by the goddess. Shiva heard the news and lay down at the feet of the goddess, blocking the power of the goddess with her body. As soon as the foot of the goddess Carly touched Shiva’s body, she immediately woke up, realized her mistake and put away her divine power, and the whole world was restored to peace. As can be seen in the following figure:
The goddess Carly holds a broadsword in one hand, a trident in the other, a freshly cut head of LaktaVega in one hand, and a bowl in the other hand to hold the blood flowing from the head. The goddess spits out a red tongue in her mouth, and the heads of many busy members of LaktaVega are hung around her neck, with their arms around her waist. Shiva is lying between the feet of the goddess Carly and the earth, using her body to reduce the impact of the goddess on the earth.
Goddess Carly
The goddess Carly is especially worshipped by Hindu sexual sects. This sect regards the power of women as the motive force of the universe. The beheading and trampling of Shiva by goddess Carly symbolizes that the power of women is superior to that of men. Similar to the goddess Carly, there is also a goddess Durga, who is also the embodiment of the anger of the goddess of Snow Mountain, and has also helped the gods to eliminate demons. The goddess Durga holds weapons such as Shiva’s trident, Vishnu’s magic snail and wonderful wheel, the bow cut by Fengshen, and Indra’s diamond pestle, which symbolizes that she integrates the strength of many male gods, and her mount is a lion or tiger.
Durga goddess
Some people will be shocked when they see these Indian gods. Why do Indian gods look so cruel and bloodthirsty, and they are not as kind-hearted as the gods worshipped by China people (especially Han people)? This is because the Han people in China have been influenced by Confucian culture for a long time and have a gentle personality; India, on the other hand, still maintains some savage customs of primitive times. They believe that only the horrible gods can subdue the horrible demons. Shiva and goddess Carly are just the representatives of this kind of gods, and they are responsible for eliminating evil. Of course, there are also many gods in Indian mythology who are merciful to all beings.
In the middle of Dying to Survive, when Shiva and the goddess Carly were on tour, some people around them were spraying disinfectant along the way, indicating that there was an epidemic in India at that time. Therefore, we can guess that the purpose of pulling out the gods of Shiva and Kali is to eliminate the disease with the help of Er Shen.
