Baba Dhansar

  The holy place of Baba Dhansar is located at Karua Jheel (Pond) near village Karua, 17 km from Reasi towards Katra in Reasi district of Jammu & Kashmir State, India.^[1] The approach involves a walk of 200 metres from the road. It is a mythological belief that when Lord Shiva went to the Amarnath cave to tell Parvati the story of his immortality, he left his serpent king, Sheshnag at Anantnag. Shesh Nag came in the human form as Vasudev. One of the sons of Vasudev was Dhansar who was a saintly person.

As the local belief goes, in the ancient times there was a demon who lived near Karua Jheel(lake) and committed atrocities on the people of village Karua. The villagers sought help of Baba Dhansar to get rid of the Demon. It is believed that Baba Dhansar prayed to Lord Shiva for help. Lord Shiva arrived and helped in killing the Demon. The temple of Baba Dhansar and a cave of Lord Shiva near Karua Jheel has become a place of worship. Karua Jheel is considered sacred where bathing is not permitted. However, the devotees may take a bath downstream. People believe that their wishes are fulfilled if they take bath in the stream and pray with complete faith. A large number of devotees visit the place every year on the day of Mahashivratri when an annual fete (mela) is organized.

According to the Shaivism sect, the highest form of Shiva is formless, limitless, transcendent and unchanging absolute Brahman,and the primal Atman (soul, self) of the universe. There are many both benevolent and fearsome depictions of Shiva. In benevolent aspects, he is depicted as an omniscient Yogi who lives an ascetic life on Mount Kailashas well as a householder with wife Parvati and his two children, Ganesha and Kartikeya. In his fierce aspects, he is often depicted slaying demons. Shiva is also known as Adiyogi Shiva, regarded as the patron god of yoga, meditation and arts.

The iconographical attributes of Shiva are the serpent around his neck, the adorning crescent moon, the holy river Ganga flowing from his matted hair, the third eye on his forehead, the trishula as his weapon, and the damaru drum. He is usually worshipped in the aniconic form of Lingam.^[2] Shiva is a pan-Hindu deity, revered widely by Hindus, in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

The Sanskrit word "Śiva" (Devanagari: transliterated as Shiva or Siva) means, states Monier Monier-Williams, "auspicious, propitious, gracious, benign, kind, benevolent, friendly". The roots of Śiva in folk etymology are which means "in whom all things lie, pervasiveness" and va which means "embodiment of grace".

The word Shiva is used as an adjective in the Rig Veda (approximately 1700–1100 BC), as an epithet for several Rigvedic deities, including Rudra.The term Shiva also connotes "liberation, final emancipation" and "the auspicious one", this adjective sense of usage is addressed to many deities in Vedic layers of literature.The term evolved from the Vedic Rudra-Shiva to the noun Shiva in the Epics and the Puranas, as an auspicious deity who is the "creator, reproducer and dissolver".

Sharma presents another etymology with the Sanskrit root śarv-, which means "to injure" or "to kill",interprets the name to connote "one who can kill the forces of darkness"

The Sanskrit word śaiva means "relating to the god Shiva", and this term is the Sanskrit name both for one of the principal sects of Hinduism and for a member of that sect.^[31] It is used as an adjective to characterize certain beliefs and practices, such as Shaivism.

Some authors associate the name with the Tamil word śivappu meaning "red", noting that Shiva is linked to the Sun (śivan, "the Red one", in Tamil) and that Rudra is also called Babhru (brown, or red) in the Rigveda. The Vishnu sahasranama interprets Shiva to have multiple meanings: "The Pure One", and "the One who is not affected by three Guṇas of Prakṛti (Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas)".

Shiva is known by many names such as Viswanatha (lord of the universe), Mahadeva, Mahandeo, Mahasu, Mahesha, Maheshvara, Shankara, Shambhu, Rudra, Hara, Trilochana, Devendra (chief of the gods), Neelakanta, Subhankara, Trilokinatha (lord of the three realms),and Ghrneshwar (lord of compassion).The highest reverence for Shiva in Shaivism is reflected in his epithets Mahādeva ("Great god"; mahā "Great" and deva "god"),Maheśvara ("Great Lord"; mahā "great" and īśvara "lord"), and Parameśvara ("Supreme Lord").

Sahasranama are medieval Indian texts that list a thousand names derived from aspects and epithets of a deity. There are at least eight different versions of the Shiva Sahasranama, devotional hymns (stotras) listing many names of Shiva.The version appearing in Book 13 (Anuśāsanaparvan) of the Mahabharata provides one such list.^[50] Shiva also has Dasha-Sahasranamas (10,000 names) that are found in the Mahanyasa. The Shri Rudram Chamakam, also known as the Śatarudriya, is a devotional hymn to Shiva hailing him by many names.

Of several Indus valley seals that show animals, one seal that has attracted attention shows a large central figure, either horned or wearing a horned headdress and possibly ithyphallic, seated in a posture reminiscent of the Lotus position, surrounded by animals. This figure was named by early excavators of Mohenjo-daro as Pashupati (Lord of Animals, Sanskrit paśupati),an epithet of the later Hindu deities Shiva and Rudra.

Sir John Marshall and others suggested that this figure is a prototype of Shiva, with three faces, seated in a "yoga posture" with the knees out and feet joined.Semi-circular shapes on the head were interpreted as two horns. Scholars such as Gavin Flood, John Keay and Doris Meth Srinivasan have expressed doubts about this suggestion.

Gavin Flood states that it is not clear from the seal that the figure has three faces, is seated in a yoga posture, or even that the shape is intended to represent a human figure. He characterizes these views as "speculative", but adds that it is nevertheless possible that there are echoes of Shaiva iconographic themes, such as half-moon shapes resembling the horns of a bull. John Keay writes that "he may indeed be an early manifestation of Lord Shiva as Pashu-pati", but a couple of his specialties of this figure does not match with Rudra. Writing in 1997, Srinivasan interprets what John Marshall interpreted as facial as not human but more bovine, possibly a divine buffalo-man.

The interpretation of the seal continues to be disputed. McEvilley, for example, states that it is not possible to "account for this posture outside the yogic account". Asko Parpola states that other archaeological finds such as the early Elamite seals dated to 3000-2750 BCE show similar figures and these have been interpreted as "seated bull" and not a yogi, and the bovine interpretation is likely more accurate. Gregory L. Possehl in 2002, associated it with the water buffalo, and concluded that while it would be appropriate to recognize the figure as a deity, and its posture as one of ritual discipline, regarding it as a proto-Shiva would "go too far......