Understanding the Significance of Lord Shiva’s Trishula

Shiva is depicted holding a Trishula in his hand, in this article we will talk about what does Lord Shiva’s Trishula signify. This Trishula actually is a very old iconographical feature, which goes all the way back to the Indus Sarasvati Civilization. From Harappa a seal has been uncovered popularly known as the Trident and the bun seal. On this seal a Trishula can be clearly seen, indicating that the idea of a Trishula was present during the Indus Valley Times. From the Pashupata seal we also know that the idea of Shiva probably was also present in the Indus valley.

To understand the significance of these iconographical features we need to refer to the Purana. In the puranas there are many references of Shiva using the Trishula to kill someone who is deluded. As an example, Shiv used his Trishula to cut the head of Ganesh and instead installed the head of a baby elephant. As I explained in the article on Ganesh this was to remove the delusion of the child stopping Shiva from his union with the Goddess. There are other references of Shiva using his Trishula to cut the head of deluded people such as Shiva using his Trishula to cut the head of Andhaka who wanted to abduct Parvati or the fifth head of Brahma, when Brahma falls in love with his own daughter. So the general idea in all these events is that someone gets deluded and then Shiva uses his Trishula to remove the delusion. As discussed in our previous article on Shiva linga, Shiva is the pure consciousness free from the world of Maya. Keeping this in mind, and knowing the fact that Puranas actually are allegories describing the process of self-realization in our minds, it is obvious that this image of Shiva cutting someone’s head using his Trishula is representing the destruction of delusion and realization of the truth of Brahman.

Now the next question that comes into picture is that out of all the things why is Shiva using the Trishula. So, the thing to keep in mind here is that Trishula consists of three blades and so these three blades of Trishula represent the destruction of three things related to delusion. Here it is not very clear what those three things are and people provide numerous examples of the three things that Shiva destroys. My personal understanding here is that with Trishula Shiva destroys three states of ordinary existence. These are the waking, dreaming and dreamless states. When a person is enmeshed in the world of Maya, he thinks that these are the only three states of existence for a person. However when the soul attains enlightenment he realizes that these three states are only states of delusion. The truth actually is the fourth state of samadhi or Turiya, which is the only truth.

Swami Vivekanada’s Guru Ramkrishna Paramhansa has explained this idea very well. When Vishnu in the form of Varaha saves bhudevi from the primordial waters, after saving here he gets too attached to Bhudevi and is not ready to come back to his Vishnu form. All the Gods and Goddesses ask him to resume his original form but he was too attached to his boar form and wanted to take care of his children. This is when Shiva comes and with his Trishula kills him. This is when Vishnu comes back and starts laughing at self. This is a very clear indication of how Shiva destroys the world of waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep of Vishnu and makes him realize his true self, which is Vishnu. Similarly when a person enters Samadhi he realizes that this world is just an illusion. We lead our life in the three states of Waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep. However by using the Trishula the Shiva inside us who is our pure consciousness shows us that these three states are false and only the fourth state of Shiva is true.

Originally published at https://stoicsadhu.com on May 2, 2020.