Son of HariHara (Vishnu-Shiva)

Most of the readers might be bewildered after reading the title of the post which seems pretty confusing .How can Lord Shiva and Vishnu have a child as both of the deities are male. Now let me tell you a story about the birth of the son of lord Vishnu and shiva.

Ashuras (demons) and devas (gods) were the sons of sage kashyapa which fathered them with his wives Diti and Aditi respectively.Till that time Gods doesn’t have the power of immortality and were same as mere mortals.Devas fought with the gods and drove them out of their palaces in heaven.Then Devas approached Lord Vishnu to solve this problem and he suggested them to engage with devas in a diplomatic fashion.Devas engaged with Ashuras and decided to churn the nectar of immortality from the Sir-Sagar( Ocean of Milk) and distribute it among themselves and leave peacefully as they have an assurance from Lord Vishnu that only Devas would get the nectar of immortality .

Afer heavy penance from both sides; as the nectar of immortality emerged Lord Visnu took the form of Mohini and seduced all the Ashuras such that their mind went into abeyance and they couldn’t notice that Mohini was not feeding the nectar of immortality while the doing the opposite for the gods.

Lord Shiva when heard of these events, he also wanted to know what was the look of Mohini that made the minds of Ashuras go into Abeyance.He, Lord Shiva then requested the Lord Vishnu to show him the Mohini Avatar.The Lord Vishnu obliged him and showed him his immensely beautiful Avatar of Mohini.

Lord Shiva became so enchanted with the beauty of Mohini that he fused along with the Mohini (avatar of Lord Vishnu ) to form the HariHara (Hari-Vishnu  and Hara-Shiva) and from this union came the “AYYAPPA”, the son of Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu.

There is also another story revolving around the birth of Lord Ayyappa.Mahisi was one of wildest demons and had dethroned Indra from his heavenly kingdom as he was blessed by the Lord Brahma that only the son of Vishnu and Shiva could Kill Mahisi.Then gods approached Vishnu and Shiva and the both gods fused together to give  world, the Lord Ayyppa which later killed the demon Mahisi on his way to the forest to bring the milk of lactating tigress.We will look onto this story on some another post.

The Unknown Story of Dattatreya

Now, it’s time for the three-faced god,  Dattatreya and the story of his birth which is quite unique in its own ways.Have we heard of the supreme goddess being jealous of  a mere mortal human being. But Anasuya was one of the names which created jealousy among the supreme goddesses .Anasuya, the mother of Dattatreya was a highly virtuous woman and had full devotion to his husband ,Atri father of Dattatreya.

Once when Narada was singing praises about the mother Anasuya , the three supreme goddesses ,Saraswati and Lakshmi and Parvati heard the wordings and asked Narada why is he singing such praises about a human.Narada answered that “Mother Anasuya is free from all vices of the world.She is free from jealousy and envy. She is very pious, and always practiced austerities and devotion”.This created jealousy among the supreme goddesses.

Then three goddesses approached their husbands and asked them to test the divinity of the Anasuya.They initially disagreed but after continuous persuasion from their wives they agreed.They transformed themselves into sages(rishis) and then went to Anasuya hermitage and asked her to feed them.Mother welcomed them inside, offer them to sit and serve food.Then the real drama began, the three sages put a condition that they would eat only if Anasuya serves them naked without any piece of cloth or jewellery on her body.

Anasuya was in a dilemma as she couldn’t let the sages leave the place without feeding and didn’t want to remove her clothes.She prayed to her husband and then sprinkled holy water to all three sages and converted all of them into infants.Then she removed her clothes and fed them food, played with them and made them sleep .She was totally taking care of them as her own child.The  world started going out of balance as three gods Brahma,Vishnu and Shiva were infants and playing with Anasuya instead of caring out their responsibilities.Now the everyone was begging before three goddesses to go before Anasuya and plead to her to reconvert the Trinity into their original forms.

Then Three goddesses went before Anasuya and asked for forgiveness for their ego and pleaded her to reconvert the Trinity into their original forms.Mother obliged them and reconverted the gods into their original forms.The gods were very impressed by the mother and wanted to give her a boon. The Mother told them as they called her “Mother” ; she  wanted to be their mother forever.Gods obliged her and told her that they would always be his son in the form of  “Dattatreya”.Then the god Dattatreya was born to mother Anasuya and god left the place to carry out their responsibility.