Talk:Shiva

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Shiva article.
Article policies
Archives: 1, 2
Good article Shiva has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
January 3, 2008 Good article nominee Listed
To-do list for Shiva: edit · history · watch · refresh

Here are some tasks you can do:


    1. Worship and Festivals section (Proposed)
    2. Family and Consorts section (proposed)
    3. We need to include the philosophical angle; Shiva as:
      1. Prakāśa - supreme light (Prakasa)
      2. Anuttarā - ultimate reality (Anuttara)
      3. Cit - supreme consciousness (see Kashmir Shaivism)
      4. Substrate of reality, the mystical experience "Everything is Shiva"
      5. the Self, Atman (Shiva Sutras of Vasugupta 1st verse "Chaitanyam Atman")
    4. The divine couple Shiva-Shakti (Kaula#Kula_as_the_divine_couple_Shiva-Shakti) and the triad Shiva-Shakti-Nara (see Trika)
    Wikiproject Saivism This article is within the scope of WikiProject Saivism, an attempt to promote better coordination, content distribution, and cross-referencing between pages dealing with Saivism. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page.
    WikiProject_Hindu_Mythology This article is within the scope of WikiProject Hindu mythology, an attempt to promote better coordination, content distribution, and cross-referencing between pages dealing with Hindu mythology. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page.
    Wikiproject_Hinduism This article is within the scope of WikiProject Hinduism, an attempt to promote better coordination, content distribution, and cross-referencing between pages dealing with Hinduism. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page.
    Good article GA This article has been rated as GA-Class on the quality scale.
    Top This article has been rated as top-importance for this Project's importance scale.
    		This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team.
    Version 0.7
    		 This article has been selected for Version 0.7 and subsequent release versions of Wikipedia.
    Archive
    Archives
    1, 2

    Contents

    [edit] What does Shiva represent . . . . .

    An answer to this seems to be missing here. Maybe this is difficult point to raise, but it :Dseems absolutely central. There seems to be no "explanation" (if I can put it like that) of what Shiva "represents" as a God. I can understand the need to not prosyletize here, but still, a brief contextual explanation of relevence within a religious context, is surely sufficiently neutral to be included. Because such an explanation is both central and indeed critical to any form of understanding of the concept behind the "label", it must feature in any attempt at definition/description? Maybe it's easier to ask this question by giving an example of a possible answer: "Shiva, the destroyer, is worshiped not for the futility and hopelessness of destruction as an end state but for the role of destruction in the creation of the new and what is yet to come. As such Shiva represents a key element of the circle of life.". More simply put "Shiva is the answer to the question 'Can entropy be reversed?'!!" (The subject of The Last Question by Isaac Asimov) Ok, that may well be rubbish. But could someone who knows clarify this? I'm off to hunt elsewhere. I found the reference to the Trimurti (eventually). There seems to be a bias ijn the article towards certain forms of explanation. I'm sure that as a religious article this is a minefield. But a reorganisation of the heding information might help. I've added a reference to the Trimurti at the beginning. It seems crazy to start with the Shaivanistic role unless that is the historical of the word. If so then couldn't that be explained first. The article is great if you already know about Shiva but a bit wobbly if you don't or aren't clear. IMHO

    LookingGlass 07:34, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Where are the names?

    In the Name of Shiva section I expected to find at least the names most circulated in common coinage (i.e. Pashupati, Bholanath, Bhutanath, Maheshwar, Kailashpati, Pinakpani), and found none. The scholarly references are fine, but an ordinary person looking for stuff on Lord Shiva would need to know at least some of the names. Aditya(talk • contribs) 11:21, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

    [edit] Rama is the guru of Shiva

    According to Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna):"Rama is the guru of Shiva, Shiva is the guru of Rama".82.123.51.141 (talk) 10:04, 19 December 2007 (UTC)alexisbaba

    [edit] GA review

    I have looked over the article. It is a very well-sourced and well-written article. I also think it is broad in its coverage, but I could be wrong since I have little background in the dharmic faiths. The article, however, seems to have too many blockquotes.

    There is one problem. The section on worship: Shiva#Worship is completely unsourced. Please source it, and also consider splitting the list from the article and making a new article for it.Bless sins (talk) 04:41, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

    Here is template to give a basic overview of my review:


    GA review (see here for criteria)
    1. It is reasonably well written.
      a (prose): b (MoS):
    2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
      a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
      Shiva#Worship needs more sources.
    3. It is broad in its coverage.
      a (major aspects): b (focused):
    4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
      Fair representation without bias:
    5. It is stable.
      No edit wars etc.:
    6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
      a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
      A lot of images. Image:Shiva and Parvati.jpg seems to be missing some author info. Please fix that.
    7. Overall:
      Pass/Fail:
      pending until Shiva#Worship is sourced.

    Bless sins (talk) 04:48, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

    Per discussion here, I will move the unsourced section below to talk. The section can be re-added as soon as it is sourced again. By moving the section, the remaining article will be sourced, and thus I'll pass it for GA. Any objections?Bless sins (talk) 04:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

    Please note that I have made invisible the section 'Shiva#Worship'. It can be made visible if someone can reference it to reliable sources.
    Finally, since this article no longer contains unsourced sections, I think it meets the GA criteria. Therefore I'm passing it.Bless sins (talk) 19:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] shiva sutras

    shouldn't the shiva sutras be mentioned in the article? Teardrop onthefire (talk) 08:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

    Yes I’m also curious if this is relevant information that needs mentioning.--DavidD4scnrt (talk) 05:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

    [edit] Move to Shiva (Hinduism) and let plain Shiva be a disambig page?

    • Move to Shiva (Hinduism) and let plain Shiva be a disambig page? Anthony Appleyard (talk) 17:55, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
    • In Judaism, "Shiva" is a well-recognized term for the mourning period. Even a lot of people who are not Jewish know what the term "Shiva" in Judaism is. Given this fact, I would feel that the term should be given equal weight globally. The general Wikipedia custom is, when a word is associated with two or more terms both of high importance to some group in the world, its plain entry leads straight to a disambiguation page. An example is Georgia, since there is both a country and a U.S. state called "Georgia" (besides other uses).
    • Also, I am in favor of having "Shiva" and "Siva" be separate disambiguation pages, each with a "see also" leading to the other. Since both spellings in English are recognized for the Hindu diety, the link should be listed under both. (In the Hebrew language, there are also times when the S and SH sounds are interchangeable with the letter Shin (letter) שׂ, but Shiva in Judaism is never known as Siva).Xyz7890 (talk) 18:07, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Dozens of incoming links expect page Shiva to be the Hindu god. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:59, 18 February 2008 (UTC)