I almost finished Devdutt Pattanaik’s latest book Shiva to Shankara: Giving Form to the Formless, published just a couple of weeks ago (ISBN: 978-93-5264-195-6), that we found in a Khan Market bookstore in New Delhi. Here’s the back cover text:
We live in times where people have extreme views. On the one hand, there are scholars who describe Shiva s linga literally as a phallus, and see all metaphoric meaning as embarrassed apology of the uneducated. On the other hand, we have puritanical Hindus who want to strip the Shiva linga of all sexual meaning and sanitize Shiva s lore. In both cases, a symbol is being reduced to a sign.
In Shiva to Shankara, Devdutt Pattanaik, India’s leading mythologist, seeks to bridge the gap. As he explores the layers of meanings embedded in Shiva’s linga, we discover why and how the Goddess transforms Shiva, the hermit, into Shankara, the householder.
Reading this book gave me a lot of insight into Hindu culture and lore, and inspired me some ways to approach the Game in this context. As soon as I finished reading it, I’ll try to develop these intuitions.
