I am taking a slight detour from the earlier topic on Srirama. I will come back to it in my next post.
We have a star shape seen very commonly around this time of the year. This is commonly called the Star of David. This post is on the symbology behind it.
Now, many if not all religions have some layers of meaning built into their holy books and teachings. However, I am not sure how many of them have retained this knowledge at all, or at least to the extent Sanatana Dharma i.e Hinduism has.
For example, there is a book called The Holy Science. This showcases how similarities between certain concepts given in the Bible and Hinduism's saamkhya (सांख्य, సాంఖ్య) philosophy. The interesting aspect is, this was written by Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, the guru of Paramahamsa Yogananda.
Now, I come to what is commonly called the Star of David. Those who read The Da Vinci Code may remember certain aspects of the divine feminine.
In Hinduism, this has some interesting concepts behind it.
- The upward pointing triangle denotes Shiva and the downward pointing one Shakti. The union of these two, produces a six-cornered triangle. This denotes Shanmukha (षन्मुख, షణ్ముఖ), the six-faced one, also known as Subrahmaya (सुब्रह्मण्य, సుబ్రహ్మణ్య) or Arumugam/Murugan.
- Shiva and Shakti are two forces which come together to create this universe. Without their union the universe would not exist. There are two opposites that denote Shiva and Shakti respectively - heat and cold - agni and soma (सोम, సోమ).
- The upward-facing triangle denotes sacrificial fire (heat). The downward one, the offering/fuel (cool). The union of the sacrificial fire and the offering is the yagnya itself. Thus Subrahmanya is the very sacrifice personified.
