The Pillar of Fire

Before the world had properly begun, two great gods fell into an argument.

"I am the creator," said Brahma. "Everything that exists came out of me. Clearly I am the greatest."

"And I am the one who keeps it all alive," said Vishnu. "What is the use of making a world that nobody looks after? I am the greatest."

Neither would give way. The argument grew into a quarrel, and the quarrel grew until the two of them were ready to come to blows, and the other gods trembled, because when such powers fight the worlds are caught in between.

Then something came between them.

It was a pillar of fire. It did not flicker or smoke. It stood between the two gods, blazing and perfectly still, and when they looked up they could not see its top, and when they looked down they could not see where it began.

They forgot their quarrel and stared.

"What is it?" said Brahma.

"I do not know," said Vishnu. "But let us settle things this way. One of us will go up and one will go down. Whoever finds an end to this fire is the greater."

Brahma took the form of a swan and flew upward. Vishnu took the form of a boar and dug downward.

Vishnu dug for an age. He passed through the earth, and through all the worlds beneath the earth, and the fire was still there beside him, going on down into the dark. At last he stopped.

"There is no bottom to this," he said. And he turned around.

Brahma flew for an age. He passed the clouds, the moon and the stars, and the fire rose on beside him, as bright as ever. His wings ached. There was no top. But he thought of going back to Vishnu with nothing to show, and he could not bear it.

Just then a flower came drifting down past him. It was a ketaki, pale and sweet-smelling, falling slowly through the sky.

"Where have you come from?" Brahma asked.

"From far above," said the flower. "I have been falling for longer than I can remember."

Brahma had an idea, and it was not a good one.

"Come back with me," he said. "Tell Vishnu you saw me at the top. That is all you need to say."

They met again where they had started.

"I found no end," said Vishnu simply. "It is beyond me."

"I reached the top," said Brahma. "And here is my witness."

"He did," said the ketaki flower. "I saw him there."

The pillar of fire split open.

Shiva stood inside it, and the fire was his own light. He looked at Brahma, and from between his brows sprang Bhairava, his fierce and terrible form, who went straight for the head that had told the lie.

"You searched, and you failed. There is no shame in that," said Shiva. "Vishnu failed too, and said so. But you lied. For that, you will have no temples. People will not worship you on earth."

He turned to the flower. "And you, who bore false witness, will never again be offered to me."

To Vishnu he said, "You told the truth when it cost you the contest. You will be honoured for it."

That is why Shiva is worshipped as the linga, a pillar with no face, for the fire had no end that anyone could find. It is also why there are thousands of temples to Vishnu and Shiva across India and hardly any to Brahma. To this day the ketaki is kept out of Shiva's worship.

In the Tamil country they know exactly where the pillar stood, because it is still there.

The temple tradition of Tiruvannamalai tells of the same quarrel and the same fire. The boar came back from below, defeated and honest. The swan found no summit above. Brahma's deception earned him the loss of his worship, and Vishnu was praised for telling the truth. In this telling nobody loses a head. The lesson is enough.

But when the contest was over, the fire did not simply go out.

It cooled and settled, and became a hill. That hill is Arunachala, the holy fire hill that rises above the town. The people of Tiruvannamalai do not say that the hill is sacred to Shiva. They say the hill is Shiva.

And Shiva made a promise there: once every year he would show himself again as fire.

So on the full-moon night of the Tamil month of Karthigai, a huge cauldron is carried to the summit, filled with ghee and lit. The flame can be seen for miles around, and it is kept burning for many days. A vast crowd gathers below to see it lit.

The temple has a second story for the same night. Once, in play, Parvati covered Shiva's eyes with her hands. To make amends she came to this hill and did penance, and on the full moon of Karthigai he took her back. So the lamp on the hill remembers both the fire and the reunion.