[Advaita-l] नमः शिवायै च नमः शिवाय - Ardhanareeshwara Stotram by Adi Shankaracharya

[Venkatesh Murthy]

Namaste

*Vagarthaviva sampriktau vagarthah pratipattaye | *
*Jagatah pitarau vande parvathiparameshwarau || – Kalidasa's Raghuvamsha
1.1 *
I pray parents of the world, Lord Shiva and Mother Parvathi, who are
inseparable as speech and its meaning to gain knowledge of speech and its
meaning.

The two Shiva and Parvati are so inseparable they have joined with each
other to form Ardhanareeshwara. Adi Sankara has written a beautiful Stotra
on Ardhanareeshwara. Once again he has used very beautiful combination of
words to describe the two parts of Ardhanareeshwara - one Shivaa and one
Shiva. One line he is describing Shivaa and next he is describing Shiva.
Alternating lines like this are used. In Sloka 4 he is saying Samekshanayai
vishamekshanaya. Parvati has even number of eyes but Shiva has odd number
of eyes. In 6th Sloka he is saying Nireeswarayai Nikhileswaraya. Parvati is
without a Lord because She is same as Shiva. She is Nireeshwaraa. Shiva is
the Lord of All. He is Nikhileshwara. In Sloka 7 Jagajjananyai
Jagadekapitre. She is the Mother of the World and He is the one and only
Father.

Listen to beautiful song by T.S. Ranganthan -
https://youtu.be/WE_Wsp5Yrbo

Stotra and translation -

http://sanskritdocuments.org/doc_devii/ardhanArI_mean.pdf


-- 
Regards

-Venkatesh