Moon on Lord Shiva's head

The supreme Lord Shiva has many symbols and one of them is moon on his head. There is a story about this in our mythology. Daksha’s twenty seven daughters were married to the God Chandra. One of the Chandra’s wives named Rohini loved more than his other wives. So the other wives of moon complained their father for this. Daksha warned his son in law to devote himself equally to all wives. But Chandra didn’t listen any warning of Daksha. Daksha thereupon cursed the moon that he would gradually fade away.

After this moon started losing its luminescence every day and he didn’t know what to do. It got afraid and with the advice of Brahma, Chandra went to prabhasa tirtha and made a linga on the bank of the river saraswati. There he prayed Lord Shiva for six months. At the end Shiva appeared before Chandra and granted him a boon. Then Chandra explained about his problem.

Then Shiva answered Daksha’s curse couldn’t be entirely ignored. He said during Krishnapaksha you will wane. In shuklapaksha you will wax, it is the solution for this problem. Chandra become very happy and took refuge in lord Shiva. Lord Shiva wore the moon crescent on his head making him grow for 15 days and decay for 15 days periodically.

The linga to which Chandra prayed is Somnath, the first of jyotirlingas. The legend said that the somnath is the first temple which was built by Chandra dev himself. So Somnath means the protector of moon god.

• The crescent moon symbolizes that he has controlled the mind perfectly.
• The crescent moon on Shiva’s head looks like an ornament. The waxing and waning phenomenon of the moon indicates the time cycle through which creation evolves from the beginning to end. Since the lord is the eternal reality but he is beyond time.