Harihara

शिवो हरिर्हरिः शिवः।
Śivo Hariḥ Hariḥ Śivaḥ

I first heard about the supposed rivalry between Shaivas (worshippers of Shiva) and Vaishnavas (worshippers of Vishnu) a couple of decades back. A colleague at work mentioned, quite matter-of-factly, how in some parts of India, people frowned upon the friendship between a Shaiva and a Vaishnava. I remember feeling disbelief and finding it absurd. I dismissed it as a one-off cultural quirk.

As I read more, I realized it was far from that though. Somewhere along the line, what began as a path of devotion, had been turned into opposing camps, not by our Gods / Goddesses or sages but by men with vested interests and political agenda. Imagine, the divine being divided by mere humans.

But how does one even begin to choose between Shiva and Vishnu? How does one separate Hara from Hari? How does one separate the destroyer from the preserver? Aren’t both rhythms of the same, or rather, the one cosmic dance?

Our scriptures have never pitted them against each other. In fact, they worship each other. Vishnu bows to Shiva as Rudra, Shiva praises Vishnu as Narayana. The following verses from Skanda Upanishad that also form the core philosophical statement of the scripture - that Shiva and Vishnu are two expressions of the same ultimate Brahman and that perceiving duality between them is plain ignorance.

योः शिवं विष्णुमित्येव ब्रूते स पाषण्डिनः मतः।
भेदं पश्यति यो मूढः स निन्द्यः खलु मानवः ॥
(He who says, ‘Shiva is different from Vishnu,’ is regarded as a heretic. The deluded man who perceives any difference between them is indeed to be condemned.)

शिवाय विष्णुरूपाय विष्णवे शिवरूपिणे।
शिवस्य हृदयं विष्णुर्विष्णोश्च हृदयं शिवः॥
(Salutations to Shiva who is of the form of Vishnu, and to Vishnu who is of the form of Shiva. The heart of Shiva is Vishnu, and the heart of Vishnu is Shiva.)

You’ll find Harihara, the beautiful composite form that merges the two in temples across India. One half adorned with serpents and matted locks while the other with a conch and lotus. How could one half of divinity ever stand against the other?

For true devotees of Shiva, Vishnu is divine too. Every mantra, every act of surrender is an acknowledgement of the eternal, the same eternal that is Narayana. And for those that bow to Vishnu, who chant the Sahasranama, who seek moksha in surrender, will truly reach that state only by invoking stillness, detachment, and renunciation that are the essence of Shiva.

You cannot be a devotee of one without knowingly or unknowingly invoking the other.

Shiva’s stillness is incomplete without Vishnu’s preservation, just as Vishnu’s protection is impossible without Shiva’s power of transformation. They are like the inhalation and exhalation of creation itself - indivisible, inseparable, indispensable.

Those who pit them against each other, whether in politics, sectarianism or petty superiority, turn devotion into distortion. It's not just tragic but baffling.

How small must our understanding of the infinite be, to think it can be confined to sides and factions? This division is not real. It was manufactured, a distortion of what was and is the whole. And perhaps, our devotion today must be not only to our chosen deity but also to the truth of that unity. 
 
May we seek and return to the truth - to see Shiva in Vishnu, and Vishnu in Shiva. To remember that devotion, in its purest form, cannot be divided. That the divine is not jealous of itself, only humans are.

And as the Skanda Purana reminds us - शिवो हरिर्हरिः शिवः। (Shiva is Hari, and Hari is Shiva).