"The blessed Vishnu continued, 'I then said unto him, O regenerate one,
through thy grace, O great ascetic. I shall behold the lord of the
deities, that grinder of multitudes of Diti's sons. Eight days, O
Bharata, passed there like an hour, all of us being thus occupied with
talk on Mahadeva. On the eighth day, I underwent the Diksha (initiation)
according to due rites, at the hands of that Brahmana and received the
staff from his hands. I underwent the prescribed shave. I took up a
quantity of Kusa blades in my hand. I wore rags for my vestments. I
rubbed my person with ghee. I encircled a cord of Munja grass round my
loins. For one month I lived on fruits. The second month I subsisted upon
water. The third, the fourth and the fifth months I passed, living upon
air alone. I stood all the while, supporting myself upon one foot and
with my arms also raised upwards, and foregoing sleep all the while. I
then beheld, O Bharata, in the firmament an effulgence that seemed to be
as dazzling as that of a thousand Suns combined together. Towards the
centre of that effulgence, O son of Pandu, I saw a cloud looking like a
mass of blue hills, adorned with rows of cranes, embellished with many a
grand rainbow, with flashes of lightning and the thunder-fire looking
like eyes set on it.[68] Within that cloud was the puissant Mahadeva.
himself of dazzling splendour, accompanied by his spouse Uma. Verily, the
great Deity seemed to shine with his penances, energy, beauty,
effulgence, and his dear spouse by his side. The puissant Maheswara, with
his spouse by his side, shone in the midst of that cloud. The appearance
seemed to be like that of the Sun in the midst of racking clouds with the
Moon by his side. The hair on my body, O son of Kunti, stood on its end,
and my eyes expanded with wonder upon beholding Hara, the refuge of all
the deities and the dispeller of all their griefs. Mahadeva was adorned
with a diadem on his head. He was armed with his Sula. He was clad in a
tiger-skin, had matted locks on his head, and bore the staff (of the