Parvati

The snow has stopped falling. The wind has stopped too. The whole summit of the Himalayas sinks into a kind of silence that only someone who has sat long enough can feel.

She sits here. Her eyes are closed. Her breath is steady, like the heartbeat of the mountain. Around her are ice, rock and a cold violet sky before dawn. Yet inside her there is no cold, only one thing: the memory of someone.

This is the story of Parvati, one of the most beautiful love stories in Hindu mythology. But it is not a love story of the usual kind. It is the story of someone who knows what she wants, and is ready to do everything to win it.

Parvati is the daughter of Himavat, king of the Himalayas and the embodiment of the sacred mountains. Her mother is Mena. Her name in Sanskrit means "daughter of the mountain," from the root parvata, which means mountain. She grew up among snow and mist. She was born of mountain earth, and she was as steady as a mountain.

But before she was Parvati, she had once been Sati.

In her earlier life, Hindu legend says, Sati was the first wife of Shiva. Her father, Daksha, hated Shiva and insulted him in front of everyone. Sati could not accept it, and in that pain she left this life. Shiva was grief-stricken. He withdrew into meditation and closed his heart to everything.

Then Parvati was born. Deep inside, she knew. That love had not ended when Sati left this life. It was only waiting to begin again. And this time, she would be the one to seek him out.

She went to the mountain where Shiva sat in meditation and began to serve him. She swept the path. She brought flowers. She sat close by. But Shiva did not look. His meditation was as deep as the floor of the ocean. Parvati became part of the scenery around him, and he did not notice.

The gods grew worried. They needed Shiva to return to the world. They sent Kama, the god of love, with his bow and arrows. Kama aimed at the heart of Shiva and let fly.

The third eye of Shiva opened.

In the legend, a flash of fire from the third eye burned Kama away in a single moment. Kama vanished from the visible world. From then on he became Ananga, which means the one without a body. Love was still there, still moving every heart, but no one could see it anymore.

Parvati stood and watched. And she did not give up.

If the god of love was not strong enough to move Shiva, she would do it herself. Not with an arrow. Not with magic. She would do it by becoming someone worthy of him.

She began to meditate. Not for a day, not for a season. For many years. On the snowy peak she sat without moving, fasting and enduring the cold. She went so deep into meditation that birds gathered on her shoulders without fear. Vines grew around her feet, and she did not stir.

Her tapas, the practice of austere meditation, grew deeper and stronger by the day, and it spread out like light.

Then something in the meditation of Shiva moved. Not forcefully, not suddenly, but the way water seeps through stone. He sensed another power on this mountaintop, as deep and pure as his own meditation.

What made Shiva turn was not the beauty of Parvati. It was her devotion, equal to his own meditation. No one had asked her to do it. No one was watching. She did it because it was what she chose. Shiva understood.

The legend says he decided to test her. Shiva disguised himself as an old ascetic and came to her with a question. Why would she love Shiva, he asked, a wanderer who smeared ash on his body and sat with snakes? The question came in a voice that was almost mocking. Parvati was silent for a beat. It was not that she lacked an answer. The answer had lived in her for a long time, since before this life. She looked the old man straight in the eye and replied, "He is who he is. I do not love a form. I love him." Shiva revealed his true self. And this time, he did not close his eyes again.

Their wedding was held in the Himalayas, witnessed by heaven and earth alike. People call it the most sacred marriage in the Hindu cosmos.

Together, Parvati and Shiva became parents. In the legend, Parvati made Ganesha with her own hands, from turmeric paste and from earth. She breathed into him a soul and a mother's love. Karttikeya, the god of war, was also their son. In Hindu tradition, Shiva carries the power of destruction and transformation. Parvati carries the love and devotion that keep that power from breaking out of its orbit. The two complete each other, as heaven and earth do.

Traces of her can be found in Vietnam itself.

The Museum of Cham Sculpture in Da Nang keeps a relief of the goddess Uma, dancing. It was found at the Chanh Lo temple site and is now a National Treasure of Vietnam. The Cham are a people of south-central Vietnam whose ancestors lived in the ancient kingdom of Champa. Uma is another name for Parvati, the wife of Shiva. If you ever stand before that Cham relief, take a long look at the way she dances. Cham artisans carved her about 1,000 years ago.

She has turned her love into action, and she is still sitting here, in this cold. No one forces her, and no one is watching. She sits only because she knows what she wants, and she believes it is worth it.