108 Names of Shiva with Meanings

Sadhguru says, “In the yogic tradition, Shiva is worshipped as a guru, not as a god. That which we refer to as Shiva is multi-dimensional. All the qualities that you can ever ascribe to anyone are ascribed to Shiva. When we say Shiva, we are not saying he is this kind of a person or that kind of a person.

Generally, the moralistic traditions always understand Divinity as good. But if you look at Shiva, you can neither fix him as good or bad. Everything that is in the Existence is a part of him. That is how he is described in the tradition.”

The Origin of the 108 Names of Shiva

Sadhguru continues, “He has innumerable forms and manifestations but fundamentally, we can categorize these into seven categories. There is the distant godhead that we call as Ishwara; there is a benevolent personal god that we call as Shambho; there is an uncomplicated hermit or Bho, or an endearingly naïve Sambaleshwara or Bhola; there is a wise teacher of the Vedas whom we call as Dakshinamurthy; the fountainhead of all art forms, we call him Natesha; the fierce, the destroyer of the wicked, we call him Kalabhairava or Mahakala; the dashing seducer of the romantic, we call him Somasundara, which means more beautiful than the moon. These are the seven basic forms out of which millions of manifestations can be derived.”

In the yogic tradition, there are 1008 names of Shiva that stem from these seven broad categories. Out of these 1008 names, there are 108 names of Shiva that are widely known:

Shiva’s 108 Names with Meanings