Mahashivratri Collection

Shivratri, Shivaratri, Maha Shivaratri, Shiv Ratri: one night, spelled several ways, and it moves. It falls on the fourteenth night of the dark fortnight of Phalguna, which puts it in February or March depending on the year. What makes it unlike the rest of the calendar is that it is kept at night rather than by day, traditionally through four prahar with an abhishek in each, and bilva leaves are the offering that belongs to it. So the buying question is not really which deity. It is Shiva either way. The question is what the piece is going to be asked to do.

This is the one thing worth getting right, and almost nothing written about the day says it.

If you are performing the abhishekams yourself, the piece takes water, milk and honey four times in a single night, and then again every year after. Only solid brass tolerates that. Ours is poured slowly into a mould made for that one idol, and the mould is broken open once the metal has cooled. Every casting gets its own mould, which is why the detail holds where a reusable sand mould softens it, and it is why the alloy has to be high grade, since a lesser one will not fill the shape cleanly. It is solid metal throughout, so it darkens as a surface oxide rather than as damage and comes back with lemon and salt. The brass range is considerably wider than the Shiva pieces you will find here.

If you are giving the murti to somebody, the calculation reverses. Most people set a gifted piece on a mandir shelf and do aarti to it. They do not bathe it. For that a plated or a Premium Edit piece is the better gift, because it presents at its best from the moment it is unwrapped and asks nothing of the person receiving it. A plated piece is a resin core with a layer of copper over it and gold or silver electroplated on top, and on some pieces both. The copper is the layer that matters, since resin cannot be plated directly and the copper is what the precious metal keys onto. It is also why these pieces are light, why the detail stays crisp at a small size, and why water is the one thing that ruins them. Buying brass for a gift that will never see water is buying the wrong quality.

The exception is a household you know performs abhishek daily. Ask, or give brass.

What to give a wife or a husband

More people search for a Mahashivratri gift for a wife than for anything else about the day, in English and in Hindi both, and the honest answer is not a bigger Shiva.

Shiv Parvati is the form to give a spouse. It is the pair rather than the single deity, which changes what the gift is about: it reads as being about the marriage rather than about somebody's devotion, and that is usually what is meant. Both the silver plated version and the marble dust Premium Edit sit under 10,000. The Premium Edits are a resin core coated in marble dust, with the jewellery cast separately in brass, electroplated, and applied to the figure by hand one piece at a time, which is why the finish varies a little between pieces. Keep it dry, and lift it by the base rather than by the jewellery.

For a husband or a boyfriend who drives, the emblems are the answer that actually gets used. A trishul with a damru, or a trishul with Om, at two to three inches, mounted on the dashboard. They are the least expensive way in, under 3,000, and by volume they are the most bought Shiva things we make. A man who would never put a murti on his desk will keep a trishul in his car.

Where the household already keeps a Shiva murti, do not give a second one. Give what goes around it instead: a brass diya, which starts under 1,000, a pooja thali, or a chowki from the pooja essentials to raise the deity. Those get used on the night and every day after, and they do not compete with what is already on the shelf.

Which form suits the night

The night is a vigil rather than a celebration, which is the reason the meditating Shiva in dhyana mudra is the form most people want for it. He is seated, still, eyes closed, which is what the four prahar are for. Neelkanth is the same figure under the name earned from the blue throat. If the naming is unfamiliar, the Shiva collection sets out how Shiv, Shiva, Mahadev, Shankar and Neelkanth are one deity under different names, along with the sizes that suit a mandir as against a desk.

Two forms we do not make

We do not make a Shivling, and we do not currently make a Nataraja. It is worth saying here more than anywhere, because the abhishekams of this night are traditionally poured over a lingam, so a fair share of people arriving with Mahashivratri in mind want one and we are not the shop for it. On whether a Shivling may be kept at home, where the advice online contradicts itself, the Shiva collection works through what is custom and what is actually traceable, and that answer holds whether or not you buy anything from us.

What is worth not buying

Two things, and they cost people money every year.

The first is a plated murti bought for a household that performs abhishek. It will look poor within a year, and that is not a manufacturing fault. It is water on a plated surface doing what water does.

The second is the food gift. A great deal of what the market sells as a Mahashivratri hamper is sweets and dry fruit, and a large share of the people receiving it are fasting that day, often on fruit, milk and sendha namak. It arrives on the one day of the year it cannot be eaten.

The samagri itself is also not ours. Bilva leaves, milk, honey, chandan and the flowers are a market purchase on the morning, not something to order online days ahead. If that is what you came for, buy it locally and buy it fresh.

Sizes, budget and when to order

Two to four inches suits a desk, a shelf mandir or a car, and that is where the emblems sit. Five to eight inches is the range for a home mandir and is where a Shiva murti for a pooja room usually lands.

On budget, the emblems and the smaller meditating figures sit under 3,000, a substantial Shiv Parvati or a full plated murti runs to under 10,000, and the largest pieces go above that. There is nothing here under 1,000, and if that is genuinely the budget then a brass diya is the honest answer rather than a small murti.

The date moves with the lunar calendar, and it is worth ordering in the fortnight before rather than in the week of, since a specific finish is the first thing to become unavailable. A murti bought for the night does not stop being a murti afterwards, which is the argument for buying the piece you would have wanted anyway rather than something dressed for one evening. Every piece is checked at our own warehouse before it goes out, and everything ships in our own packaging, which is made to be opened rather than merely to survive the journey. That matters here, because most of these are handed over rather than kept.

For a temple, a society or a company list, send the count and the date through the bulk order enquiry page.