He opened his eyes as he realized that it was Pushpadanta. Lord Shiva frowned as he realized that someone had stepped on the leaves…Lord Shiva closed his eyes and used the powers to find out who had stepped on the bilpatra leaves. The bilpatra leaves were used to worship Lord Shiva and they were his favourite leaves. Up in Kailash, Lord Shiva was disturbed from his meditation. As he was walking towards the trees, he unknowingly stepped on the bilpatra leaves…. The next day, Pushpadanta came inside the garden by becoming invisible. The guards nodded and spread the leaves around the trees. ‘Spread them around the trees having the flowers….This way…When anyone walks over them, the leaves will rustle…you live hear the noise and be able to catch the thief…’ The king barked. The guards gathered the leaves and brought them before the king. He angrily called his guards, ‘Guard! Get those leaves and bring them here…’ He said pointing at the bilpatra plants. He looked at the gardens and saw around saw all the other trees. After his prayers, he thought for some time. However much to his surprise, he looked at the shame faced guards the next day and saw most of the flowers missing today too! King Chitraratha fumed. He finished his prayers that day and the next day appointed more guards to guard his gardens… He frowned as he plucked the pitifully few flowers from the tree. King Chitraratha looked at the guards and realized that they were telling the truth. When we came…’ The guard shook his head, ‘the flowers were missing, your majesty!’ The guards looked nervously at each other and then at the king, ‘Sir! We do not know…We did not take it…We were doing the rounds of the palace. King Chitraratha called his guards, ‘What…What happened to the flowers?’
However that day when he came to the gardens to worship Lord Shiva, he stared blankly as he saw most of the flowers gone. He had developed this garden to pluck the flowers and use them for worshiping Lord Shiva daily. King Chitraratha to whom the gardens belonged, was also a devotee of Lord Shiva. He plucked as many flowers as possible…Pushpadanta felt bad that he was stealing flowers, but he could not help himself when he saw the flowers. When Pushpadanta saw the garden, he was unable to stop himself. He went to the palace of Chitraratha and was amazed to find the flowers even more beautiful there. Slowly as he watched the kingdom he was stunned, the kingdom was surrounded by the most beautiful gardens and the flowers there was lovely to look at. Pushpadanta was struck with the beauty of the kingdom. Once as Pushpadanta was traveling around the world, he arrived at the kingdom of King Chitraratha. Because of his singing skills, Pushpadanta was appointed as the divine musician in the court of Lord Indra, the King of the Devas.Īs a devotee of Lord Shiva, Pushpadanta loved worshiping Lord Shiva with plenty of different flowers. Pushpadanta was an ardent devotee of Lord Shiva and was a great scholar and a poet. Gandharvas were powerful magical beings, who could move in air and could even turn invisible to humans. Long ago, there lived a gandharva by name Pushpadanta. Pushpadanta – The author of the Shiva Mahima Stotra