India, May 7 -- Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik - Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist

Shiva is described as an ascetic who is immortal and so, is not driven by any hunger or fear. He has no anxiety about death and no urgency to reproduce. He has no family line to continue, no ancestors whose debts he must repay, no estate that demands heirs. He owns nothing because he seeks nothing.

He is content and contentment frees him from the need to impress, accumulate or compete. This is why he can live on a snow-clad mountain of stone, smear his body with ash, knot his hair into matted locks, allow serpents to coil around his limbs and wander freely like a wild bull. Such a man does not need marriage. Why then would he marry and why would a woman ch...