Hari (Kalki) - Hara (Dev) : Purpose of dual personality

** Hari-Hara meaning ‘grower-remover’. Hari, a popular name for Vishnu, implies the renewal and growth of plants, while Hara, ‘he who takes away’, is a common epithet for Shiva. Together, they symbolize the great opposites, creation-destruction, life-death: the intimate harmony of the two supreme, antagonistic divine principles. Visual form is given to this mysterious concept in the 

figure of Hari-Hara, where the right side is Shiva and the left is Vishnu. Fine examples are found in the temple ruins of Cambodia, once a renowned Hindu-Buddhist kingdom.

** According to an Indian legend, the union of Vishnu and Shiva occurred as a joint response to the threat posed by Guha, a fierce demon of unlimited strength. Through appalling self-inflicted sufferings Guha had forced Brahma to make him invulnerable even to Vishnu and Shiva. Against the cosmic violation of the demon, first Vishnu, then Shiva, battled in vain. As a final resort, they combined as Hari-Hara, confronted the universal tyrant, and overthrew him. The underlying concept is the equality of Vishnu and Shiva: respectively, the maintaining and destroying aspects of divinity