The Lord takes pity on even the most insignificant creatures and showers His mercy on them, said T. Rajarathinam in a discourse. Thiruvilaiyadal Puranam, a work in Tamil that records Lord Siva’s miraculous deeds, describes the story of twelve piglets that were nursed by Lord Siva.
Near Madurai, there lived a man who had twelve sons. The sons did fell into bad ways. One day, they came across a sage doing penance and threw stones at him and mocked him. The sage cursed them and said they would be born as pigs and would also be orphaned. The boys sought his forgiveness and a way out of the curse. The sage replied: “Lord Siva will come and look after you. You will later become ministers in the king’s court and attain the Lord’s feet.”
The boys then took birth as pigs. When the king went hunting, the mother of the piglets was killed. The Lord took pity on the orphaned piglets and nourished them with milk. They grew up with the body of human beings, but with porcine faces. Goddess Parvathi asked Her Consort if He had indeed taken care of the piglets, to which the Lord replied: “Who else can save those who have sinned? I saved them and have given them wisdom and knowledge.”
The Lord then appeared in the dream of the King and instructed him to go and seek the creatures that had the faces of pigs but the body of humans and make them his ministers. The king accordingly looked for the pigs, found them and made them his ministers.
Thus the Lord not only saved the pigs from starvation, but gave them powerful positions in the royal court. The men who were reborn as pigs finally attained mukti through the Lord’s grace.
