Why is Shiva Offered Meat and Alcohol? The Hidden Meaning
Riya Kumari | Mar 11, 2025, 15:30 IST
( Image credit : Times Life Bureau )
Unlike gods who prefer strictly vegetarian, saffron-scented offerings, Shiva’s cool with things that make most gods frown. Why? Because he represents the totality of existence—light and dark, sacred and profane, creation and destruction. He doesn’t reject anything, because rejecting something means you're afraid of it. And Shiva? Yeah, he fears nothing.
Walk into a Shiva temple in certain traditions, and you might see something that makes you pause. There, among the flowers and incense, is an offering of meat and alcohol. Not fruit, not sweets—meat and alcohol. For a moment, it doesn’t add up. Shiva is the great ascetic, the yogi who meditates for eons, the one draped in ash and lost in the stillness of the cosmos. Why would a being so detached from material existence accept things that are tied to indulgence, desire, and even destruction? Because Shiva isn’t just a god. He is an experience. He is a truth. And in his truth, nothing is rejected.
1. Kannappa: The Devotee Who Offered Meat to Shiva
Kannappa’s story is the ultimate reminder that love, not ritual, is what reaches the divine. A tribal hunter with no knowledge of scriptures or prayers, Kannappa offered Shiva the only thing he had—meat, given with pure devotion. By all traditional standards, this was ‘impure,’ yet Shiva accepted it without hesitation. Why? Because Shiva is Bholenath, the Innocent Lord, who sees beyond rules and recognizes only the sincerity of the heart. He does not seek perfection; He seeks truth. He does not favor those who know the right words; He favors those who offer themselves completely. In a world obsessed with the how of worship, Shiva reminds us that the why is all that truly matters.
2. Shiva: The One Who Holds Both Light and Shadow
Most of us live in a world of duality—good and bad, pure and impure, right and wrong. We label things, place them in categories, and define ourselves by what we accept and what we reject. Shiva doesn’t play by those rules. He is the force that dissolves illusion, the one who embraces existence in its totality. To Shiva, life is not about choosing one side and discarding the other—it is about seeing through both, recognizing that all distinctions exist only in our minds.
This is why he accepts offerings of both the sacred and the profane. Because to him, there is no difference. The divine is not found by avoiding the so-called impurities of life, but by understanding that nothing is truly impure—only our perception makes it so.
3. The Meaning Behind the Meat
Meat is tied to survival, to the raw nature of existence. It is food that requires taking life, and in most spiritual traditions, anything associated with violence is considered unfit for the divine. But Shiva is not a god of denial—he is a god of transcendence. Most of us have been told that worship must follow a certain structure—rituals, mantras, purity, procedures. But then, there’s Shiva. The one god who sees past all that, the one who listens to the heart before the words, the one who doesn’t care how you pray as long as you mean it.
Shiva does not need meat, nor does he crave it. He accepts it to show that divinity is not fragile. That holiness is not about avoiding certain foods but about being so complete within oneself that nothing taints you—not even the most ‘impure’ offering.
4. The Alcohol: Losing Yourself vs. Finding Yourself
Alcohol is a symbol of loss—loss of control, loss of awareness, loss of self. It is intoxicating, capable of consuming a person, making them forget who they are. That is why most spiritual paths treat it as dangerous. And yet, Shiva accepts it. Not because he indulges, but because he has mastered it. He is Neelkanth, the one who drank the poison of the cosmos and held it in his throat without letting it consume him. This is the essence of his wisdom—true power is not in avoidance, but in control.
If alcohol represents the forces that can make us lose ourselves, Shiva represents the consciousness that cannot be lost. By accepting the offering, he shows us a path—not of indulgence, not of suppression, but of transformation. To drink without being intoxicated, to engage without being enslaved, to be in the world but not of it. This is what it means to be truly free.
What Does This Teach Us?
We spend our lives running from things, labeling some experiences as ‘good’ and others as ‘bad.’ We believe that to be pure, we must reject, avoid, abstain. But Shiva shows us another way. Purity is not in avoidance. It is in understanding. Nothing in this world has the power to corrupt you unless you let it. No experience, no object, no substance holds any meaning beyond what you give it. Shiva reminds us that we are greater than our fears, stronger than our desires, and far more than the labels we place upon ourselves.
So when he accepts meat and alcohol, he is not indulging—he is teaching. He is holding up a mirror and asking us: Can you walk through this world, through all its temptations and struggles, without being lost? Can you embrace life fully, without being afraid of it? Because that, in the end, is the path to true liberation.
1. Kannappa: The Devotee Who Offered Meat to Shiva
Shiv
( Image credit : Times Life Bureau )
Kannappa’s story is the ultimate reminder that love, not ritual, is what reaches the divine. A tribal hunter with no knowledge of scriptures or prayers, Kannappa offered Shiva the only thing he had—meat, given with pure devotion. By all traditional standards, this was ‘impure,’ yet Shiva accepted it without hesitation. Why? Because Shiva is Bholenath, the Innocent Lord, who sees beyond rules and recognizes only the sincerity of the heart. He does not seek perfection; He seeks truth. He does not favor those who know the right words; He favors those who offer themselves completely. In a world obsessed with the how of worship, Shiva reminds us that the why is all that truly matters.
2. Shiva: The One Who Holds Both Light and Shadow
Shiva
( Image credit : Times Life Bureau )
Most of us live in a world of duality—good and bad, pure and impure, right and wrong. We label things, place them in categories, and define ourselves by what we accept and what we reject. Shiva doesn’t play by those rules. He is the force that dissolves illusion, the one who embraces existence in its totality. To Shiva, life is not about choosing one side and discarding the other—it is about seeing through both, recognizing that all distinctions exist only in our minds.
This is why he accepts offerings of both the sacred and the profane. Because to him, there is no difference. The divine is not found by avoiding the so-called impurities of life, but by understanding that nothing is truly impure—only our perception makes it so.
3. The Meaning Behind the Meat
Lord shiva
( Image credit : Times Life Bureau )
Meat is tied to survival, to the raw nature of existence. It is food that requires taking life, and in most spiritual traditions, anything associated with violence is considered unfit for the divine. But Shiva is not a god of denial—he is a god of transcendence. Most of us have been told that worship must follow a certain structure—rituals, mantras, purity, procedures. But then, there’s Shiva. The one god who sees past all that, the one who listens to the heart before the words, the one who doesn’t care how you pray as long as you mean it.
Shiva does not need meat, nor does he crave it. He accepts it to show that divinity is not fragile. That holiness is not about avoiding certain foods but about being so complete within oneself that nothing taints you—not even the most ‘impure’ offering.
4. The Alcohol: Losing Yourself vs. Finding Yourself
Tandav
( Image credit : Times Life Bureau )
Alcohol is a symbol of loss—loss of control, loss of awareness, loss of self. It is intoxicating, capable of consuming a person, making them forget who they are. That is why most spiritual paths treat it as dangerous. And yet, Shiva accepts it. Not because he indulges, but because he has mastered it. He is Neelkanth, the one who drank the poison of the cosmos and held it in his throat without letting it consume him. This is the essence of his wisdom—true power is not in avoidance, but in control.
If alcohol represents the forces that can make us lose ourselves, Shiva represents the consciousness that cannot be lost. By accepting the offering, he shows us a path—not of indulgence, not of suppression, but of transformation. To drink without being intoxicated, to engage without being enslaved, to be in the world but not of it. This is what it means to be truly free.
What Does This Teach Us?
So when he accepts meat and alcohol, he is not indulging—he is teaching. He is holding up a mirror and asking us: Can you walk through this world, through all its temptations and struggles, without being lost? Can you embrace life fully, without being afraid of it? Because that, in the end, is the path to true liberation.