Trishula

Also Known As: Sanskrit त्रिशूल, triśūla, from tri, “three”, and śūla, “a sharp iron pin or stake”; also Trishul, Trisula
Region/Culture: South Asia
Mythos: Hindu Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Mythological Objects
Mythical Attributes: The trident kills what ordinary weapons cannot, and it holds what it kills, pinning a victim aloft rather than merely felling him.
Role in Mythos: It is Shiva’s principal weapon and his standing sign, carried into his fiercest myths and planted in the ground wherever his presence is claimed.
Relation to Humans: Worshippers set iron tridents upright at hill shrines and lakeside sites as offerings, so the weapon doubles as a marker of sacred ground that anyone can approach. Shaiva ascetics carry it on the road as staff, emblem and credential at once, which makes it one of the few divine weapons a living person is expected to own.

The iron stands in clusters outside the shrine, some of it waist-high, some taller than the people who brought it. Rain has worked on the older pieces until the surface is rough as bark. Red thread and strips of cloth are knotted around the shafts, and at Guna Devi in the Himachal hills, and on the northwest shore of Gosaikunda when the Shivaratri crowds come through, the collection grows year on year because nobody removes an offering once it has been driven into the ground. Each one is a trident. Each one is a small claim that the god is here.

The name says almost nothing poetic about it. Tri is three. Śūla, in Monier-Williams’s dictionary, is a sharp iron pin or a stake, the sort of thing meat goes on over a fire. The word for Shiva’s weapon is therefore closer to “three-spike” than to anything grand, and the plainness is a fair warning. This is not a sword with a lineage of noble owners. It is a tool for running something through and keeping it there.

Where it came from depends entirely on which book is open. The Shiva Purana takes the simplest line: Shiva is svayambhu, self-created, born of his own volitions, and he bears the trident from the beginning of creation because he was never without it. The Vishnu Purana tells a workshop story instead. Surya, the sun, married Sanjna, daughter of the divine architect Vishvakarma, and his brilliance was more than she could live beside. Her father took the god to his lathe and pared his energy down to an eighth of what it had been. The shavings fell blazing to the ground, and from that surplus of solar fire Vishvakarma made a set of divine objects: the Sudarshana Chakra for Vishnu, a palanquin for Kubera, a lance for Kartikeya, and the trishula for Shiva. The two accounts cannot both be true. Nobody in the tradition has ever seemed troubled by that.

One thing the earliest record does not contain is the trident itself. In the Rigveda, Rudra is an archer, firing bright arrows at heaven and earth, and the weapon in his hands is a bow. The three-pronged spear belongs to the later god, the classical and Puranic Shiva of the tiger skin and the mountain, and it arrives with him rather than carrying over from the older hymns. The hard dating comes from metal rather than manuscript: the gold coinage of the Kushan king Vima Kadphises, struck around AD 100 to 127, shows the god the Bactrian legends call Oesho standing beside his bull with a trident in his hand. A king in the northwest was already stamping the weapon onto currency while much of the Puranic material that explains it was still being composed.

Its most famous use is also its ugliest. Andhaka, son of Hiranyaksha, came for Parvati. The Matsya Purana and the Kurma, Linga and Shiva Puranas all carry versions of what followed. Shiva ran him through, and then did not put him down. He raised the trident with the demon still on it and held him there, above the ground, for thousands of years, until the body dried to something close to a skeleton and the fight went out of it. The sculptors loved this. At Elephanta and at Ellora the scene is cut into the rock at scale, Shiva many-armed and in motion, the small impaled figure writhing near the top of the composition where the light from the cave mouth catches it. The Skanda Purana records a shorter, colder use of the same blade: Ganesha, posted at the door while Parvati bathed, refused to let Shiva past, and Shiva took his head off with it.

It does not stay in his hands. When the gods assembled Durga to face Mahisha, each of them armed her from his own gear, and the trident she carries is Shiva’s. She used it on the buffalo demon and took her epithet from the killing. Kali carries one. Bhairava carries one. The Agama and Tantra literature, the Kāmikāgama and the Netratantra among them, treats the trishula as a formal attribute to be specified in an image, which is how the same three prongs ended up in so many different fists.

The three points invite reading, and the readings have multiplied past any hope of a single answer: creation, preservation and destruction; past, present and future; body, mind and atman; the three gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas. The list keeps growing because the shape is generous and the tradition is old. What survives all of it is the literal function. A trident is for pinning.

Its limits are the limits of an attribute rather than an agent. The trishula has no will, no name of its own, no story in which it refuses a hand or goes missing and must be recovered. It does not return when thrown, as the Sudarshana Chakra does. Its whole authority is borrowed from whoever grips it, which is precisely why it can be handed to Durga without loss and why it works as an offering left standing in the dirt. The weapon travelled anyway. It went into Buddhist tantric iconography, into Cham sandstone in Southeast Asia, and into the emblem of Thailand’s Chakri dynasty in 1782, where a trident crossed with a discus makes the royal sign. The rust at Guna Devi, meanwhile, keeps deepening.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the trishula?

The trishula is a three-pronged trident and the principal weapon of the Hindu god Shiva. The Sanskrit name combines tri, “three”, with śūla, “a sharp iron pin or stake”. It functions both as a weapon in myth and as a physical object that worshippers plant upright at shrines as an offering.

Who made Shiva’s trident?

The sources disagree. According to the Vishnu Purana, the divine architect Vishvakarma made it from solar energy he pared away from Surya, in the same batch that produced Vishnu’s Sudarshana Chakra and Kartikeya’s lance. The Shiva Purana says nothing was made at all, since Shiva is self-created and has borne the trishula from the beginning of creation.

Which demon did Shiva kill with his trident?

Andhaka, the son of Hiranyaksha, who attempted to abduct Parvati. Shiva impaled him on the trishula and held him aloft on it for thousands of years until his body was reduced to a skeletal state. The scene is carved at Elephanta and Ellora and is known in iconography as Andhakasuravadha.

What do the three prongs of the trishula mean?

There is no single accepted answer, and the readings run into the dozens. The most commonly repeated are creation, preservation and destruction; past, present and future; and the three gunas of Indian philosophy, sattva, rajas and tamas. Others include body, mind and atman.

Does anyone besides Shiva carry a trishula?

Yes. Durga carries one, given to her by Shiva when the gods armed her to fight Mahisha, and she killed the buffalo demon with it. Kali and Bhairava are also shown with tridents, and Shaiva ascetics carry them as a personal emblem. The trident later entered Buddhist tantric iconography and appears in the royal emblem of Thailand’s Chakri dynasty.