Historical Development

The worship of Shiva is a pan-Hindu tradition, practiced widely across all of India. Modern historians believe that the figure of Shiva as we know him today was built-up over time, with the ideas of many regional cults being amalgamated into a single figure. How the persona of Shiva converged as a composite deity is not well-documented. Axel Michaels explains the composite nature of Shaivism as follows:

Like Visnu, Siva is also a high god, who gives his name to a collection of theistic trends and sects: Saivism. Like Vaisnavism, the term also implies a unity which cannot be clearly found either in religious practice or in philosophical and esoteric doctrine. Furthermore, practice and doctrine must be kept separate.

An example of assimilation took place in Maharashtra, where a regional deity named Khandoba is a patron deity of farming and herding castes. The foremost center of worship of Khandoba in Maharashtra is in Jejuri. Khandoba has been assimilated both as a name for Karttikya and also as a form of Shiva himself in which case he is worshipped in the form of a lingam. Shakti M. Gupta clarifies the possible confusion between these two identifications by explaining that one of Karttikeya's functions is as the patron deity of thieves, and it is in this capacity that the tribe called Ramoshis, who are thieves by profession, worship Khandoba. Khandoba's varied associations also include an indentification with Surya. The derivation of the name Khandoba has been variously interpreted, and M. S. Mate says that the most commonly-held belief is that it was a distorted form of Skanda, but also notes alternate theories.