Ashtamurti, the Eightfold Manifestation
Brahma, in a fit of divine dissatisfaction, ceased to create and went into deep and steady contemplation. He merged his individuality with the Supreme Brahman, the Absolute. He held all his vital breaths and sat rock-still, conserving his energies, brimful of quiet ecstasy. The divine lotus which hung head down, in the center of his heart, filled out with the creator's rarefied inhalation, and stood erect, facing upwards. It opened out and expanded in fragrant welcome, ready to receive a new birth. Brahma then installed Shiva in its very center on a miniscule pin-point of pure bliss.

Shiva Manifests
Brahma held him close, wrapped in the soul-stirring hum of the mystic syllable Om, till Shiva, sensing the need of the hour, chose to come out of Brahma's forehead. Brahma gave him eight names. These linked him with the five elements and their related sensations, to the sun, the moon and to the sacrificer or the individual soul, jiva.

Shiva stood, displaying all his eight forms with their emanating powers as Ashtamurti (the eight-formed). And is personified in an obvious image. It has the heaven as head, the quarters as ears; the sun, moon and fire as eyes; the sky as umbilicus. The winds blow netherworlds are his feet. He is clothed in the oceans and ornamented with the constellations. Shiva is now the whole universe-outspread, upstanding and colossal.

Panchamukha -the Fivefold Manifestation
In another manifestation he assumes five major forms through five successive aeons, beginning with the Shveta (white) Kalpa.

The first was Sadyojata (Sudden One. White haired, clothed in white and wearing white garlands, even the blood that coursed through his veins was white. Next came Vamadeva (Beautiful God), red, with the aeon also taking its name from the prevailing warm redness-Lohita (red). Then followed the Pita (yellow) Kalpa, yellow through and through, when Shiva appeared as Tatpurusha (That Male). He wore tranquil yellow. Yellow gave place to black in the Krishna (black) Kalpa and he assumed a terrible form as the deadly Kala (Time), black and forbidding (bhora); but to those who knew and recognized him, the terror ceased to be and he became Aghore (not terrible)- which was the name of the manifestation in that kalpa. The last was Vishvarupa (universal form), crystal clear and transparent, presiding supreme over the other four.

Shiva anchored the form, drew it together and brought it down to earth with a simple device. He pronounced the four (excluding the Vishvarupa) to be his sons, and simultaneously established them as the basis for human life, since the social norms proceeded in sets of four. These were the four castes - brahmachari (student), grihasta (householder), vanaprastha (forest-dweller) and sannyasi (ascetic); the four goals -dharma (duty), artha (wealth) kama (desire), moksha (liberation); the four groups of beings -egg-born, womb-born, seed born and sweat-born (insects). It was a neat summation, a construct that led simply and directly to Shiva as the source of life, its wellsprings.