Rudram, anuvāka 8 — namaḥ śivāya, where it sits
The popular claimThe five syllables are not a separate mantra. They are the middle of this section.
Ask a chanter where namaḥ śivāya is and they will take you to the eighth anuvāka, about two-thirds through the Namakam. It is not set apart. It is a clause like the others, and this page shows its neighbours.
The opening pairs
Namaḥ somāya ca rudrāya ca. — To Soma and to Rudra. Sāyaṇa: soma as sa-umā, the one with Umā — the first hint of the consort in the Rudram, by etymology rather than statement. The plainer reading is the god Soma, the moon and the drink, paired with Rudra.
Namas tāmrāya cāruṇāya ca. — To the copper-coloured and the ruddy. The first anuvāka's sunrise colours return.
Namaḥ śaṅgāya ca paśupataye ca. — To the one who brings happiness and the lord of animals. Śaṅga — Sāyaṇa: śam-ga, going to welfare.
Nama ugrāya ca bhīmāya ca. — To the fierce and the terrible. Ugra is one of the eight names; bhīma — the frightening — is the one the Mahābhārata's Bhīma is named for.
Namo agrevadhāya ca dūrevadhāya ca. — To the one who kills in front and the one who kills from afar.
Namo hantre ca hanīyase ca. — To the killer and the greater killer.
Namo vṛkṣebhyo harikeśebhyaḥ. — To the trees, the green-haired. The second anuvāka's clause, repeated, without a pair.
Namas tārāya. — To the saviour. Tāra — the one who carries across; also the syllable oṁ in Tantric usage, which the commentators note. A single name, no pair.
The centre
Namaḥ śambhave ca mayobhave ca. — To the source of welfare and the source of joy. Śambhu — śam-bhū, from whom śam, welfare, comes; mayobhū — from whom mayas, delight, comes.
Namaḥ śaṅkarāya ca mayaskarāya ca. — To the maker of welfare and the maker of joy. Śaṅkara — the name Ādi Śaṅkara carried — is here as the active form of Śambhu.
Namaḥ śivāya ca śivatarāya ca. — To the gracious one and the more gracious one. This is the clause. Namaḥ śivāya — five syllables — ca, and śivatarāya ca, the comparative: the gracious and the yet-more-gracious. The Śiva Purāṇa's Vāyavīya Saṁhitā calls the pañcākṣarī the seed of all mantras and says it was drawn from the Veda; this is where it was drawn from. In the text it is not the mantra. It is one bow among a hundred, with śivatara beside it.
The ford
Namas tīrthyāya ca kūlyāya ca. — To the one at the ford and the one on the bank. Tīrtha — the crossing-place, the word that later means a pilgrimage site.
Namaḥ pāryāya cāvāryāya ca. — To the one on the far shore and the one on the near.
Namaḥ prataraṇāya cottaraṇāya ca. — To the one who ferries across and the one who brings up out.
Nama ātāryāya cālādyāya ca. — To the one who crosses back and the one at the source. Ālādya — Sāyaṇa: the one who is at the origin, or the one who is grasped.
Namaḥ śaṣpyāya ca phenyāya ca. — To the one in the young grass and the one in the foam.
Namaḥ sikatyāya ca pravāhyāya ca. — To the one in the sand and the one in the flowing water.
What surrounds the five syllables
The order is: welfare-source, joy-source; welfare-maker, joy-maker; gracious, more gracious; and then the ford. The tradition reads this run — Śambhu, Mayobhū, Śaṅkara, Mayaskara, Śiva, Śivatara — as the Rudram's turn from the fearsome names of the section's opening (Ugra, Bhīma, killer near and far) to the benign ones, with the river-crossing after it as the image of what the turn does. That is a commentator's reading. What the text shows is that śiva has stopped being the adjective it was in the first anuvāka and become, in this pair, something addressed.
The chant
In an Ekādaśinī, chanters often mark the eighth anuvāka's namaḥ śivāya ca śivatarāya ca by a slight pause; in temple abhiṣekas the bell sometimes rings on it. Neither is in the text.
What this page does not say
It does not say the five syllables were a mantra before the Purāṇas made them one, and it does not rank this anuvāka above the others, which the text does not. It shows where namaḥ śivāya sits — between the maker of joy and the ford — so that a reciter who has said it ten thousand times can see the clause it was cut from.
Source — Taittiriya Samhita 4.5.8 (Namakam, eighth anuvaka), Krishna Yajurveda; Sayana's bhashya on the Taittiriya; Bhattabhaskara's commentary on the Rudram; Shiva Purana, Vayaviya Samhita, on the panchakshari
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