Why is milk offered to Lord Shiva?

According to Shivpuran

Shiva, Mahadev, Bhole Shankar or Neelkanth. Lord Shiva is known by many names. It is said about Lord Shiva that he is the God of destruction, that is, whenever there is an excess of sin in the universe, Shiva re-creates the world through Pralay Leela. If we talk about the likes of Lord Shiva, his likes are quite different from other gods. Another form of Lord Shiva ‘Shivalinga’ is also different in many ways. While worshiping Shivalinga, some customs are followed which are very pleasing to Lord Shiva.

Shivalinga is bathed with milk. It is believed that Lord Shiva loves to be anointed with milk. But do you know why Shivalinga is bathed with milk. Actually there is a story behind this too. The entire story of Samudra Manthan is described in Vishnupuran and Bhagwatpuran. In which a story is found. According to this story, when poison was created during the churning of the ocean, the entire world came under its intense influence. Due to which everyone took refuge in Lord Shiva because only Lord Shiva had the strength to bear the intensity of the poison. Shiva drank poison without any fear for the welfare of the world. The intensity of the poison was so high that Lord Shiva’s throat turned blue.

The deadly effect of poison started falling on Shiva and Goddess Ganga seated in Shiva’s hair. In such a situation, even the gentleness of water was not enough to calm Shiva. All the gods requested him to accept milk. But due to his nature of concern for his living beings, Lord Shiva asked permission for milk to be consumed by him. Milk, cool and pure by nature, immediately accepted this humble request of Shiva. Shiva consumed milk which reduced his intensity to a great extent but his throat became blue forever and he came to be known as Neelkanth.

In difficult times, without worrying about himself, Milk tolerated the intensity of poison by going into Shiva’s stomach to help Shiva and the world. That’s why Shiva loves milk very much. On the other hand, snakes are also very dear to Shiva because snakes had absorbed the intensity of poison in themselves to reduce the effect of poison. That is why most snakes are very poisonous.

Om Namah Shivay.