Ardhanareeshvara is a combination of three words “Ardha”, “Nari” and “Ishwara” means “half”, “woman” and “God”, respectively, which when combined means the lord whose half is a woman.
It is believed that the God is Lord Shiva and the woman is his consort, the Goddess Parvati or Shakti. The Ardhanareeshvara represents a constructive and generative power. Ardhanareeshvara symbolizes that male and female principles cannot be separated. It transmits the unity of opposites in the universe.
The male half represents Purusha and the female half is Prakriti.
One of the 64 manifestations of Shiva, the man, woman form with Parvati constituting the left half of Shiva is Ardhanareeswara. The Ardhanareeswara is the concept that Shiva stands for. In this aspect, he draws the feminine into his own self.
He is half man, half woman. A symbol of the Samkhya philosophy which talks of Purusha (the male energy) and Prakriti (the female energy) together makes the cosmic energy.As Ardhanareeswara, Shiva destroys the old, for in destruction, there is renewal, it cleanses and constructs anew. In this new construction, he is the Father of Brahma. And the cycle of time, the process of recreation begins all over again.
Mother Shakti once propitiated Lord Shiva with such a fervent intensity that she be part of him in body and mind. Her pleased husband through his divine powers granted her this wish. The Master then absorbed her in half of himself and thus was created the half-man half-woman aspect of Lord Shiva, symbolizing the oneness of all beings. One can state that even in gender definition, this aspect became the fundamental root of Advaitha.
This fusion of Shiva and Shakti representing the male and female halves transcends the distinction between and limitation of male and female and takes the lord to the level of beyond-gender manifest Brahman, realization of which means liberation.
Shiva is being and Shakti is becoming. He is one; she is many; he is infinite and she renders the infinite into finite; he is formless and she renders the formless into myriad forms; but both are one. Shiva and Shakti exist in Nirmala Turiya state (stainless purity). Shiva is Shava (dead body) without Shakti.
All that power in creation, maintenance, and dissolution rests with Shakti. However, the great mother does not exist without Shiva. When they become one, Ardhanareeshwara becomes a being of generative and constructive force.
Everywhere in nature, animate or inanimate, we find in every individual or particle a tremendous urge to be united with something else, outside, or inside. The urge comes from within as the individual is composed of opposites and through the union there is a resolution of the opposites. What is an unconscious urge with nature is transformed into conscious love with human being. Until there is the union, there is tension, which sometimes may prove to be disastrous. The modern world has come to understand the concept of Ardhanareeshwara as it aspires to resolve the paradox of opposites into a unity, not by negation, but through positive experiences of life. The matching of opposites produces the true rhythm of life.