On various end-times websites, the meme is being floated that Satan (the evil one) is Shiva, the third figure in the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Except that Hindus understand Shiva as the destroyer of evil.

His exact parallel is Jehovah Sabaoth (Jahweh leading the battle or Christ with the sword destroying evil or the flames of the Holy Spirit).

He is not the defiant, vain-glorious fallen angel at all.

This is a false gnostic equation.

Agamic Hinduism has no equivalent for Satan that is precise because it does not give the same significance to evil as Christianity does.

The closest figure to Lucifer would be Rahu and Ketu, who are in fact regarded as malevolent deceivers cast down from the heavens just as Satan was.

Rahu is the head  (north node of the moon) and Ketu is the tail (south node of the moon) of the dragon (which is the eclipse of the moon).

Rahu-Ketu can be identified with the evil serpent called Satan (Shaitan in Islam) or adversary in the Bible.

Shiva in the Hindu pantheon is the equivalent of Yahu Sabaoth.

He is the part of  Godhead. that destroys evil.

Now, there are certain left-hand paths that involve the occult that can be fairly characterized as demonic and which have been attached to some forms of worship of Shiva and Kali (a form of Shiva’s consort).

The evil murderous thuggee cult was one such wicked form. But to equate that with Saivism as such is completely mistaken. Left-hand paths (tamasic practices) are forbidden to traditional Hindus.  We don’t equate the orgiastic rites of heretic Christians with Christianity nor the excesses of Sabbatean Frankists with Orthodox Judaism.

In the same way, the occult practices of heretics shouldn’t be equated with the Sattvic worship of Shiva.