Once a hunter who was chasing a deer wandered into a dense forest found himself on the banks of river Kolidum, where he heard the growl of a tiger. To protect himself from the beast, he climbed up a tree nearby. The tiger pitched itself on the ground below the tree, demonstrating no intention to leave. The hunter stayed up in the tree all night and to keep himself from falling asleep, he gently plucked one leaf after another from the tree and threw it down.
Under the tree was a Shiva Linga, and the tree blessedly turned out to be a bilva tree. Unknowingly, the man had pleased the deity by casting bilva leaves down upon the ground. At sunrise, the hunter looked down to find the tiger gone, and in its place stood Lord Shiva. The hunter prostrated himself before the Lord and attained salvation from the cycle of birth and death.
To this day, bilva leaves are used by modern believers in ritual devotions to Shiva. The leaves are thought to cool the deity's fierce temperament and to resolve even the worst karmic debt.