Like I said previously Maha refers to the month
The hunter – is the soul. Always on the hunt for pleasures of the senses.
It has climbed the tree with leaves of three
The three refers to sensual pleasures of three types ( sattwa, tamas, rajas)
For example – the ears can listen to harsh sounds of drilling ( tamas), melodious music ( rajas ) or divine music which you hear in meditation is sattwa
Everything in this works occurs in 3 or 5 or 8
So the soul is constantly hunting / experience these sensual pleasures
On the night of the 14 day of the waning moon, everything is dark.
The soul is no longer in touch of the outside world, and in that samadhi, gives up all the three Gunas to Lord Shiv.
Those who reach that state are surely given moksha
I will not elaborate on the full meaning of Bilvashtakam
However , if done like I described its benefit is
I offer Bilva Patra (A Bilva Patra is so called leaf having three small leaves.) to God Shiva. This Bilva Patra is a form of the three human qualities. Good Virtue (Satva), Passion (Raja quality) and Irascible (Tama quality). This Bilva Patra is like three eyes, Sun, Moon and Fire. It is like three weapons. It is destroyer of sins committed in earlier three births. I perform pooja of God Shiva with such Bilva Patra.
When does this way – all sins are destroyed
It has three weapons of destruction – to destroy the illusion that the purr consciousness has 3 bodies – sthula, sukshma, katana
The three eyes is a reference to a very special yoga technique
Anyway enough said.
In short This is the benefit of Maha Shiv Ratri
All other interpretations on the Net are laughable to a Yogi
Bhavin