We see Devi in all kinds of ways today, we see her in a wooden shrine, in a brass image. See her as hilltop in gwahati , see her in Kolkatta’s kalighat in her fierce form, in Tibet as the bizarre figure riding a wild ass, in Nepal as a beautiful living child dressed in red…all of them address Devi as maa…the mother who protects them from everything!
There would be more than a thousand names for Devi because each of her temples go by a different names and many times her name is what that village or that city gets called by like Roma for Rome, Athena for Athens, Mumbai for Mumba Devi, Calcutta for Kali ka katta(seat of kali).
When it comes to worshiping her, it happens from just painting a rock to doing elaborate orthodox rituals. In Nepal they belive that the goddess resides in the kumari’s(virgins), and the royal kumari’s bless the king every year. The very form Devi is given is to receive darshan….as the act of seeing is a transfer of grace. The Vishnu samhita talkes about imagery and how important it is to have an image to help your mind concentrate on it.
Lawrence babb’s study is very interesting as he studies the fact that he says that the Devi is soo beautiful the demons don’t want to fight her but she on the other hand tells them that she will marry only the one that fights her in battle. She is the virgin, destructive and she is always victorious. He says that acts of destructions is ok as long as they bring order afterwards.
One must also understand that mother goddess are there for nurturing their devotes rather than child bearing. Non of the goddess such as Lakshmi or Saraswathy ever bore children. Parvathi had Skanda and Ganesh but never bore them in her womb.
DEVI DOWN THE AGES
A large number or crudely fashioned female clay figures were found from the Indus civilization which was at its peak from 2600-1900 B.C. The dominance of such terra-cotta figures among the material remains from these cultures and the absence of male deities suggests the importance of the feminine goddess during that time. Although when the Aryans dominated north India, they introduced the Vedas which is a very male dominated scripture and that is how society changed to becomes overwhelmingly masculine. Post Veda literature such as the Upanishads still continues to support and propagate the made oriented tradition, although the worship of mother goddess was still present it lay low.
It is only the start of the current era that witnessed the rise of the worship of the mother goddesses. They were seen as dayini (wish granters).terra-cotta plaques of different kinds began to be made. Lakshmi the goddess of wealth was first goddess to be portrayed she is also called as Shri. She is describes as being as radiant as gold and she sits on a lotus adorned with jewellery and flowers.
During the Gupta dynasty, 320 A.D mother goddess were engraved on coins, on one coin Shri Lakshmi sits on a lion holding a cornucopia in one hand. It is during this dynasty that the worship of mother goddess strengthened a lot. In the next few centuries mother goddess began to be carved in stone mostly of the goddess killing Mahisha the bore. Dating to the 5th and 6th century we have well preserved images of the goddess, wither with a toddles or with a new born at hand, but it is the Devi Mahatmiyam that conceptualized the goddess worship. There was no turning back for the mother goddess after this!
In philosophy there are two theories that explain the worship of mother goddess. The first is maya and the second is the Brahman. The whole world is brought about by maya a creative potency with in the Brahman. Shankara used the term shakthi to describe shiva’s consort in the Saundaryalahiri, in which she is superior to Shiva. In the Devi Mahatmiyam Shakthi, Maya and Prakriti all come together, she is seen to pervade and sustain creation.
The 12th century text the Devi- Bhagavata Purana which took the tree famous stories of devi and announced that Devi as Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasarasvathi.
One of the earliest temples surviving Devi temples is the Ambika-Mata temple at Jagat, Rajasthan that dates back to 960 A.D. there are varied images of the goddess with Mahisha in different posed all around the temple, though the main image is missing.
In the south, the Vijayanagara empire worshiped goddess Durga before embarking on the war-related activities, just like it was done in the Mahabharat when Krishna asked Arjuna to pray to goddess Durga before he goes to fight and in the Ramayana when Rama prays for victory to goddess Durga before he goes to battle with Ravana.
Through out history even when the worship of mother goddesses did not gain primacy her many forms as a wish bestower, especially as
Lakshmi the goddess of wealth and Saraswathi the goddess of learning are always worshiped. Also the worship of Draupadi and Radha are worshiped in selected parts of India. Temples for Draupadi are found only in south India where as Radha worship is found only in the north. There are a number of village deities around India, in tribal areas there isn’t always a fixed iconography, like for example Vaseli who is worshiped in the coastal Orissa is simply represented by a rock coated with paint. While other deities like Kamakshi and Meenakshi are worshiped in a more orthodox way.
We also have temples like at Guwahati, where they worship Devi Kamakhya where she is celebrated in a sheet of rock with a cleft filled with water. Here worship is very different, she is offered animal sacrifice like for example anything ranging from a goat to a buffalo. The animal is brought to the temple is beheaded and the head alone is taken to the alter as an offering, the meat is then distributed among the devotees. A few times a year the water turns red indicating that the menstruation of the goddess very similar to the Chengannur Bhagavathi temple in Kerala., here again a few times a year, the goddess’s white petticoat gets stained after which the temple is closed for 3 days. The petticoat on the other hand is bought by the wealthy. Menstruation here is hailed as auspicious and a reiteration of the fertility and sexuality of the goddess.
New forms of Devi keep coming up some generalized like mother India and some localized like Vaishno Devi in the Himalayas or Vindhyavasini from the Vindhyachal.also deities like Santoshi Maa, unknown 25years ago! Santoshi ma became popular due to the popular medium such as cinema.
DEVI AND TODAYS’S WOMAN
Although the great goddess have been studies and worshiped in great depth it some how does not affect the status of women in today’s society. Today’s generation might reinterpret Devi as she is and try to provide them with a degree of freedom and power. It would indeed be gratifying to see women in India draw from the tradition of the mother goddess to redefine their status in today’s world.
References:
At the Feet of the Goddess: The Divine Feminine in Local Hindu Religion, Lynn Foulston.
Encountering Devi, Vidya Dehejia.
Devī: Goddesses of India, John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff.
Encountering the Goddess: A Translation of the Devī-māhātmya and a Study of Its Interpretation, Thomas B. Coburn.
