Hinduism: A Short History (38 page)

III, 3, 39.

93.

   Ibid., IV, 2, 14ff.

94.

IV, 2, 16

95.

   Ibid., IV, 4, 1.

96.

   Ibid., quoting

97.

   Ibid., p. IV, 4, 9.

98.

   Ibid., quoting

99.

   Ibid., IV, 4, 15.

100.

   Ibid., IV, 4, 22.

101.

   Ibid. End of the

.

102.

   Jaideva Singh in his edition of

(Delhi, 1963), mentions his Guru Laksamana Joo as “practically the sole surviving exponent of this system in Kāśmīr” (p. i).

103.

   Ibid., chap. 16. According to S. N. Dasgupta,

, vol. V, p. 102 the sixteenth chapter of Kailāsasaṃhitā of this

was written “somewhere about the ninth or tenth century C.E.”

104.

, Koṭirudrasāmhita, 41ff.

105.

   Ibid., 43.

106.

   Ibid.

107.

   Ibid., pp.

. quoting Abhinavagupta

I, 192.

108.

   Ibid., quoted p. 21.

109.

   Ibid.,

XX.

110.

   Śri Kumāraswami, “Vīraśaivism,” in

, vol. IV, pp. 99ff. S. C. Nandimath, in

, points out some interesting parallels between Buddhism and Vīrasāiva. The reforms of both are directed against orthodox Brahminism and both reject all Vedic rituals.

111.

   C. Hayavadana Rao,

vols,. vol. I: Introduction; Vol. II: Text. Śrīpati (c.1400 C.E.) is not accepted by all Vīrasāivas as an orthodox interpreter of Vīraśaivism.

112.

   Cf.

, vol. V, pp. 445ff. The final goal of the soul is

or unity with Paraśiva – the soul in union with Śiva enjoys unexcelled bliss:

identity between

(Śiva) and

(soul).

113.

   Ibid.

114.

   Śrīpati,

, IV, 3, 9; cf. vol. I (Introduction), p. 575.

115.

   Ibid., IV, 4, 14; vol. I, p. 460.

116.

   Therefore those who are called

at first finally develop into the

state by virtue of the

of Mahādeva and will be afterwards called after Mahādeva ...”

117.

   A. P Karmarkar,

, vol. I, p. 88.

118.

   Cf. H. Zimmer,

, p. 130: “The Phenomenon of Expanding Form.”

119.

   Swami Yatiswarananda, “A Glimpse into Hindu Religious Symbolism,” in

, vol. IV, p. 437: to Śiva worshipers “the

is just a non-anthropomorphic, aniconic form or symbol of the Supreme Spirit which, though manifest in forms, transcends them all.”

120.

   Cf. T. A. G. Rao,

, vol. II/II, pp. 369ff.

121.

, vol. IV, p. 307; J. N. Banerjea,

, p. 473. A. Coomaraswamy,

, p. 87.

122.

   V Paranjoti,

, p. 54.

123.

   Ibid.

124.

   Thus, for example, the elephant, snake and spider at Kalahasti. N. Ramesan,

, pp. 70–79.

125.

   K. A. Nīlakaṇṭha Sastri, “An Historical Sketch of Śaivism,” in

, vol. IV, p. 63: “Śaivism has exhibited a close alliance with Yoga and thaumaturgy, and a constant tendency to run into the extremes of ascetic fervour.”

126.

   Almost the entire Kailāsasaṃhitā of

deals with

and its various stages; also

, Kāśīkhaṇḍa I, 41ff.

II, 21 (Śiva-Dīkṣa);

, Vāyavīyasaṃhitā II, 15, 21. The ascetic element is emphasized also in the

, beginning from

in which

is said to be the only true means to reach

. The examples of Śaiva saints also show an emphasis on

.

127.

   G. S. Ghurye,

, pp. 114–140; H. H. Wilson,

, 131ff.

128.

   Ibid. They quote the

text “raso vai sa ...” as being said of mercury!

129.

   Kamil Zvelebil, “Śaiva Bhakti”, chap. 12 in

, Leiden: Brill, 1973. While Zvelebil deals here only with Śaivite Tamil

poetry, he states that as far as the importance and vitality of this genre is concerned, the same can be said of the Vaiṣṇava hymns of the Āḷvārs.

130.

   T. M. P. Mahādevan, “Śaivism,” in

, vol. II, pp. 433ff.

131.

   G. U. Pope:

.

132.

   T. M. P. Mahādevan, “Śaivism,” p. 434, Mānikkavācakar is considered to be the embodiment of the

.

133.

   Ibid., pp. 434ff. S. S. Pillai, “The Śaiva Saints,” p. 341 (Appar is considered to be the embodiment of

or

.

134.

   T. M. P. Mahadevan, “Śaivism.” S. S. Pillai, “The Śaiva Saints,” p. 341 (Sambandhar is seen as the embodiment of

or

.

7

A SHORT HISTORY OF ŚĀKTISM

“The later patriarchal religions and mythologies,” wrote Erich Neumann in a richly documented study,
The Great Mother,
¹
“have accustomed us to look upon the male god as a creator... But the original, overlaid stratum knows of a female creative being.” Neumann assumes for the whole region of the Mediterranean a universally adopted religion of the Great Mother Goddess around 4000 B.C.E., which was revived about 2000 B.C.E. and spread through the whole of the then known world. In this religion the Great Goddess was worshiped as creator, as Lady of men, beasts, and plants, as liberator and as symbol of transcendent spiritual transformation.

The Indus civilization also belonged to that tradition in which the cult of the Great Goddess was prominent. Numerous
terracotta
figurines have been found: images of the Mother Goddess of the same kind that are still worshiped in Indian villages today. Several representations on seals that appear connected with the worship of the Great Goddess also exist. On one of these we see a nude female figure lying upside down with outspread legs, a plant issuing from her womb. On the reverse there is a man with a sickle-shaped knife before a woman who raises her arms in supplication. “Obviously it depicts a human sacrifice to the Earth Goddess.”
²

The connections between Śāktism, Mohenjo-Daro civilization, and Mediterranean fertility cults seem to be preserved even in the name of the Great Mother: “Umā for her peculiar name, her association with a mountain and her mount, a lion, seems to be originally the same as the Babylonian Ummu or Umma, the Arcadian Ummi, the Dravidian Umma, and the Skythian Ommo, which are all mother goddesses.”
³
The name Durgā seems to be traceable to Truqas, a deity mentioned in the Lydian inscriptions of Asia Minor.
⁴
There is a common mythology of this Great Mother: she was the first being in existence, a Virgin. Spontaneously she conceived a son, who became her consort in divinity. With her son-consort she became the mother of the gods and all life. Therefore we find the Goddess being worshiped both as Virgin and Mother.

Another important current of Devī religion comes from indigenous village cults, “the most ancient form of Indian religion.”
⁵
The worship of the
grāma-devatās
practiced today may not be much different from the village religion of thousands of years ago. The villager’s world is inhabited by a host of spirits, good and bad, who are the causes of all unusual events. All catastrophes, diseases, epidemics, and so forth, are brought into connection with these spirits. In order to defend oneself against the evil spirits one has to propitiate and worship the good ones. It is quite revealing that the majority of village deities are female. “It is highly probable that the non-Āryan tribes (who worshiped the Great Mother, viz., Śabaras, Vāvaras, Pulindas, Kirātas and many others) had a matriarchal system of society and that it was due to this system that the custom of worshiping female deities grew among them.”
⁶
The worship of these goddesses has always been connected with bloody sacrifices (of buffaloes, goats, pigs, and cocks), with partaking of meat and wine, with frantic revels and sexual excesses.

Human sacrifice too was generally connected with worship of the goddesses.
⁷
The Goddess of the aboriginal tribes and of primitive village religion was mainly worshiped to drive away evil spirits, wild beasts, and human enemies. But the Goddess was always the Mother of Life – saving children from diseases, granting cattle wealth, and providing mankind with vegetables. Village religion is earthy. In fact both its strength of feeling and its weakness of uncontrolled emotions must be traced back to this source: the worship of the Great Mother is nourished from the emotional depth of the unconscious, and its aim is always a return to the darkness of all-embracing matter in which nothing is divided or analyzed or distinguished.

Often the worship of deceased women of a village merges with the worship of the Goddess; the process of “making religion” by repeating what had been done for thousands of years still continues.
⁸
Many names of the Goddess that are found in the
Purāṇas
are probably names of such local village goddesses; many of the functions too are unmistakably taken from village religion.

The
Ṛgveda
sounds hostile toward the cult of the Mother Goddesses, and it took a long time before female deities came to rank as equal to the male gods. Durgā is mentioned as a war-goddess in the
Mahābhārata
. It seems that she superseded Indra in this function at a comparatively early time. The goddess of war played a great role in Tamiḷnādu. She was known as Ayai (Mother), Koṭṭavai (Victorious Mother), and Koṭṭi (Slaughterer) and was predominantly the goddess of the Maravār tribe. Among the hosts of dread figures in the battlefield the Goddess is the principal. She was worshiped by the Maravārs with offerings of toddy, fried rice, and the blood, marrow and entrails of the victims. Thus she became their protector, marching in terrible majesty at the head of their ranks. She is described as moving about the battlefield, with garlands of the entrails of victims on her person, dreadfully laughing at the sight of fallen enemies swimming in their blood. On her flag there is a lion.

That seems to be the same tribal goddess of war which is described in later Tamil works that celebrate the then-accepted cult of Devī:

Shaking her giant shoulders and dancing to her own song of triumph in the battlefield in the presence of her son Murugan, with dishevelled hair and irregular teeth which adorn an abnormally large mouth, with eyes rolling through rage and with a frightful look, with ears having an owl and a snake as pendants and an awkward large belly, and with an awe-inspiring gait, while she picks out the eyes from a black stinking head, which she is in the act of eating, her mouth dripping with blood.

Another direct allusion to the tribal goddess is offered in the following description:

The maid of the aborigines, who had her matted hair tied up like a crow on her head, with the shining skin of a young cobra and the curved tusk of a boar fastened in her hair to resemble a crescent. She had a third eye on her forehead and her throat was darkened by drinking poison. A string of tiger’s teeth was her necklace. The stripped skin of a tiger was wound round her waist as a garment. She had an elephant’s skin as her mantle. A bow bent and ready to shoot was placed in her hand and she was mounted on a stage with branch and antlers. Drums rattled and pipes squeaked in front of her image while the fierce Maravār slaughtered buffaloes at her altar. Oblations with rice mixed with blood and flesh were offered to her, as also perfumed pastes and boiled beans and grain. Offerings of balls, dolls, peacocks and wild fowls were made to her.”