Hinduism: A Short History (39 page)

In Devī worship as it is practiced today there are, no doubt, elements of Vedic religion, as, for example, the worship of the earth-goddess Pṛthivī, but preeminently she is a deity of non-Vedic origin. Many of the Śākta deities of the
Purāṇas
and
Tantras
are modeled after the village and tribal goddesses, as, for example, the association of the two most important figures, the consorts of Śiva and Viṣṇu with Himalaya and Vindhyas, indicate. The
Mahābhārata
tells us that in early times female deities of different names and forms were worshiped in different parts of India by the followers of the
Vedas
as well as by various non-Āryan tribes. But Vedic religion as such was a patriarchal religion, and its development in the time of the ritual texts and the first systems, with its emphasis on punctilious fulfillment of an elaborate ritual, its insistence on self-control, and its rationality, ran counter to the mainstream of Devī worship, which consists in abandon and ecstasy.

In the Purāṇas an amalgamation of Vedic and non-Vedic religions took place. Significantly, none of the major Purāṇas gives the place of the Supreme Being to Devī. It is only in the Upapurāṇas that Devī is placed above the male gods.

It seems that Umā was the first non-Āryan deity to be regarded as the wife of a Vedic god. Though Umā, the mother goddess, and Durgā, the virgin goddess, were originally different, both became identified as consort of Śiva, since both were associated with the Himālayas. The Vaiṣṇavas then chose Vindhyavāsinī, the most prominent among the female deities of the Vindhyā and connected her with Viṣṇu by taking her to be an incarnation of Viṣṇu’s
yoga-nidrā
(mystical dream) or
yoga-māyā
(mystical magic power). The dual character of Devī as Virgin and as Mother (Spouse) is clearly discernible. Thus Devī, whether identified with Umā or with Vindhyavāsinī, is found to kill the demons in her virgin state. The earliest form of the Goddess seems to be the virgin who then becomes the Mother of the gods. In the latest phase of Śāktism the Goddess alone was made the Supreme Being, the source of everything.

In Śāktism proper the Great Goddess,
prakṛti
or
māyā
, becomes the active principle of the universe: without her activity the male God, Brahman, Śiva, or Viṣṇu, is unable to do anything. Śakti is all-pervading, the source of creation and of liberation. The aim of the
mantra-śāstras
is the development and discovery of the immanent Śakti, called Kuṇḍalinī.
Mukti
is achieved through a union of the activated Śakti, otherwise dormant in the
mūla-dhāra
, with the Highest Śiva also residing in the body. Without the union of Śakti and Śiva there is no emancipation; it is Śakti who is “the way” to Śiva, who is static and inactive.
¹¹

Devī in Śāktism is both metaphysical principle and concrete personality. As such she is worshiped under different forms and names, each denoting practically a different hypostasis of the Great Goddess. Sarasvatī, Laksmī, and Mahākālī are associated with Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva, and they appear for all practical purposes as three different deities. Śakti philosophy tried to explain them as manifestations of the three
guṇas
of the one Great Devī.
¹²
Another important set of titles of Devī is connected with various ages of Devī: thus she is worshiped as one year old under the title Sāndhyā, as two years old under the title of Sarasvatī; as Caṇḍikā she is supposed to be seven years of age, as Durgā or Bālā she is nine, as Gaurī she is a girl of ten, as Mahālakṣmī she is thirteen, and as Lalitā she is a virgin of sixteen years.
¹³

There were certain centers of Śakti worship: it seems Kāmarūpa was the most important one.
¹⁴
Assam and Bengal are also today strongholds of Devī worship. Another important Śākta center in the Middle Ages was the Bundelkhand region in Central India. Several regions in western India, especially along the coastline, and particularly Kerala, were also important centers of Devī religion. In Tamiḷnādu, in Andhra Pradesh, and in Karṇāṭaka Devī worship is mostly confined to the worship of the
grdma-devatā
. Worship of the Goddess as the consort of Śiva or Viṣṇu is almost universal among Śaivas and Vaiṣṇavas, though there are remarkable differences. Thus, for example, the worship of Rādhā in some Vaiṣṇava sects comes close to Śāktism; Rādhā is said to be the origin of Kṛṣṇa’s grace and that Kṛṣṇa does nothing without Rādhā.

Some of the great religious reformers of modern times came from a Śākta background: Rāmakrishna Paramahamsa was a devotee of Kālī and officiated as her priest in Daksinesvara. But he took exception to the left-hand (vāmācāra) practices. Śri Aurobindo Ghose also betrays the influence of Śākta background. Generally Śāktism is an important factor in contemporary Hinduism as a whole.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DEVĪ MYTHOLOGY

The hymns of the
Ṛgveda
are certainly not the mainspring of Śāktism. The prominence of Devī figurines in Mohenjo Daro and Harappa may be a corroboration of the assumption that the Indus civilization represents a late phase of Vedic culture. There are, nevertheless, a few elements in the
Ṛgveda
which are typical for the Devī religion of later times and which helped to make Śāktism acceptable to the followers of the Veda.

The most important of these elements seems to be the worship of
pṛthivī
, the earth as goddess.
Uṣas
(dawn) is called
devānām mātā
(mother of the gods) in one place, but she does not play any significant role in the further development of Śāktism. A more significant element can be seen in Aditi, “the Indian image of the Great Mother.”
¹⁵
Aditi is the Earth, she is the Infinite, she is the Mother of the gods, she is “filled with splendour.”
¹⁶

The
Nirukta
says explicitly: “Aditi, unimpaired, mother of Gods. Aditi is heaven, Aditi is atmosphere, Aditi is mother, father and son. Aditi is all the gods, and the five tribes; Aditi is what is born and what shall be born.”
¹⁷

The most important Devī text of the
Ṛgveda
is the so-called Devīsūkta, in which Vāk (Speech) praises herself.
¹⁸
The hymn contains an astonishingly large number of allusions to traits of Devī which later become more developed: Vāk, as Goddess, is the mother of the gods, the giver of wealth, the queen. She is immanent in all beings and an all-pervading power, she is connected with Rudra and with battle, with the waters and with infinity. She brings forth the Father and is thus the Great Mother.

Though Rātrī is early understood as one of the names of Devī, the hymn to Rātrī in the
Ṛgveda
hardly contributes anything toward a deeper understanding of Devī: Rātrī is called Goddess, immortal, filling the void. Strangely enough Rātrī is also said to “conquer darkness with her light.”
¹⁹
She is invoked for protection. The
Śatarudriya
mentions Aṃbikā as wife and sister of Rudra, perhaps an allusion to customs that prevailed in several ancient countries in which kings married their sisters.
²⁰
Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa
and
Taittirīya Āraṇyaka
mention Aṃbikā too in connection with Rudra, invoking her as Durgā, Vairocanī, Kātyāyanī, and Kanyākumārī.
²¹
She is already called Varadā, the giver of boons. Some early
Upaniṣads
mention Umā Haimavatī, associating the Goddess with the Himālayas.
²²
S. Chattopadhyaya considers Devī in the Vedic age as a conglomerate of the wife of Rudra (the god of the mountains), the wife of Agni (showing the terrible, destructive aspect), and Niṛṛti (the mother of all evils).
²³
But as the
Devī-sūkta
proves, the Goddess seems to have been already in Vedic times a much more complex figure, clearly containing the aspect of universal, all-pervading power and infinity.

We have the testimony of Cosmas Indicopleustes, who visited India around 58 C.E., that in his time Kanyākumārī was worshiped in southern India, and we may infer that the virgin aspect of Devī was already present in Vedic times. From the Maurya age three markedly different types of seals connected with Śāktism are preserved. Seals found in northwestern India show the Mother Goddess united with the Father God. Those from eastern India show
yantras
and symbols of the
yoni
. Those from southern India show the Goddess as virgin. As the title Śakhāmbharī shows, Devī had at an early date been connected with vegetation. We have mentioned already a significant Indus Valley seal. Similar representations occur also in later times and even a custom practiced today in the villages at the time of Durgā-
pūja
may express the same idea.

It is worth noting that there is no myth relating to Devī in the whole of Vedic literature, nothing, either, about her worship, which, as shown in fertility cults and in village religion, is usually connected with bloody sacrifices. The mainstream Devī religion clearly comes from sources other than Vedic.

The so-called Śākta Upaniṣads are of a very late period and cannot be considered as Vedic. They presuppose purāṇic Devī mythology and the fully developed systems of Sāṁkhya and Vedānta philosophy.

In Vālmīki’s
Rāmayāṇa
we can see the transition and gradual fusion of Vedic and
Purāṇic
ideas with regard to the Goddess: the Vedic element is still strong. Aditi plays a comparatively large role as “the mother of the gods,” especially as the mother of Viṣṇu, the all-preserving.
²⁴
She is described as one of the eight wives of Kaśyapa. The parallel to the Eight Mothers offers itself, though they are not mentioned by this name. All the eight wives of Kaśyapa become the mothers of a species of living beings. The
Rāmayāṇa
makes a distinction between these four “who obeyed Kaśyapa as true consorts” and the other four “who did not.” Tāmrā becomes the mother of five daughters of “immortal fame” who in turn become the mothers of different species of living beings.

Krodhavasā has ten daughters who in their turn also become the mothers of various species. Analā becomes the mother of all fruit trees. Manu becomes the mother of all men: it is from her head that Brāhmins spring, from her chest the Kṣatriyas, from her thighs the Vaiṣyas, and from her feet the Śūdras.

It seems evident that the background to this narration is a tradition of Devī as the Great Mother, and the eight mothers represent either various forms of the Great Mother or local goddesses. Almost certainly the five and ten goddesses who become the mothers of living beings other than gods are local goddesses brought into connection with the general system.

The rivers Gaṅgā and Yamunā play a prominent role in Vālmīki’s
Rāmāyāṇa
, and they are frankly personified and made into goddesses.
²⁵
To Gaṅgā is ascribed the power to give to dead men the bliss of heaven when she touches their bones, and the long narration of Gaṅgā’s descent to earth has the solemnity of a salvation myth.
²⁶

Vālmīki knows Laksmī as consort of Viṣṇu, and Umā as consort of Śiva. Laksmī originates from the milk ocean when the gods churn it for amṛta – Umā is one of the daughters of King Himavat and Menā (the other is Gaṅgā). Toward the end of the
Rāmāyāṇa
, Sītā is declared identical with Laksmī. Of Umā, Vālmīki reports a “long time passed in austere vows and rigid fast” before she got married to Rudra Immortal.
²⁷

The
Mahābhārata
knows Umā-Pārvatī, the daughter of King Himavat, as the wife of Śiva. In fact, one of the major narratives concerns the wedding of Pārvatī and Śiva. As such her role is not insignificant: she plays a major part in the wrecking of Dakṣa’s sacrifice. On this occasion her manifestation Bhadrākālī is mentioned, who is neither Pārvatī herself nor Śiva himself. She is promulgating the
"dharma
for women” which she had extracted from Gaṅgā and other rivers.
²⁸

Whenever Mount Kailāsa, the residence of Śiva, is mentioned, Pārvatī also is remembered. She grants boons to Kṛṣṇa. And there is something of her
māyā
nature in the myth that she once playfully closed Śiva’s eyes with her hands, whereupon darkness befell the world.
²⁹

There are several accounts of the Goddess in which her connection with Śiva is not mentioned or even presupposed. These reveal an ancient tradition in which the Goddess is connected with battle, death, and night. While describing one of the many cruel battle scenes the narrator includes without further introduction a vision of “Death-Night in her embodied form:”

A black image, a bloody mouth and bloody eyes, wearing crimson garlands and smeared with crimson unguents, attired in a single piece of red cloth, with a noose in hand, and resembling an elderly lady, employed in chanting a dismal note and standing full before their eyes and about to lead away men and steeds and elephants all tied in a stout cord. She seemed to take away diverse kinds of spirits, with dishevelled hair and tied together in a cord as also many mighty car-warriors divested of their weapons.

An interesting detail is added. The Pāṇḍava soldiers had seen in their dreams this dread figure of the Goddess every night since the beginning of their war with the Kurus: “The brave warriors of the Pāṇḍava camp, recollecting the sight they had seen in their dreams, identified it with what they now witnessed.”
³¹
As companions on the battlefield are mentioned the Rākṣasas and Piśācas “gorging upon human flesh and quaffing the blood.” Thus we learn: “They were fierce, tawny in hue, terrible, of adamantine teeth and dyed with blood. With matted locks on their heads ... endued with five feet and large stomachs. Their fingers were set backwards. Of harsh temper and ugly features, their voice was loud and terrible. They had rows of tinkling bells, tied to their bodies. Possessed of blue throats, they looked very frightful.”
³²
The Goddess has now become the deity of war and battleground: Indra, the youthful conqueror-god of the early Āryans is displaced by Durgā, the nightmarish embodiment of senseless murder.