Every Woman a Goddess.......

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Every Woman a Goddess : The Ideals of Indian Art

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In India a woman with a fiery temperament is often nicknamed

Durga in recognition of the divine spark within her. She is the

fervent autonomous goddess who knows how to stand for herself.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/ra44.jpg

 

The living traditions of India have always identified the female

of the species with all that is sacred in nature. But it is not

always the warrior woman who is identified with the goddess, but

also woman as playful, lovable, and of course as the Mother. In a

delightful vein it is conjectured that the kick of a woman is

sufficient and necessary for blossoms to spring from the sacred

Ashoka tree. An entire ceremony has developed around this theme.

Women dance around this tree and gently kick it to bring it to

bloom. Ancient Sanskrit poetry describes this happening through

the eyes of a jealous lover, who wishes that it were him,

rather than the tree which benefited from the touch of her foot:

 

'She plucked its buds for her ear,

then repaid it with a gentle kick

I might have been the one she struck,

She might have taken the bud

from me,

but I'm cheated by a tree!'

 

The idea being that by their mere touch, the fertilizing power of

a woman was transferred to the tree, which then burst into

flowers. All things that arise from the earth in the form of

vegetative life mirror the great generative function of the

Goddess. The process of transformation that is possible in mortal

woman mirrors the miracle of growth that occurs in nature. Such

figures emphasize the importance of fertility and its associated

elements of bearing and nourishing children. The female figure is

an obvious emblem of fertility because of its association with

growth, abundance, and prosperity.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/op07.jpg

 

There is also the suggestion that a tree is vulnerable to

careless handling like a woman. A tree that has come to flower or

fruit will not be cut down; it is treated as a mother, a woman

who has given birth. Thus the metaphoric connections between a

tree and a woman are many and varied. A relevant one here is that

the word for "flowering" and menstruation is the same in

Sanskrit. In Sanskrit a menstruating woman is called a

'pushpavati', "a woman in flower". Menstruation itself is a form

and a metaphor for a woman' s special creativity. Thus a woman's

biological and other kinds of creativity are symbolized by

flowering. It is interesting to note here that decoctions made

from the bark of the same Ashoka tree are used to soothe

menstrual cramps and excessive blood loss during menstruation.

The bark decoction also relieves the pain and tension related to

menopause.

 

It comes as no surprise that prosperity and abundance too is

visualized in the form of a female, namely the Great Goddess

Lakshmi. She is often shown holding a pitcher. This pitcher or

pot in addition to being likened to a womb, is said to be the pot

of bounty, or the harbinger of prosperity.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/zj80.jpg

 

In extension of this conception, Indian aesthetic principles

cutting across all schools, sects, and traditions, state in a

universal voice that all female forms should be endowed with

abundantly full breasts, a narrow waist and ample hips,

symbolizing their child bearing capacities and also the power to

nourish and sustain their creations, a la Mother Nature.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/za78.jpg

 

Indeed Nilakantha Dikshita, an ancient aesthetician, lays stress

on the milk of the woman as goddess, sustaining the babies of the

earth, her children. He fancies that the pearl necklace on the

breast of a goddess creates the illusion of drops of milk

dripping and overflowing in fast succession from her moist bosom,

in her great and surging affection of motherhood, as she fondles

us like babies. This has a parallel to the Great Greek Goddess of

fertility, Gaia, the Earth Mother, who is visualized with the

mountains as her breasts, the caves her womb, and the earth's

waters her female fluids. Thus the body of a woman is nothing but

the microcosm of the Earth, embodying in itself all the mysteries

of creation, and their solution.

 

The Buddhist art of India too displays these same symptoms. In

the important Buddhist stupa of Bharhut, belonging to around 100

BC, there can be observed an interesting phenomenon. On the

railing that encircles the main monument there are numerous

sensuous female images. It would be easy to assume that these

images were created in order to satisfy the viewing pleasure of

male devotees. But a study of the stupa's numerous inscriptions

enables us to set aside any such facile assumption. The railing

was constructed as a result of community patronage in which the

different parts of the railing; pillars, crossbars etc., were

donated by various individuals. The inscriptions reveal that many

of these sensuous figures were commissioned by women, including

Buddhist nuns and monks, often identified by their names. Clearly

there was a higher purpose behind the exercise.

 

The Bharhut stupa was a sacred building built to enshrine a

casket that contained a portion of the relics of the Buddha after

his cremation. Buddhist pilgrims visited the site to gain

proximity to the relics and to experience the unseen presence of

the Buddha. Hence it was a ritual space and public domain. Male

and female, young and old would have made the pilgrimage and, in

the course of repeated ritual circumambulating of the stupa, they

would have been exposed to these images. We find, then, that

these images were not intended to be viewed as solely sensual

objects.

 

We can thus be fairly certain that the function of such imagery

was spiritual, and relevant to the sacred structure to which it

belonged. Even then their sensuous portrayal raises questions and

requires reiteration of the positive association of woman with

fertility, growth, abundance, prosperity and hence, the

auspicious.

 

Ancient art texts known as the 'Shilpa Shastras' confirm that the

potency of women's fertility and its equation with growth,

abundance and prosperity led to women becoming a sign of the

auspicious. In fact, women served an apotropaic function whereby

their auspiciousness was magically transferred to the monument

upon which they were sculpted or painted. A royal palace, a

Buddhist stupa, a Hindu shrine, gained in auspiciousness and

fortune when adorned with the figure of a woman. A text of the

tenth century, the 'Shilpa Prakasha', that provides guidelines

for practicing temples architects and sculptors, categorically

states that figures of women are a prerequisite on the walls of

temples. Its choice of phrase underscores the significance of the

theme. "As a house without a wife, as frolic (play) without a

woman, so without (the figure of woman) the monument will be of

inferior quality and bear no fruit." Thus by the mere addition of

feminine images it was believed that a whole complex could become

sacred and auspicious. In fact the same text lists the different

types of women who best sanctify a monument, and instructs the

sculptor on how to exactly carve these figures. The most

important of these feminine images are:

 

1). A Woman Dancing

2). A Woman Adjusting her Anklets

3). A Woman Drummer

4). A Mother with her infant in her arms

5). A Woman Smelling a Lotus

6). A Woman Playing with a Parrot

 

 

A Woman Dancing

 

Dance has been defined as a motion that arises from emotion. The

human body has a natural appetite for rhythm, and while dancing,

not only does the dancer's body vibrate, but by its rhythmic

character, also spurs the viewers to a vibrating response. A

primitive or a child emotionally aroused, say by some pleasurable

observation, will break into a dance of glee. Repeating

that particular dance action can recapture the emotion, and thus

in dance, motion and emotion are interchangeable. The capacity

for such interchange and build-up of feeling is at the root of

the identification of dance as a sacred overture.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/ca92.jpg

 

Dance is an ancient and instinctive expression of the life force,

and probably predates drawing and painting as a form of creative

activity. It is a form of magic: the dancer becomes amplified

into a being endowed with supra-normal powers, and her

personality is transformed. Dance is also an act of creation. It

brings about a new situation and summons into the dancer a new

and higher personality.

 

Underlying this celebration of dance is the distinct Indian

attitude to the body and the senses. Neither is a temptation nor

snare. The relationship of the body, senses, mind, intellect and

soul is articulated in the Upanishads and is seminal to the

world-view where the body is regarded as the abode of the divine

and the divine descends in the body. Logically, the body

beautiful is the temple of god and dance is a medium of invoking

the divine within. Each form of dance - the stance, the movement

and the context - is imbued with deep spiritual and symbolic

significance. Dance reflects a state of being at the highest

order of spiritual discipline (sadhana) and is hence considered a

yoga. Its performance is a ritual act, a sacrifice of the

personal self to a higher transcendental order. It is the medium

which evokes the supreme state of bliss (ananda) and also the

vehicle of release (moksha).

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/zj59.jpg

 

The metaphor of dance also lies at the heart of many creation

myths. The life force expressed in the act of movement becomes a

symbol of creation. Through the medium of dance, a woman embodies

the progenitive powers of cosmic energy, through whom, according

to an ancient dance treatise 'the entire phenomenal world is

kindled into life.'

 

It does not come as a surprise therefore that in ancient times, a

woman dancer was considered an inseparable part of any ritual

worship in temples. Every temple of consequence had attached to

it one or more dancers. Such women were known as Devadasis. These

sacred dancers were symbolically married off to the presiding

deity of the temple. Thus an 'ordinary' human woman was found

holy enough to be married off to a god, the Lord of the temple.

The transformation of an ordinary girl into a Devadasi was marked

by important rituals, after the completion of which the woman was

considered 'an ever auspicious woman' (nityasumangali). The

traditional view holds that all women, by their very nature,

share the power of the goddess. The devadasi initiation rites

celebrate the

merger of her individual female powers with those of the goddess. It

is this

quality of 'eternal auspiciousness' in a woman that brought into

existence

this tradition since the earliest times.

 

The importance of the devadasis can be gauged from the fact that

their presence was deemed necessary at the slightest event of

importance taking place in the temple, for example bathing the

deity in the morning, or waving the sacred fire lamp in front of

him. An important ritual was the participation in the twilight

worship held at sunset. The 'junction' of twilight, when the day

slips into the night, is considered extremely dangerous, and so

the gods need all the support and attendance they can get. The

ritual waving of the lighted lamp by a devadasi was considered

the most effective method of warding off an inauspicious state of

the divine. Thus their participation in the affairs of the temple

was not restricted to dancing on important religious festivals

and events, without which the celebrations were thought of as

incomplete, but also managing the day-to-day activities along

with the officiating priest. But dance of course remained their

most accomplished contribution; indeed the life of a devadasi

required a strict adherence to dancing schedules and practice.

Dance is potentially both sensual and hypnotic. Its passioned

performance helped to evoke the atmosphere of the temple as a

place removed from the mundane world, the temple as a celestial

abode of the deity.

 

 

A Woman Adjusting her Anklets

 

The Indian tradition thinks of feet as impure. Even then the feet

of a woman are worthy of adornment, no less than any other part

of her body. In fact the image of a woman adjusting her anklets

was considered sacred enough to be carved out in temple walls. A

woman has no associated impurity, anything and everything

connected with her acquires a status over and above its

material existence.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/bb68.jpg

 

Wearing jewelry and adorning themselves with ornaments comes

naturally to a woman. Ancient texts identify sixteen different

embellishments (solah-shringar), which acknowledge and celebrate

the beauty and divinity of the female form. Sixteen, a

significant number, corresponds to the sixteen phases of the

moon, which in turn is connected with a woman's menstrual cycle.

A woman of sixteen is considered to be at the peak of physical

perfection in her life. This is another pointer to the

identification of the female with the spiritual. The anklet is

mentioned as the last of these sixteen ornaments.

 

It is not that women do not realize the spiritual potential of

ornamentation. By adorning their visible, material body, they

also satisfy a universal longing for the embellishment of its

intangible counterpart: the human spirit. If this were not so,

the desire for ornamentation could not have survived, nay thrived

during the continuing course of history.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/ra86.jpg

 

 

A Woman Drummer

 

In India music was linked with the origin of life itself, where

sound is regarded as the primordial vibration of divine energy.

 

Human mind has resorted to music, the language of symbols,

achieving in the process an inner unification of the mind by

means of an outer integration of musical principles. Music at the

summit of its perfection has striven to symbolize the highest and

innermost realities of the mind: a spring of self-expression

which eventually flows into the ocean of spiritual experiences.

It aspires to be an art guided by knowledge and motivated by

inspiration to bring to man a sense of eternity and a state of

ecstasy, which is all that he in his mortal frame can taste of

immortality. The purpose of music is to enable the mind to

comprehend eternity and to enjoy ecstasy. On a practical level,

music has a high educational value, it ennobles the mind and

awakens and feeds the aesthetic sense.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/ha65.jpg

 

A lady playing a drum is a representation soaked in symbolism and

rich in metaphorical imagery. A drum represents thunder, the

voice of cosmic energy. Of all musical instruments, the drum is

the most primeval means of communication, its percussive sound

traveling to the heart and, by extension, suggesting the ability

to communicate with supernatural forces.

 

The symbolism of the drum operates at many levels. Firstly there

are its materials - wood and hide. The hide being a symbol of

regeneration. Since ancient times, the skin of a sacrificial

animal, such as the bull or horse, represents the fat of the

animal and, by extension, all life-sustaining produce; also

progeny. Indeed all qualities associated with the natural

functions of a woman.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/drummer.jpg

(Size 35 kb)

 

The wood of the drum is symbolic of a tree itself, which

expresses maternal nourishment and support. It is wood that gives

shelter at birth as a cradle and in death as the coffin. It is

noteworthy here that in China wood is also an emblem of spring,

the season of fertility and ripe blossoms.

 

That the drum is hollow from the inside is also not without

spiritual significance. It is a receptive void, to be entered as

a woman is, protective, cavernous, a furrow, a shelter and hence

a symbol of the womb and therefore birth.

 

Finally the oval shape of the drum is a symbol of fertility, the

feminine creative principle.

 

 

A Mother with Her Infant in Her Arms

 

A child's first master is always his/her mother, whence the

crucial role she plays and the particular regard in which she is

held by both child and man. It is not merely that she has given

him life, which is often a fortuitous accident, nor only because

she has nourished him with her milk, but because she is the one

who initiates the child into the society of man and who teaches

the first rudiments of language and behavior on which his whole

future development depends.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/ha49.jpg

 

All women have two natures, two distinct characters, as both

lover and mother. As lover she represents the strength and

creative power of the male principle, which without her is

sterile. She is his inspiration, the instrument of his

realization, the source of his pleasure. She is the image of

Shakti, the power and joy of the gods, who without her would have

no existence. It is as mother, however, that woman represents the

transcendent aspect of the divine. She is the supreme refuge in

which the male plays no role. The goddess mother is the sole

source of being, the supreme state of consciousness, the

principle of life itself.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/ha03.jpg

 

Woman is the image of the calm of primordial night for which man

yearns, tossed on the waves of life, seeking the state of

perfection, the total peace from which he came forth. The

universal mother thus appears to man as the supreme state of the

divine. All creation, all thought, all form, all existence come

from the mysterious energy that appears in the substratum, this

matrix of the great goddess, the universal mother, from whom all

forms and beings come.

 

As mother, woman is divine and is worshipped. A mother is bereft

of artifice. She is man's comfort, wandering through the deserts

of the world. She is forgiveness, charity, and limitless

compassion. The woman who realizes the perfection of her maternal

role is the very gate of heaven.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/md37.jpg

 

The respect and duty owed to this first of all masters and the

authority she retains make the mother an essential and symbolic

figure throughout life. This is woman's double nature: passive in

her relationship with men, active as mother of her children. It

is well known, moreover, that the most coquettish and timid

woman, when her child is in danger, becomes courageous and

enterprising, heedless of her makeup, her weakness, her hair, or

the injuries she mighty receive.

 

In visual representations, the mother is most often shown

suckling her baby. Indeed the grace and sweetness of vegetal life

pervade and enliven the lovely bodies of both mother and child.

Here fertility and maternity, the grand old themes of the

archetypal figures of the mother goddesses are relieved of their

ancient abstractness and diagrammatic monumentality, achieving a

composition of refined and intimate realism. Brought down to the

terrestrial plane from the sphere of ideals, such an image is

both contemporary and eternal.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/zi12.jpg

 

 

Woman Smelling a Lotus

 

To the Indian imagination this beautiful flower is associated

with divinity. An early medieval text describes the goddess as

being:

 

Slender as the lotus-fiber,

Lotus-eyed,

In the lotus posture,

Pollen dusting her lotus-feet,

She dwells

In the pendant lotus of the heart.

 

 

Indian literature classifies women into four types of which the

highest is Padmini, the Lotus Lady whose very breath contains

the fragrance of the lotus. Because of its entrancing fragrance,

the sweet and pervasive freshness of the lotus is captivating.

The honey produced in the calyx is so sweet and maddening that it

is believed that the bee forgets to get out of it and prefers to

remain veiled inside the lotus through the night.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/mb73.jpg

 

Ancient mythmakers used the lotus as a common symbol of

fertility. The plant was native to many areas of the world, so it

occurred frequently in myths and was highly revered by people of

many cultures, including the Egyptians and the Persians. It is

the very behavior of the flower that gives rise to this

symbolism. Sinking to the bottom of the water at night, it rises

to the surface in the morning, and spreads its petals on the

surface. This awakening and blooming of the lotus at the first

rays of the morning sun is a recurrent theme in Indian literature

also.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/hp93.jpg

 

The lotus is the symbol of absolute purity; it grows from the

dark watery mire but it is untainted or unstained by it. As the

seed of the lotus grows from the waters and from the earth's

soil, it is a symbol of divine or spontaneous generation. Birth

such as that of the lotus implies an immaculate and

uncontaminated conception. Thus the lotus, as divine womb,

becomes a potent sexual metaphor. Padma or kamala, meaning lotus

in Sanskrit, is a synonym for the female generative organ - it is

both soft and open.

 

Thus by signifying the relation of the sensual to the spiritual,

beauty to purity, and the physical to the divine, the potent

metaphor of the lotus again emphasizes the inherent sacredness in

women.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/mb33.jpg

 

 

Woman Playing with a Parrot

 

The parrot is the vehicle of the god of desire Kama, the impeller

of creation. Kama is the god of beauty and youth. Creation is

always preceded by desire, there can be no creation without

desire. Indeed the symbol of the parrot is another pointer to the

fundamental association of the feminine with the creative

principle in nature.

 

Illustration : http://www.exoticindia.com/artimages/md23.jpg

 

 

Conclusion:

 

Thus the Indian aesthetic tradition regards woman as an aspect of

the Great Mother of all life, a vessel of fertility, and life in

full sap. She embodies mystery through her fruitfulness. She is

associated with nature and the earth. Indeed men in a number of

primitive societies refuse to interfere with agriculture,

believing it to be magically dependent on women. Because of her

unique physiological experiences, like menstruation, defloration,

conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation, she is

responsive to the mysterious periodicities connected with the

phases of the moon, the cycles of the months, the seasons of the

years and the rhythms of nature.

 

She lives separate existences as virgin, wife, mother, widow or

spinster, each with its own experience and power. As a mother she

is one of the great primordial archetypes of humanity. From her

womb a new creature is born, at her breasts it is nourished, by

her hands it is guided.

 

Indeed woman is superior to man in many ways. She has greater

vitality; her resistance to disease, physical injury and major

shocks is better than man's; girls, as a rule, are more

precocious in their development than boys, and do not succumb so

easily to illness. Women are more practical and down to earth,

and some anthropologists think that rule by women preceded rule

by men, and that the patriarchal system developed only when men

settled down to a civilized life so as to leave women free to

bring up the family.

 

Woman is the originator of families, the preserver of the

established order and the perpetuator of traditions, which she

imparts to her children. Through her the past is continued, not

only in the physical life of her children, but in the respect for

traditional heritage that she instills into them. As the Great

Goddess rules the heavens, her earthly counterpart, the woman,

rules the home.

 

It is the presence of women that lies at the source of most forms

of totemism, exogamy, taboo, initiations, blood-rites, fertility

rites and the mysteries. With women are associated the ideas of

the unconscious, for some instinctive and intuitive process seems

to put her in touch, through some secret sympathy, with the very

heart of things.

 

She symbolizes the wisdom of the community, and the old woman and

sage-femme is the keeper of the tribal lore and often the source

of tribal strength. She is priestess, prophetess, sibyl, medium,

oracle, pythoness, and witch. Skilled in herbs and balms she is

the natural healer and nurse, first of her children, then of her

hunter and warrior husband. Man penetrates into her

interior, and deep within her body the child is created. She

therefore stands for the innerness of things, the place where

secret and hidden things happen. Indeed it is in her womb that

the great magical transformation takes place that changes sperm

into men.

 

Thus Manu, the first law-giver, said:

 

"The gods are satisfied wherever women are honored, but where

they are not respected, rites and prayers are ineffectual."

 

------------------------(Manu Smriti 3.62)

 

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References and Further Reading:

 

Cooper, J.C. An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols:

London, 1999.

 

Danielou, Alain. Virtue, Success, Pleasure, Liberation; The Four

Aims of Life in the Tradition of Ancient India: Vermont, 1993.

 

Dehejia, Vidya (ed.) Representing the Body (Gender Issues in

Indian Art): New Delhi, 1999.

 

Dehejia, Vidya (ed.). Devi The Great Goddess (Female Divinity in

South Asian Art): Washington, 1999.

 

Leslie, Julia. Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women: Delhi, 1992.

 

Pal, Pratapaditya (ed). Dancing to the Flute (Music and Dance in

Indian Art): Sydney, 1997.

 

Tresidder, Jack. The Hutchinson Dictionary of Symbols: Oxford, 1997.

 

Untracht, Oppi. Traditional Jewelry of India: London, 1997.

 

Zimmer, Heinrich. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization:

Delhi,

1990.

 

Zimmer, Heinrich. The Art of Indian Asia; Its Mythology and

Transformation

(two vols.): Delhi, 2001.

 

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