Who Is Parvati?

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PARVATI, the consort of Shiva, is the most widely worshipped goddess

in India. Mother of Kartikeya and Ganesha, she is the universal

mother with limitless power.

 

Parvati is worshipped in different forms, ranging from the most

gentle and gracious, strong and dignified, motherly and generous, to

the most powerful and potent, violent and frightening.

 

When shown with Shiva Maheshwara, she is called Uma, the lustrous

one. Each monsoon, she comes for the festival of Haritalika, as

Harita Gauri, the goddess of greenery and plenty. She is the harvest

bride dressed in green and decorated with opulent jewels. She carries

a stalk of sugarcane and wheat sheaves and heralds the Ganesha

festival. In several temples, Parvati is also referred to as

Annapoorna, the goddess of plenty and generosity. Gracious hostesses

are often compared to her. Parvati is also Durga, the goddess who

symbolises dominant power and strength. Fittingly her vehicle is a

lion or a tiger. She is portrayed with 10 arms carrying an arsenal of

weapons and is the protector of the virtuous and the remover of

ignorance.

 

Of all female deities, Parvati alone displays her ability to change

forms exactly like Vishnu and reincarnate herself for the destruction

of evil. Worshipped as Devi, she therefore has many forms going from

one extreme of lustre and grace to the other extreme of the awesome

and fearful. The development of her personality from being a consort

of Shiva to a deity in her own right is interesting. Parvati is not

only the font of all the shaktis but also the deity who presides over

many cults and many forms of worship. She is the oldest female deity

worshipped as mother goddess and is represented in 52 Shaktipithas or

seats of power in temples all over India.

 

The myth behind the Shaktipithas is ancient as well. It is said that

as Sati, the daughter of Daksha and wife of Shiva, she immolated

herself to avenge the insult meted out to her husband by her father.

Discovering what had happened, Shiva became totally obsessed by his

grief. To save the situation, Vishnu scattered Sati's remains in 52

different places which have become shrines of power in modern India.

Of these, 12 are praised or venerated in all the Shakti Puranas.

 

The violent form of Parvati is Kali, the earth goddess who demands

sacrificial killings. She has a hideous face and the third eye of

knowledge on a blood-smeared face. In this terrifying aspect, Parvati

is feared as the central figure of many black magic cults and

superstitions.

 

At Gangotri, the source of the river Ganga in the Himalayas, stands a

temple to Annapoorna. Other famous temples are: Jwalamukhi, Himachal

Pradesh; Vaishno Devi, Jammu; Kali, Calcutta, West Bengal; Ambaji,

Gujarat; Meenakshi, Madurai, Tamil Nadu; Kamakshi, Kancheepuram,

Tamil Nadu; Kamakhya, Assam; Visalakshi, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh;

Mahalakshmi in Kolhapur, Bhavani in Tuljapur, Maharashtra and

Kanyakumari at the southern tip of India in Tamil Nadu.

 

Source: http://www.welcometoindia.com/culture/indexfrm.asp?trad.asp?

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