Kamandalu : ( See latest picture in the group page)

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Indian deities carry a number of objects in their hands and each of

them has a deep symbolic significance and is important in

iconography. The kumbha/ kalasa/ Kamandalu is a pot filled with

water. The full vessel, can be an object of worship especially when

it is decorated with coconut and leaves. It represents the deity and

may be understood as an expression of several values, mostly related

to the generative and purifying power of the water, but it can also

be understood as an expression of the formless Brahman. In the

Upanishad it is stated :"The face of God is hidden in a golden

Vessel". Apart from being considered as a sign of auspiciousness,

it

is also used as a symbol of the divine mother. The NavDurgas too is

seen carrying the Kumbha (Brhmacharini, Chandraghanta and Kushmanda).

Shiva too is seen with a Kamandalu with him. Shiva carries a

kamandalu for his rituals and ablutions.

More significantly, the vast and water serve as both symbol and

vehicle of initiation, promoting strength, youth, puissance, and

immortality. In message 3515 our beloved kochu1tzji tells us a story

about how Indra came as a crow and toppled the kamandalu , thus

releasing Cauvery Devi from Agasthya Kamandalu . Saraswati Devi is

said as issuing from the Water Jug or Kamandalu of Brahman. And Ganga

Devi too is said to be from the Kamandalu.

But the most important value of the Kumbha is as woman, as womb as

birth. In the Mahabhrata, Sagara's sixty thousand son born from a

vase filled with water. And in the epic warrior Drona is born from a

pot too.

 

The goddess and the vase have strong Near Eastern antecedents too. .

By itself, the vase with flowing water appears on the well known

Telloh bas –relief from the twenty-frst century BC. It is found,

together with the goddess, on a fragment ( also twenty first century

BC ) now in the Istanbul Museum. Another piece from Mari ( eighteen

century BC ) now in the Aleppo Museum, shows a vase held by a female

figure – a goddess of the waters. An Egyptian bronze vessel from

the

sixth or seventh century BC combines the three themes of Woman, Tree

and Kamandalu. In the Near East, the flowing Kamandalu developed into

a vessel of vegetation, which is how we sometimes find it with Ganga,

for example at Bajuara and Badoli.

 

 

Om ParaShaktiye Namaha