Mother Goddess - 3

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Mother Goddess, in Hindu Thought and Culture - 3

 

12. The Queen of all mantras

 

GAyatrI is the Queen of all such mantras. The very word

GayatrI means that it protects those who chant it.

Protecting here is for the sake of the Ultimate. Once the

path to the Ultimate is protected, everything else is

protected, not only of those who chant it, but of the very

neighbourhood, of the environment, of the world in which

they live. Those who have had the privilege of being

initiated into the mantra of the GayatrI have the added

responsibility of not allowing it to decay with them.

Mantras have to be protected by repeated chanting as per

scriptural injunctions and meditation on their meaning and

significance. The japa and dhyAna on what GayatrI stands

for has been the most ancient cultural heritage of

Hinduism. In spite of the fact that this responsibility has

been allocated to only a small fraction of the total

population, the power of the mantra is so great that it has

been protecting the entire civilization for mankind.

 

No mantra can ever be efficacious if it is learnt without a

personal Master. In that sense, mantras are exclusive,

certainly. But that very fact connotes the sacredness of

the mantras. To wish to use the mantra power on the

physical level is to assume the role of God and to satisfy

unrestrained egos, positive or negative. Even a Vishvamitra

misused it more than once and that was why he took so much

time and went through several hurdles before he was

recognised.

 

13. Meaning and significance of GayatrI

 

The essence of Hinduism, namely, that Divinity is

everywhere, it is that Divinity that provokes us into

thought and action and it is only with the help of that

ever-present divinity that we may ever hope to have a

discerning intellect with which we may see the

effervescence of the Godhead that is inherent in the

visible universe including ourselves – all this is built

into the GayatrI. It is in the silent meditation of the

GayatrI that thought returns to its seed and leads to the

turIya (=fourth state of awareness) of thoughtlessness.

Indeed the GayatrI mantra which is explained to the

uninitiated as sun-worship is actually called SavitrI,

because the object of worship is not the Sun but brahman

embedded in the region of SavitA, the Sun. This would show

that GayatrI-upAsanA is actually the upAsanA of brahman.

 

The Sun is only symbolic of the Absolute Divinity. The

physical sun is not what we are worshipping. The external

manifestation is only secondary; the absolute Supreme that

is behind is primary. The Kenopanishad (1 – 6) makes this

clear in no uncertain terms. “Whatever cannot be seen by

the eyes but by which the eyes see, that is Brahman – not

the one that you see physically and worship”. So behind the

physical sun there is the sUrya-devatA, the Sun-God. It is

not visible to the physical eyes. “He who inhabits the Sun

but is within it, whom the Sun does not know, whose body is

the Sun and who controls the Sun from within, is the Inner

Controller, your own immortal Self” says the

Brihad-AraNyaka-upanishad (III – 7 – 9). Note also that the

name of the GayatrI mantra goes to its metre, which is

GayatrI, whereas the devatA of the mantra is savitA.

 

14. Esoteric content of the GAyatrI

 

It also reflects the three-fold presentation of Reality, as

‘sat’, ‘chit’, and ‘Ananda’. The three lines of the

GayatrI mean, literally,

 

That –of the Originator – Most excellent;

Light – of God – Let us meditate;

Intellects – He who – Our – May prompt.

 

The use of the word savituh ( = of the Originator) in the

first line indicates that He is the Origin of everything in

this world. This suggestion of Creation is symbolic of the

‘sat’ (Existence) face of Reality. This line is a

glorification of the Absolute. The use of the words

‘dhiyah’ (= intellects) and ‘pracodayAt’ (= may prompt or

guide) in the third line show that this line is indicative

of the ‘cit’ (Knowledge) facet of Reality. This line is the

prayer imbedded in the gAyatri. The second line asks us to

meditate as if it is the be-all and end-all of life. Yes,

because meditation itself gives the bliss, immanent in the

Absolute Reality. Meditation on the Absolute is communion

with or worship of, the Divine. So this line stands for the

‘Ananda’ (Bliss) of the Reality. The three lines together,

of the gAyatrI incorporate, in a sense, the three-fold

universal practice of all Religion, namely, Glorification

of the super-natural, Worship of the Supra-mental and

Prayer to The All-mighty.

 

15. Mine of Stotras.

 

In the devI-mAhAtmyam three major manifestations of the

Goddess are described and in each case there are very

delightful poems of praise. The first story therein is

that of MahA-kALi who made Herself manifest at the pitiful

appeal and praise of BrahmA, the Creator Himself, imploring

Her as the Goddess of Cosmic Sleep (= yoga-nidrA) to wake

up Lord VishNu who was plunged in cosmic sleep during the

cosmic night between two kalpas of BrahmA. The two demons

Madhu and KaiTabha were done away with as a consequence of

the waking up of Vishnu. In the second story we are told

that MahA-lakshmi with Her eighteen hands – representing

the eighteen vidyAs – appeared from all the inner

vitalities of all the Gods and divinities and so in that

sense represents the total might of everything divine. The

object in this case was the demon MahishhAsura whose end

had to be only at the hands of a feminine deity.

 

Incidentally, the eighteen vidyAs or eighteen units of

knowledge are:

1 to 4. The four Vedas;

5 to 10. The six VedAngas, or organs of the vedas:

Sikshha or Seekshha (Phonetics), (the nose and lungs)

VyaakaraNa (Grammar), (the mouth)

Niruktam (Etymology), (the ears)

Chandas (Metric composition), (the feet)

Kalpa (Ceremonials), (the arms)

Jyotishha (Astronomy-cum-astrology); (the eyes)

11. All the purANas as one unit;

12. Dharma-shAstras (the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, and the

other kavyas);

13. MimAmsA ;

14. nyAya;

15. Ayurveda;

16. Dhanurveda;

17. Gandharva-veda;

18. artha-shAstra and kAma-shAstra as one unit.

 

After MahishhAsura is done with, the gods together praise

Her as Adi-parA-shakti who is at the root of all their

strength, power, charm and grace. Again, later when the

asuras, Shumbha and Nishumbha were at the peak of their

terror and terrorism, the same gods had to invoke Her again

and recall Her promise that She would come to their help

any time they wanted. There is a beautiful stotra here,

pregnant with meaning, which is very often repeated by the

devotees. This is the one where you get perorations like

“yA devI sarva-bhUteshhu buddhi-rUpeNa samsthitA;

namas-tasyai namas-tasyai namas-tasyai namo-namah”. Here

prostrations are offered to the Goddess, three times in

every verse, each verse glorifying Her as the

personification, in turn, of VishNu MayA, Consciousness,

Intellect, Sleep, Hunger, Shadow, Power, Thirst, Patience,

Status, Shyness, Peace, Faith, Brilliance, Work, Wealth,

Attitude, Memory, Compassion, Satisfaction, Mother,

Delusion.

 

16. Stotras are supreme.

 

This time the manifestation is that of MahA-Sarasvati,

called KaushikI, who came out of the very body of Parvati

(the consort of Lord Shiva) and is the personification of

all that is skilful and all that is knowledge. By just a

grunt ( = humkAra), She was able to kill the demon

dUmra-locanA and with the help of the manifestation of KALi

She was able to do away with ChanDa, MunDa and Rakta-bIja –

all of which needed the greatest of divine machination and

ingenuity, not to speak of the brutal might that had to

match that of these once-blessed demons. When Shumbha and

Nishumbha are finally killed, again the gods heave a big

sigh of relief and recite a matchless Stotra called

nArAyaNa-stuti.

 

The greatness of the book devI-mAhAtmyam is not a little

due to these four stotras embedded in these seven hundred

verses. A little sample from nArAyaNa-stuti would not be

out of place. “You are the vaishhNavI-shakti, the supreme

Energy of the Lord of Sustenance, VishNu; or also, the

supreme Transcendental Energy and Power. You are the seed

of the universe. You are the supreme mAyA” – indicating

thereby that the PrakRti or mAyA which is the cause of all

this universe of space and time is Her creation, Her

expression of the Divine will – which fact is also

emphasized by Adi Sankara in his dakshhiNA-mUrti-stotra:

cf. ‘mAyA-kalpita-desha-kAla-kalanAt’.

 

17. A riddle about women

 

And then the stuti goes on:

 

“vidyAs-samastAs-tava devi bhedAh,

striyAs-samastAs-sakalA jagatsu”

 

All the arts and sciences, in fact, all knowledge, are only

different expressions of Your Light, says the verse. And in

the second line it says all women in the universe are also

so. Here the Sanskrit text allows a deeper perception which

we owe to Sri Aurobindo. Pundits who have commented on this

verse have stumbled on the apparent repetition imbedded in

the words: samastAs-sakalAh. The two words “samastAh” and

“sakalAh” both mean the same thing, namely, “all”. Why was

this repeated? The Pundits say: the second word “sakalA”

(“sakalAh” is the plural of “sakalA”) has to be broken as

“sa-kalA”, meaning ‘she who is endowed with the fine arts’.

Thus it would appear, Mother Goddess finds expression, not

in all the women of the universe but only in those women

who are endowed with a skill in the fine arts. Pundits

were satisfied with this meaning and the community of women

also took it lying, as it were. Because this interpretation

had the sanction of tradition, apparently nobody even

noticed the implied insult to women as a whole.

 

Another interpretation, again by the Pundits, is also in

vogue. This one is rather esoteric and involves some

knowledge of kAma-shAstra. The word ‘kalA’ has a meaning

in numerology, namely, the number sixteen. It appears there

are exactly sixteen erotic spots in the physical anatomy of

a woman. So a woman endowed with ‘kalA’ would mean a woman

who can respond to these sixteen spots, that is, a woman

between the ages of 15 and 45, say. Thus again, the meaning

of the verse would come down to saying that not all women,

but only a certain subset of them, have the prerogative of

being the expressions of Mother Goddess. But Sri Aurobindo

would not to either this or the earlier

interpretation.

 

18. All women are expressions of Mother Goddess.

 

Sri Aurobindo, naturally, was totally opposed to this

distinction between woman and woman. He says: ‘kalA’ means

‘part’ or ‘fraction’. So ‘sa-kalA’ should mean that all the

parts are present or are represented. In other words it

means ‘the fullest’. Thus the verse would mean: all forms

of knowledge are only different manifestations of Yourself,

O Mother, but in the universe the community of women are

your fullest expressions! This is the reason for the

worship of young girls as Divine Mother in the ritual

called ‘SuvAsinI PujA’. In fact it is this Indian genius of

considering each woman as the fullest expression of the

Divine Mother that is missed by the lay writer about India

and Hinduism – and, Women!

 

Conclusion

 

In the end we may pray, with Adi Shankara (Soundaryalahari

#27), that whatever we may do may be a dedication and pUjA

to that Mother Goddess. May all our prattlings and

speeches be a japa of Her names. May all our physical

movements be mudrAs (ritualistic arrangements of fingers)

in Her pUjA. May all our wanderings day in and day out be a

pradakshhiNa (circumambulation) of Her, the Supreme Mother.

May our sleep itself be a namaskara to Her in full

surrender. May the act of eating that we do several times a

day be the offerings in the yajna (sacrifice) to propitiate

Her. In fact everything that we enjoy, even if it be an

iota of enjoyment, is nothing but an atomic fraction of the

Supreme Bliss, which is Hers. May everything that we do in

the sense of Self-dedication, be items in Her service.

 

(Concluded).

 

Om Shri Raja-Rajeshvaryai namah.

 

PraNAms to all devotees of Mother Goddess

profvk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

My website on Science and Spirituality is http://www.geocities.com/profvk/

You can access my book on Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought Vision and

Practice, and my father R. Visvanatha Sastri's manuscripts from the site.