Mother Goddess - 2

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Mother Goddess, in Hindu Thought and Culture - 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9. What a Grace!

 

 

 

In order for such over-riding of our vAsanAs to happen with the Grace of Mother

Goddess we must surrender to Her and make Her wish our wish. The fact that most

of us are still having our ego is because we do not allow the Mother to cut it

off with Her sword of enlightenment! In other words we should accept Her as the

Mother. Then there is no end to Her Grace (= karuNA). She is ‘MatA-kRpA-sAgarI’,

an ocean of Grace. She is ‘avyAja-karuNA-mUrti’, that is, one who dispenses

Grace without being prompted by a reason for that Grace. “She gives you wealth,

education, indefatigible strength of mind, vision of God, a vileless heart and

everything that is good; all this She gives to Her devotees, just by Her

side-glance” – as the work ‘abhirAmi-antAdi’ would say in Tamil. Adi Shankara

also prays for the same side-glance in his Soundarya-lahari (#57) and says: “Oh

Goddess ShivA! Cast a little side-glance of your superbright eyes on this poor

me, bathe me in the waters of Your Grace; it will

beatify me and You have nothing to lose”. The graceful glance of the Mother

Goddess is repeatedly referred to in every stotra glorifying Her. Cf.

“Kandarpa-janaka-apAnga-vIkshhaNA” (lalitA-trishati),

“Hara-netrAgni-sandagdha-kAma-sanjIvanoushadhih” (lalitA-sahasra-nAma). Both

these names refer to the fact that even the much-maligned Manmatha was blessed

by the Goddess. Why not ordinary people like us? Incidentally Manmatha knows Her

greatness, as the scriptures themselves testify in the Surya-namaskara chapter

of the Yajur-veda .

 

 

 

She is ‘kAruNya-vigrahA’; Grace is part and parcel of Her. Grace is Her body;

She is the personification of Grace. That is why when we pray for the Grace of

God, we pray to Her. Prayer to a personal God should be to a form which comes

out of its own free will to create, which is un-bound in the kArmic cycle, which

is a treasure house of sat, cit, Ananda and whose sole purpose is to pour out

Grace. All this constitutes the foremost quality of the Mother. In order to

propitiate Her, there are four major pieces of religious literature. These four

are: the devI-MahAtmyam; lalitA-sahasranAmam; lalitA-trishatI; and

soundarya-laharI. The importance and significance of these four stotras for devi

worship can never be overemphasized.

 

 

 

8. Each name of Hers is a capsule of Divinity.

 

 

 

Let us now take the two namAvalis, lalitA-sahasranAmam and lalitA trishati. As

the names indicate, the first one contains 1000 names and the second one

contains 300 names of the Goddess. These famous stotras were both taught by

Hayyagriva, Her foremost devotee, who was himself Vishnu incarnate, to agastya,

the sage of all sages. The sahasranAmam was originally recited by the

vAg-devatAs, the Goddesses of speech, right in the presence of Goddess lalitA

Herself. The trishati was originally composed by no lesser divinities than Lord

Shiva and Parvati, taking turns. Every name of Goddess enshrined in these

stotras has a tremendous connotation and significance for the full gamut of

Hinduism. In fact, the entire philosophy, mythology and purport of Hindu worship

are built into these names, which are not one but thousands and more.

 

 

 

Take a name as simple as, say, UMA. Three syllables, ‘u’ , ‘ma’ and ‘A’

constitute the word umA. The same three syllables, in a different order, though,

constitute the most important mantra of Hindu thought, AUM. So everything that

is connoted by Aum, that is, what all the scriptures say in essence (cf. ‘sarve

vedA yat padam Amananti’ – meaning, what all the Vedas say in one word) is also

indicated by the word umA.

 

 

 

Further, ‘u’ means Shiva, the nature of Shiva is the unmanifested brahman; It is

the PrakRti, the inherent characteristic of brahman that helps us bring into

our mind and worship the delimitation of that unlimited brahman. Thus ‘umA’

delimits brahman and brings him to our comprehension. This is what the

derivation of the word ‘umA’ says: “ukAra-rupaM brahmANaM mAti iti umA”. The

word ‘mAti’ means delimits, circumscribes, concretises. As can be seen, the

derivation of words from their root syllables is, in the Sanskrit language, a

very instructive exercise and Hindu religious literature is replete with such

derivations for almost every word that it uses. To recite these names is to be

immersed in the wealth of their meanings. This is the surest and smoothest way

to concentrate on the Almighty and delight in ecstatic states of experience in

the remembrance of the Supreme.

 

 

 

Another meaning for ‘umA’ is: The One, who was prevented. This refers to the

situation where Parvati wanted to do penance of the severest kind, and her

mother beckoned her, with the monosyllable ‘u’ and said: ‘No’. (‘mA’ in Sanskrit

means ‘No’). It is in this form and name that the Mother of the Universe appears

to Indra, the Lord of the divines, in Kenopanishad, as the physical

manifestation of the incomprehensible Supreme. There are also other esoteric

meanings of ‘umA’. In sum a simple name like umA has so much embedded into it,

in terms of mythology, philosophy and cultural history. In fact this is true of

most of the names of God that we find not only in lalitA-sahasranAma but in

every sahasranAma.

 

 

 

9. Names are scriptural epitomes

 

 

 

Every sahasranAma of God describes the Lord’s infinite qualities in several ways

and each description is only a fragmentary rendering of the infinite number of

auspicious attributes that we can ever offer to Him. Every sahasranAma has the

same majesty of encyclopaedic exhaustiveness. lalitA sahasranAma is famous for

the internal organization of the text and the rhythmic sound vibrations it can

produce. lalitA is dear to devotees because of their devotion, so She is

‘Bhakti-priyA’. She is also ‘Bhakti-gamyA’, because She is attainable through

Bhakti alone. She is ‘BhayApahA’, since She removes all fears. She is

‘Bhakti-vashyA’, since She is bound by Bhakti. She is ‘niranjana’, faultless;

‘nirlepA’, attachmentless; ‘nirmalA’, blemishless; ‘nityA’, permanent;

‘nirAkAra’, formless; ‘nirAkulA’, delusionless; and therefore not reachable by

those who are deluded. She is ‘nirbhavA’, one without birth or death; and for

this very reason, She is ‘bhava-nAshinI’, one who destroys the disease of

birth and death. She is ‘antar-mukha-samArAdhyA’, one who is to be worshipped

by turning inward. And by the same token, She is ‘bahir-mukha-sudurlabhA’,

unattainable, if you look outward. She is devoid of name and form, so

‘nAma-rUpa-vivarjitA’. She is however pleased by the recitation of Her names, so

‘nAma-pArAyaNa-prItA’. She is the One Person to be known by all the vedas,

therefore ‘veda-vedyA’. She is the original source of the vedas, therefore

‘veda-jananI’. She is the One who is pointed out by the word ‘That’ in all the

scriptures, so She is ‘tad-pada-lakshyArthA’.

 

 

 

11. lalitA-trishatI

 

 

 

This particular piece, trishati, is considered to be even more sacred and

powerful than the sahsra-nAma. The names are not just names, each one of them is

a mantra -- in the sense that they have esoteric spiritual meanings and when

recited, the very recitation, even without the understanding of the meaning, can

give powerful effects, just because of the vibrations they can generate. Every

sahasra-nAma and every name of God has this characteristic, but in the case of

lalitA-trishati it is expressly certified to be so. Consequently each name is

dense with meanings, not only with the obvious ones but with several non-obvious

profound interpretations. Adi-Sankara has written an elaborate commentary on

it.

There is a fifteen-letter mantra for the Goddess which is not only famous but at

the same time forms the greatest of secrets in the worship of the Goddess --

secret in the sense that the mantra has to be earned from a guru orally after a

number of prerequisites are fulfilled to the satisfaction of the guru. The three

hundred names in the trishati occur in groups of twenty names, one for each

letter of the fifteen-letter mantra. So the first 20 names all start with the

letter 'ka' which is the first letter of the mantra. The second 20 names all

start with the letter 'e' which is the second letter of the mantra; and so on it

goes. The mantra is thus well-known because we can guess the text of the mantra

by putting together the first letters of the fifteen groups of 20 names. But we

are not supposed to be in possession of the mantra until we have 'received' it

from a guru -- who must have himself repeatedly recited it several hundreds of

thousands of times with all the reverence and

concentration it demands so that he possesses the spirit of the mantra in him!

 

 

 

This concept of the spiritual possession of a mantra is an important part of

the culture of the religions of the East. And In Hinduism particularly, the

necessity to repeat the mantra has an extraordinary emphasis because the effect

of the mantra is held to be proportional to the intensity of the spiritual

possession of it and this latter, is directly proportional to the number of

times it has been repeated formally and reverentially.

 

 

 

12.Mantra power

 

 

 

To chant the names of God is to be immersed in the ecstasy of identity with the

glories of God as encompassed by the name we chant. The mind is always riddled

with desire and hate, lust and greed, and so is as unsteady as a sailboat in an

ocean and as such, needs a symbol, a prop, upon which God can be superimposed

for the purpose of single-minded concentration. The name of God or Goddess

serves as this symbol. Reciting Her names, repeating them in a certain rhythmic

pattern, recalling Her majesty and splendour, Her immanence and Transcendence,

Her omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence, Her perfection - these are the

ways in which one uses this prop of Her names for turning the mind inward. Such

a prop of God's names is used in every religion. But in Hinduism it is the

unmistakable central chord that vibrates throughout the vast tradition and

literature.

 

 

 

And the foundational concept for this is the power of the mantra. In fact if

there is one thing that is common to all the votaries of the religion, spread

through its multifarious sects and schools, it is the value and significance

that get attached to mantras and names of God – though the mantras or the names

may differ from sect to sect and school to school. Whether one murmurs it or

says it aloud whether it is done non-stop for hours together or it is done at

set timings each day, whether it is done as a penitiential act or an act with a

desire, whether it is done in a static posture or when one is moving, whether it

is done individually or collectively, – the belief in the efficacy of

mantra-power is the great common factor of all votaries of the Hindu religion.

The mantra may be just a name (= nAma), of a deity enshrined in a temple or of

an avatAra of God or of God thought of without any reference to a temple or

location.

 

 

 

(To be continued and concluded)

 

PranAms to all devotees of Mother Goddess.

 

profvk

 

 

 

 

 

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.