Navaratri - Celebrating the Symbolic Vision of the Goddess

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Article of the Month - October 2007

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Navaratri - Celebrating the Symbolic Vision of the Goddess

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The killing of a demon by a deity is not mere physical

annihilation, but rather liberation, a manifestation of divine

grace. Rama liberated Ravana, and Krishna did the same with the

vile Kansa. This is however the maximum they could give to the

villains. In none of their worshippable images are they ever

shown with these demons. It is only the supremely compassionate

Goddess Durga who gives space in her image to the principal demon

she has killed, thus ensuring that he too is worshipped along

with her. If this is the grace that the goddess showers on a

villain, then can there be a measure of the blessings she will

bestow on her loving devotees?

 

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The ongoing festival of Navaratri (nine nights) is a celebration

of this Great Goddess, in which the actual worship is divided

into three parts, where the goddess is worshipped in her three

essential forms. The two principal scriptures of the goddess -

The Devi Mahatmya and the Devi Bhagavata Purana, highlight these

aspects with highly instructive and symbolic stories.

 

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On the Verge of Creation - The First Form of the Goddess

 

Before the creation of the world, Lord Vishnu lay in deep

meditative sleep on his serpent coiled in the form of a couch. A

lotus then sprang from his navel, on which was seated the god of

creation Brahma. No sooner had this happened than two demons

named Madhu and Kaitabh also sprang from the earwax of Vishnu,

intending to kill Brahma.

 

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Brahma tried to awaken Lord Vishnu by shaking the stalk of the

lotus he was sitting on, but in vain. He then realized that the

sleep that had settled on Vishnu's eyes was the Great Goddess in

her form of Mahamaya, an expression of the divine mother's power

of delusion. Brahma then worshipped her with an inspiring hymn of

praise, asking her to release Vishnu from his slumber. The

ever-compassionate goddess obliged.

 

Awakening, Vishnu held Madhu Kaitabh and engaged them in a

combat, which went on for five thousand years. The two demons

then puffed up with pride, thinking themselves invincible. It was

at this moment that the great goddess struck at the duo with her

maya, making them vain enough to say to Lord Vishnu himself:

 

" We are pleased with your power and strength. Go ahead and ask

for a boon. "

 

Vishnu immediately seized the opportunity and asked for the boon

that they be slain by him then and there. Indeed, one should

always watch out for those moments of pride, which are the

opportune instances for maya to delude us.

 

Thus cornered, the duo realized their folly; but seeing water

everywhere, they were wise enough to ask that they be killed only

in a dry place. Vishnu then sat down in the water itself.

However, like the auspicious lotus remains untouched by the water

it grows in, similarly did Vishnu's lotus like body remain

untainted. He then proceeded to place both of them on either

thigh, and cut off their heads.

 

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The Symbolic Meaning of Vishnu's Encounter with Madhu and Kaitabh

 

Madhu actually means honey and he represents attachment (raag) to

this world, which seems sweet to us. Kaitabh means a pricking

thorn and signifies our aversion (dvesha) to things we deem as

unpleasant. Both of these traits, which do much to make up our

overall nature or temperament (prakriti or svabhav), is a residue

carried over from numerous previous births. Both are products of

maya and need to be annihilated.

 

In another interpretation, Madhu is honeyed praise, while Kaitabh

is sour criticism, both of which enter through our ears, but are

two side of the same mayic coin and need to be discarded. In

either of the interpretations, the two demons attack our

intelligence, symbolized by Brahma who is the patron deity of

intellect. The Bhagavad Gita says:

 

" When your intellect, though perplexed by what you have heard,

shall stand immovable and steady, then shall you attain

self-realization " . (2.53)

 

The goddess as restful sleep is an apt metaphor signifying her

motherhood. When a mother sees her small child tired after

playing in the fierce sun, she catches hold of him, feeds him and

pats him to sleep, even against his own wishes, knowing very well

that the sleep will restore his energy. Indeed, while our whole

day is spent in emptying our shakti, the compassionate goddess

takes it on herself to continue replenishing it. So she puts

Vishnu to rest, tired after the exhausting task of maintaining

the universe, and when the next creative cycle begins, relieves

him from his slumber.

 

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However, we cannot win over the two demons of attachment/aversion

or praise/criticism, relying solely on our own powers, like Lord

Vishnu who was unable to defeat them even after many years of

fierce battle. The only way to win over maya is to surrender

ourselves to Mahamaya, the goddess who created it in the first

place. The fact that the two demons asked to be killed in a dry

spot is also loaded with spiritual symbolism. Both these pairs of

traits can only be destroyed on the ground of Vairagya

(disenchantment), which is the dry state of existence, devoid of

all worldly rasa.

 

However, the state of the goddess symbolized by sleep is not her

brightest manifestation. The Gita says:

 

" The pleasure arising from sleep is known as tamasic. " (18.39)

 

 

The Three-Fold Vision of the Goddess

 

Shakti is energy, which is the fundamental building block of

matter. The one basic energy, for purpose of human comprehension,

is envisioned as of three types - tamas, rajas and sattva.

 

Tamas is inertia and signifies heaviness, dullness and ignorance.

Rajas is activity, and manifests as restlessness, urgency and

passion. Sattva is calmness. Tamas veils, sattva reveals and

rajas allows these two energies to interact. These three are the

basic forces operating in the universe, and determine everything

from the structuring of the physical world to the subtleties of

human behavior.

 

On a first look one may regard inanimate matter as devoid of

consciousness. It needs to be realized however that their

obscured consciousness is very much observable in the movement of

their atomic and subatomic structure. The Great Goddess is an

expression of the whole universe, whether moving or inert, where

nothing is devoid of consciousness (energy). For example, matter

perceived as solid objects in space and time is in fact nothing

but a relatively stable form of energy, deftly made of bundles of

energy known as 'quanta.' Overall, modern science and Indian

philosophy agree in viewing the physical universe as a

manifestation of energy.

 

In the Devi Mahatmya, the initial characterization of the goddess

in her tamasic character inspires philosophical contemplation on

the nature of reality. The next depiction celebrates her rajasic

aspects, revealing a vision of the goddess actively involved in

the world she has created. Here too she has the touch of a

compassionate mother, worthy of intense devotion, and

additionally, she is also a protective warrior intent on the

victory of good over evil.

 

 

Goddess: Compassionate in Heart, Ruthless in Battle

 

Once upon a time, the negative forces in the universe, led by a

demon in the form of a buffalo named Mahisha, defeated the gods

and drove them out of heaven. The villain considered himself

invincible since he had received a boon from Brahma that no male,

but only a woman could kill him. Proud of his brutish physical

power, Mahisha had no fear of women.

 

The male gods then assembled and projected their collective

energies, which soon became a conflagration and transformed into

a fiery goddess with eighteen arms, each of whose nine hands on

one side represented the two Navaratris in a year.

 

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The supremely beautiful goddess then proceeded near the grounds

of Mahisha's city and let out a roar of terrifying laughter. The

demon's generals reported to him that a woman, perhaps the most

beautiful in the world, was the source of the disturbance.

Mahisha was immediately tempted to possess her and instructed his

army to go and fetch her by appeasement or force. One by one the

generals of the king, who approached the goddess, were killed by

her, and then finally Mahisha came face to face with the goddess

herself.

 

The dialogue between the goddess and some of the demon's generals

and finally between her and Mahishasur form one of the most

interesting portions of the Devi Bhagavata Purana, and sheds a

clear enough light on the essential nature of the goddess, as no

dry philosophical treatise can manage to do.

 

The whole thrust of the demon's dialogue with the Devi was to

remind her that she was essentially a woman, who must take on a

suitable husband at the right time of her life. The goddess

smiled at this naivety and said:

 

" Did you think before addressing my feminine nature? Am I not a

Purusha? Actually, I am the Purusha in women. "

 

The word Purusha is generally translated as male, but that is an

incomplete meaning. The Upanishads clearly say that Purusha is a

city (pura) where the Supreme Reality rests (shayan). Thus

meaning the entire manifested world, since the divine element is

present equally in each and everything.

 

The goddess further says:

 

" I am not an ordinary woman looking for a husband. My husband is

ever present. He is the One and only Nirguna Shiva, who is always

near me. Fools, I do not ever become anybody's wife. "

 

In the Shiva purana too the Goddess Parvati asks anybody who

meditates on her as a woman to be annihilated. Indeed, how can

She, who is the mother of all, become anybody's wife?

 

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Doubt: The Devi Mahatmya says that the goddess was born from the

bodies of the gods (sarva deva sharira 2.13). Does this mean that

the Devi is somehow derived from the gods? How do we reconcile

this with the fact that she is the mother of all, including the

gods?

 

Resolution: It must be realized that the energy emanating from

the gods was not their creation but already an indwelling

presence. What coalesces into the goddess' magnificent form is

actually her own power, previously fragmented amongst the various

deities and now reuniting. Additionally, the gods do not become

depleted of energy after they have used it to form the goddess,

but continue to act as conduits for various powers that are

ultimately hers, even while those individualized powers are

reunited in the vastly more potent person of the Devi. This is

but a vivid statement of the principle of simultaneous immanence

and transcendence.

 

Mahishasur represents unrestrained physical desire (kama), a

formidable enemy which can be tamed only by the consolidation of

all the forces we can muster. The creation of Devi by the

combined energy of the gods also signifies that whoever worships

the goddess has already worshipped all the 330 million deities of

the Hindu pantheon, since she has but emerged out of the combined

essence of all these deities.

 

The Devi's constant refusal of his propositions and her taunts

made Mahisha tremble with uncontrollable rage. Actually, it is

kama which leads to anger, and in Sanskrit literature, anger is

often referred to as 'Kamanuja,' or the younger brother of kama.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna asks Krishna:

 

" Impelled by what force does a man sin? Even though it is against

his wishes? "

 

Krishna replies:

 

" It is voracious desire (kama), O Arjuna, born of rajas, which

begets anger. Know it to be the enemy. " (3.36-37)

 

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To combat Mahishasur' rajasic passion, the goddess too appears in

her rajasic aspect, as the inherent splendor (tejas) of the gods.

When she engages him in a one to one battle, he changes many

forms including that of man, elephant, lion, buffalo etc. This

indicates the many forms our desire takes, bedeviling us in one

way or the other, until it is recognized for what it is.

Actually, it is one single basic desire for pleasure that

expresses itself in myriad forms through our various actions. The

Great Goddess finally pinpoints this basic form of our desire,

and annihilates it with a sharply directed swing of her sword.

 

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The Third and Highest Manifestation of Devi

 

The next time the gods were defeated by the demons, they appealed

directly to the goddess. When they were praying thus, the goddess

Gauri - meaning 'bright and beautiful', who was on her way to

bathe in the Ganges, saw the supplicant gods. Immediately from

her body emerged the auspicious form of Goddess Mahasaraswati,

the embodiment of sattva guna.

 

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The Goddess Mahasaraswati then proceeded to the capital city of

the demons and stopped in an garden just outside the city walls.

There she sang out a melodious song, enchanting the birds in the

trees and bewitching the villains in the city. This is but the

sweet wisdom of knowledge (vidya), represented by Goddess

Saraswati; and the last remaining villain she destroyed was none

other than avidya or ignorance, the subtlest of the three

enemies.

 

Thus the three forms of the goddess are visualized in the

following manner:

 

1). Tamasic Goddess Mahamaya is depicted as shackling Vishnu with

sleep.

 

2). Rajasic Goddess is born from the combined energy of all the

gods.

 

3). The Sattvic Goddess emerges from the body of the goddess

herself.

 

The last signifies that sattva guna is the nearest to the

goddess, in fact, it is the closest we can approach the Devi.

Sattva is however not reality itself, but it points towards

reality. In truth, no philosophy can take the human beyond the

finitizing principle of maya to encompass the infinite,

all-transcending consciousness. This is the last threshold, which

reason cannot cross, where wisdom becomes silence, and

inexpressible experience alone can reveal its truth.

 

Conclusion

 

Actually, the whole of the text of Devi Mahatmya is a blueprint

for the path of sadhana, which is nothing but the unveiling of

maya to reveal our own true selves; maya being none else than the

goddess' divine power of self-concealment, concealing the

infinite consciousness of the supreme reality, restricting us

instead to the finite world of names (nama) and forms (rupa).

This maya is a three-fold shakti, each of which needs to be

overcome by the grace of the Mother Goddess herself:

 

1). The Tamasic Avarana Shakti - The power that veils the

individual consciousness.

 

2). The Rajasic Vikshepa Shakti: The power with which the

manifold nature of the world projects itself on the individual

consciousness perplexing it with its multiplicity, making it

forget its essential unity with the One Supreme Consciousness.

 

3). The Sattvic Jnana Shakti: Finally, this is the liberating

power of knowledge. Thus we see that the Great Goddess is not

only the confounding power of maya, but also the only means to

overcome it - namely vidya or knowledge.

 

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References and Further Reading:

 

Chinmayananda, Swami. The Holy Geeta: Mumbai, 2002.

 

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

Asian Art): Ahmedabad, 1999.

 

Kali, Devadatta. Devimahatmyam In Praise of the Goddess

(Commentary on the Devi Mahatmya): Delhi, 2006.

 

Pandey, Pandit Shri Deen Dayalu Ji. Matri Tattva (Discourses on

the Devi Bhagavata Purana): Jabalpur.

 

Pandey, Shri Pandit Ram Tej (tr.). Shrimad Devi Bhagavatam

(Sanskrit and Hindi): Delhi, 2004.

 

Poddar, Hanumanprasad (ed). Shakti Anka (Special Issue of the

Spiritual Magazine Kalyan): Gorakhpur, 2002.

 

Ram, Shri Ramayandutt Ji Shastri (tr.). The Durga Saptashati with

Hindi Translation: Gorakhpur, 2004.

 

Ranchan, Som. Durga Rahasya A Key to the Eternal Feminine (Devi

Mahatmya) New Delhi, 2001.

 

Vijnanananda, Swami (tr.). The Srimad Devi Bhagavatam (English)

New Delhi, 1998.

 

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