Aum Ambikayai Namaha!

2

Parameswari

Ya Devi sarvabhuteshu chetanethyabhidiyathe,

Namasthasyai, namasthasyai, namasthasyai namo namaha!

O Goddess who is designated as consciousness in all creatures,

Hail to thee, hail to thee, all hail to thee!

The central concept of Hindu philosophy is the belief that wisdom is something to be recovered rather than discovered. Absolute truth is not something to be discussed as an intellectual concept but is something to be lived. It is a way of life—the Sanatana Dharma. In fact, Sanatana Dharma is the original name of the Hindu religion. This way gets lost or diluted through the process of time, but great incarnations appear from time to time in order to uplift this eternal dharma (law of righteousness), as Lord Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.

The Vedas are the most ancient source of Indian wisdom. They are the heritage of the world. They were revealed to, or recovered by, ancient rishis in a state of superconsciousness. The Puranas, on the other hand, are of human origin. The Puranas are epics; the literal meaning of purana is “narrative from ancient times.” Indians as a whole did not believe in writing down history, but the Puranas give us a good view of the different phases and aspects of the life of the diverse ages of this land. These books allow us a glimpse into ancient religion, philosophy, history, sociology, politics, and other subjects. The Puranas are normally recited by a class of people called Sutas during periods of rest between the various rituals of a Vedic sacrifice. They are divided into two classes: the Maha Puranas and the Upa Puranas. Each class contains eighteen books. Thus the total number of Puranas is thirty-six. The Maha Puranas are classified into different categories—Vaishnava, Braahma, Shaiva, and so on—depending on the preferential treatment they give to each of the three primary deities, Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva.

The Puranas are intimately related to the Vedas. They interpret and adapt the metaphysical truths of the Vedas so that they can be understood and appreciated by the common man. The Puranas do not proclaim any new truths but only make the Vedic truths available in a contemporary and relevant way. The Vedas are revealed truth, known as sruti. The Puranas reveal the same truth in a modern setting; this is known as smrti, and smrti is in complete harmony with sruti. The Vedas are reserved for the Brahmin caste and the initiates and may not be taught to all. All, on the other hand, may hear the Puranas. Recitations are done in public to audiences of all classes. With its usual flexible approach to spirituality, the Hindu tradition believes that each generation must make the Vedic truth its very own in its own way, as must each individual. Thus, though the Vedic truths remained fixed and unalterable, the Puranas could and did change with the changing times, incorporating the devotional teachings of numerous cults and saintly teachers that arose from time to time in this holy land.

Time, according to the Puranas, is changeless and without beginning or end. Though it is by nature insubstantial, it takes form when it causes the stirring of the three gunas of Prakriti at the beginning of each creative cycle. The sun is the visible form of the supreme absolute as time. The shortest period of time is called a paramanukala, and this is the period of time it takes for the light of the sun to pass one paramanu, which is the tiniest particle of matter. The time taken for the light of the sun to pass through the twelve rasis or constellations around the earth, which is a huge amount of matter, is known as a year. One human year is only one day for the gods. The six months from January fourteenth to June fourteenth comprise a divine day, and from June fifteenth to January thirteenth is a divine night. The years cycle through four yugas or epochs of three thousand years each: Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dwapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga. These four together are known as one chaturyuga.

A thousand chaturyugas is only one day in the world of Brahma, the creator. His night is another thousand chaturyugas. The life span of each Brahma is a hundred such years and is known as a kalpa, which is an astronomical period of time as can be seen. We are now living in the dawn of the first day of the present Brahma, who is in his fifty-first year. Each day of Brahma is divided into fourteen ages or manvantaras of approximately seventy-one chaturyugas. The lawgiver Manu, who rules for one manvantara, is in charge of each manvantara. He is the one who makes the laws for that particular manvantara. It must be remembered that the name Manu only denotes a status and does not refer to just one person. All the lesser gods, including Indra, the seven sages, and various other celestial beings, exist in each manvantara. Lord Vishnu and Maha Devi incarnate themselves in each manvantara in order to maintain the balance of righteousness.

According to the Puranas, creation is cyclic in nature. A vast period of creation is followed by a vast period of pralaya or dissolution. At the time of pralaya, everything in the cosmos is taken back into the primeval essence. After the passage of eons, when the time is ripe for another creation, the one eternal Brahman takes on the form of duality, just as one face becomes two when reflected in the mirror, allowing again the illusion of differentiation that creates time, space, and causality. This is all the play or lila of the supreme.

There are three different types of pralaya based on time, substance, and the attributes of Prakriti. The first, called Nitya Pralaya, is dissolution based on time alone, which all of us experience when we go to sleep. Each night is a pralaya for the jiva (embodied soul). When we sleep we have no world and no individuality. We have not totally disappeared but are merely in a state of latency, submerged in the total consciousness. The moment we awake, the world springs into being and individuality asserts itself.

The next type of dissolution is Maha Pralaya or Naimittika Pralaya, which is the night of Brahma, the creator. After one day of Brahma, which lasts for a thousand chaturyugas, one night of Brahma or Maha Pralaya occurs, lasting another thousand chaturyugas. During this time the whole universe, up to Satyaloka (the world of Brahma), goes into a state of involution. At the end of this vast period of time, Maha Maya employs her power as time and causality to evoke another period of creation and evolution.

In the third type of dissolution, called Prakritika Pralaya, all the qualities and attributes of Prakriti dissolve into their ultimate cause, which is Maha Prakriti or Mula Prakriti. This in turn reverts to its ultimate cause—the Brahman. This pralaya lasts for eons. But it is to be noted that even during this dissolution, nothing is destroyed; everything merely remains in its latent state.

As each manvantara proceeds through its yugas, humankind’s memory and intellect become poorer, and they have more difficulty memorizing the vast mantras (mystical incantations) of the Vedas. For this reason, in every Dwapara Yuga (third yuga), Lord Vishnu himself takes on the incarnation known as the sage Veda Vyasa. Vyasa’s duty is to divide the Vedas into four parts so that they become easier to memorize.

The original Purana is said to have emanated from the fifth mouth of the creator Brahma and comprises a billion slokas (verses). This original exists only in the world of the gods, however. In order to reach out to the common people, Veda Vyasa also compiles the Puranas that exist in the mortal world, an abridgment of the original divine Purana. These Puranas are an outpouring of his compassion for the masses, allowing them to understand the mystical truths of the Vedas. In the present manvantara, known as Vaivasvata, we are now living in the Kali Yuga or the Iron Age. The Veda Vyasa of this manvantara was known as Krishna Dwaipayana.

It is to be noted that though Vyasa is the author of all the Puranas, in each of them he extols the uniqueness of the particular deity addressed. There are two reasons for this. The first is to show people that all deities are only aspects of the supreme truth and that sincere devotion to any of them will give us liberation from our mortal coils. The second reason is to convince the votaries of each particular deity of the greatness of their own personal god. In general Hindus can be classified as one of five types of votaries. The worshippers of the supreme in its aspect as Shiva are known as Shaivites. The worshippers of Vishnu are known as Vaishnavites, and those who worship the supreme as Devi are known as Shaktas. There are also two lesser-known sects: the Ganapatyas, who worship the supreme as Ganesha, and the Souryas, who worship the sun as the supreme. Of course there are also the Advaitins, who worship the supreme as the formless, nondual Brahman. The Upanishads, which come at the end of the Vedas, deal with the nondual Brahman, while the Puranas deal with all other deities.

The Devi Bhagavatam, classified as one of the Maha Puranas, focuses on the supreme in its aspect as Devi; indeed, it is sometimes called the Devi Purana. It is said that Veda Vyasa narrated this Purana to his son Shuka, who then taught it to various others. It has eighteen thousand slokas and is divided into twelve books. This Purana depicts the ultimate reality as feminine. It is the earliest literary work in which the character of the goddess stands fully revealed; even today Hindus conceive of her as she is pictured in this scripture. In the Devi Bhagavatam we find that all the gods and the great kings have recourse to Maha Devi in order to get her blessings. This Purana deals with all her different incarnations and forms, from the river Ganga to the plant tulasi and so on.

Each Purana must deal with at least five topics: creation or sarga, secondary creation or visarga, the ages of Manu or manvantaras, genealogies of various kings, and a description of their heroic deeds. The Devi Bhagavatam describes creation thus: Devi is beyond attributes, eternal and omnipresent. She is formless and immutable. But for the sake of the world she assumes the form of three shaktis (powers) based on the attributes of her three gunas. Her sattvic shakti takes the name of Maha Lakshmi, her rajasic shakti is known as Maha Saraswati, and her tamasic shakti is called Durga or Maha Kaali. In the sarga portion of the Devi Bhagavatam, these three shaktis of Devi assume different forms for the creation of this universe of diverse forms. In the visarga portion, these shaktis take on male counterparts known as Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva for the preservation, creation, and dissolution of the universe. Thus all male gods have shaktis or inherent powers that enable them to create.

The Devi Bhagavatam’s description of the origin of the world differs from that of other Puranas in that Devi is named the supreme power and creator of the cosmos.¹ She herself describes the process of creation to the creator Brahma. She is Maha Devi, Maha Maya, Maha Prakriti, and Maha Shakti. She is also Lakshmi, Saraswati, Parvati, Durga, Kaali, Chandika, and a host of other powers that are depicted in the Purana as goddesses.

The book begins with a request by the sages to the narrator, known as Suta, to describe the qualities and glories of Devi. Suta responds,

I bow at the lotus feet of Devi—Bhagavati, who is worshipped by Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva and who is the sole source of liberation to all. This is the best of all Puranas and contains all the sentiments that a human being can conceive. It is known as the Srimad Devi Bhagavatam. May that highest primal Shakti, who is known as Vidya in the Vedas, who is omniscient, who controls all, and who is skilled in cutting the knot of the world, give me the intelligence to describe her glories. I meditate on that Divine Mother who creates this universe, whose nature is both real and unreal, who creates, preserves, and destroys everything in her rajasic, sattvic, and tamasic aspects, and who in the end dissolves everything back into herself and remains alone during the period of universal dissolution.

The Devi Bhagavatam goes on to describe the basic formation of the universe and the forms—human and otherwise—that comprise it. It introduces the idea that Brahman, the supreme absolute from which everything emanates, has a dual aspect of male and female, personified as Shakti and Shiva or Prakriti and Purusha. The Devi herself is both Shakti and Prakriti. She is known by various names as Parashakti and Parameswari—the Absolute force as well as the Absolute God. However, as mentioned in the introduction, neither male nor female can exist in isolation. Each is inherent in and dependent on the other; each completes the other. The whole of creation is at first only an idea in the mind of the supreme Brahman. The idea is given a concrete reality and expression in the world by Shakti or Prakriti, the feminine force that underlies and impels creation. But to make a difference between the “force” and the “receptacle of force” is an error. Prakriti or Parameswari is the inherent tendency of Purusha to express himself in concrete forms and individual beings. However, she has to be set in motion by the will of Purusha and acts according to his force and design. It is only through Shakti or Prakriti that the male aspect is able to express himself in creation. Though the male and female aspects are one in essence, differences are conceived during creation; when everything melts back to its original causal state of pralaya, then there is no distinction between Purusha and Prakriti, Shiva and Shakti, and Brahman. There is neither male nor female. There is only Brahman, with Devi (Maha Maya) or Parameswari latent in it.

Brahman is the ocean of pure consciousness. It can never be known and it is always one, never two. But when it wants to become conscious of itself, a desire bubbles to the surface of this ocean and this bubble is Prakriti or Maha Devi or Parashakti or Parameswari, which develops itself into this variegated universe in the method described above. Even though Maha Shakti appears outwardly in numerous forms, this creative force is always emanating from the Brahman so it has all the qualifications of the Brahman. When it manifests itself in the human being it is called the atman, which is nothing other than the Brahman. However, when it puts on the clothing and personality of a human being, it is called the jivatman, which is the atman that thinks itself to be a bound and unhappy creature always on the seesaw of sorrow and joy, pleasure and pain, swimming—and sometimes drowning—in the sea of duality. In actuality, its abode is the ocean of pure consciousness, which is also an ocean of bliss.

Many beautiful allegories are given in the Puranas to give us an idea of this interdependence of Purusha and Prakriti. He is the supreme subject and she is the essence of all objects; he is the ocean and she the waves. He is the sun and she the light; he is the sky and she the earth. She is all qualities and he the enjoyer of all qualities; she is all activity and he the sole witness of all activity. She is the form of everything in the cosmos and he the thinker of the forms. She is speech and he the meaning. In other words, she is creation and he the creator.

Prakriti and Purusha have no beginning and no end. They exist in everything. Purusha is the universal consciousness that exists in everything; he is the highest self. Prakriti is the energy that is felt in all beings. Both are nirguna or without qualities. No human being can know the essence of their union even by the study of the scriptures or the Vedas, for the jivas are all saguna or endowed with the qualities of the three gunas—sattva, rajas, and tamas. How then can we ever know that which is nirguna or beyond all gunas?

The gunas are the agents of Prakriti by which the immortal and imperishable atman, though it is nothing but pure consciousness, imagines itself to be the mortal and perishable body. Maha Maya weaves a net of these three strands (guna means “thread”) to catch the atman and trap it in this delusion. Once caught in the net of maya, the immortal self delights in its mortality and frailty. This is the wonder of the work of maya. The mind has a predilection to enjoy the limitations of its body. It is happy to shrink into the cocoon of its small, prejudiced individuality and refuses to believe in its universality. Moksha or enlightenment is liberation from the shackles of this puny individuality—from the limitations of particularized existence. The only way out of this web of delusion, as Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, is to go beyond the three gunas.

Sattva is the source of pleasure and happiness. It induces a person to all types of good thoughts and activities. Rajas is the source of hyperactivity, leading to pain and unhappiness. Tamas leads to laziness, sloth, and sleep. The path to liberation lies in encouraging sattvic qualities, controlling rajasic qualities, and destroying tamasic qualities. However, it is not enough to strive to become purely sattvic. After all, none of these qualities can exist by itself. Though at different times and in different people one or the other might become prominent, they are always intermingled and dependent on one another. And so long as we are in their power we will always live in dread of a fall. Only a gunatita or one who has gone beyond the gunas can have no fear of a fall. Such a person comes to realize his own divine nature as pure consciousness and is thus freed from the bondage of maya. Such realization, however, can come only with the grace of Maha Maya herself, since she is the one who has caught us in this net of delusion. Therefore those who desire moksha have to pray to her to remove the veil of illusion from their eyes.

The Devi Bhagavatam teaches us that the Brahman is the undecaying principle of fullness—the ultimate substratum of everything. It is totally without desire or qualities. Therefore it is not able to create or accomplish any action without the help of its inherent force or Shakti— Maha Maya, the feminine principle, the great goddess—Parameswari. All the gods—Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Ganesha, Indra, and so on—can do their respective work only if they are united with Shakti. So Maha Maya can be considered the sole cause of this entire universe of movable and immovable objects. She is the cause of all causes and manifests as Maha Lakshmi, Maha Saraswati, and Maha Kaali. We should worship her with all adoration. Even the gods worship her in order to do their allotted tasks.

Infinity turned its gaze on finite shapes.

Observer of the silent steps of the hours,

And the passing scenes of the Everlasting’s play,

In the mystery of its selecting will,

In the divine comedy a participant.

The Spirit’s conscious representative.

God’s delegate in our humanity,

Comrade of the universe. Transcendent’s ray.

She had come into the mortal body’s room,

To play at ball with time and circumstance.

—SAVITRI BY SRI AUROBINDO

Thus ends the second chapter of Shakti, known as “Parameswari,” describing the Devi Bhagavatam and its view of creation.

Aum Aim Hreem Kleem