Aum Kalaratryai Namaha!

27

Shivaduti

Ati saumyathiraudrayai nathasthasyai namo namaha!

Namo jagatpratishtayai devyai krtyai namo namaha!

We prostrate before her who is at once most gentle and most terrible.

We salute her again and again.

Salutations to her who is the support of the world.

Salutations to the devi who is of the form of volition.

—DEVI MAHATMYAM, CHAPTER 5

The symbology of gods and goddesses in the Hindu pantheon covers an infinite array of forms. Some are ravishing, some provocative, some kind and compassionate, and others grotesque and barbaric. Some suggest spiritual powers and some material gains. In every case the depiction is elaborately detailed and designed to evoke a certain response within the consciousness of the aspirant. The symbology is based on the eternal archetypal structure of human beings’ collective unconscious. These depictions or mandalas are intended to draw out these archetypes from our unconscious as a magnet draws out iron filings. We have delineated a few of the benign forms of the Maha Devi, and now we have to outline the characteristics of some of her fierce forms. She has two sides that portray the dual-faced visage of creation. To present the good and beautiful alone would be to give a lopsided picture of life. Hinduism insists that both sides should be confronted and accepted before we can be enabled to gain a vision of her supreme form, which is beyond all duality.

Tantric images of gods and goddesses often go beyond the boundaries of the rational. Some forms have sixteen hands and three eyes, some are naked and drink blood, while others are shown carrying weapons of mass destruction. Apart from their symbolic significance, these forms are the Tantric way of asserting that life can never be fitted into one mold. To attempt to do so would simply denigrate the diversity of life. We have to experience life in all its multifaceted, contradictory aspects before we can live it fully.

Many of the violent forms we shall discuss in this chapter are mentioned at various times in both the Devi Mahatmyam and the Devi Bhagavatam as well as other Puranas. One of the fierce goddesses referred to in the Devi Mahatmyam is Shivaduti. In the episode of the battle with the two asura brothers called Shumbha and Nishumbha, Shiva told Chandika to kill all the asura hordes that had been sent by Shumbha and Nishumbha. At this there issued from the body of Chandika an exceedingly fierce and horrific shakti who came out howling like a hundred jackals. Turning to Lord Shiva, she ordered him to go as her emissary to the court of Shumbha and Nishumbha: “Tell those two haughty asuras and all those assembled there that they have to give back to Indra the three worlds that they stole from the gods. They will then be allowed to return to the netherworld, which is their rightful domain. But if out of pride they refuse to obey my command, let them come for battle and allow my jackals to feed on their flesh!”

Since that devi appointed Shiva himself as her ambassador, she came to be known as Shivaduti. She is a common figure on battlefields and other scenes of destruction.

Another group of fearsome goddesses mentioned in the Devi Mahatmyam are the Sapta Matrikas (seven mothers). When the asuric armies of Shumbha and Nishumbha approached Chandika, the male gods who were watching the episode with eager interest from the sidelines created shaktis or female counterparts of themselves to aid her. Seven such shaktis were created, and they resembled the male gods by whom they were produced. They had the same ornaments, vehicles, and weapons as their masculine counterparts. These were the Sapta Matrikas, known as Brahmaani (from Brahma), Maheswari (from Shiva), Kaumari (from Skanda), Indrani (from Indra), Vaishnavi (from Vishnu), Vaarahi (from Vishnu’s incarnation as Varaha), and Nrisimhi (from Vishnu’s incarnation as Narasimha). Along with Kaali and Shivaduti (Durga), the Sapta Matrikas devastated the demon hordes (see chapter 13). After the battle, they danced and rioted, intoxicated with the blood of their victims. Despite their names and appearances they are to be understood not as the divine consorts of the male divinities but rather as forms of the devi herself.

In the Vamana Purana this fact is made even clearer, since the Sapta Matrikas are seen to arise from different parts of Maha Devi’s body and not from the male gods. In the Matsya Purana Shiva commands the Sapta Matrikas to defeat the demon Andhaka. After killing the demon, the bloodthirsty shaktis proceed to devour the gods, demons, and people of the world. They refuse to listen to Shiva and go on a rampage. Shiva then summons Narasimha, Lord Vishnu’s avatara as the man-lion, and he creates a host of benign goddesses who calm down the terrible Matrikas.

The Sapta Matrikas act never by themselves but only as a group, and they share many characteristics. The Puranic accounts show them as Maha Devi’s assistants who help her in combating demons, but their wild, bloodthirsty characters are undiminished whatever the role they play. Their characteristics are meant to portray those demonic traits in the human mind that refuse to be subjugated even with constant example and advice.

The Bhagavad Purana links the Sapta Matrikas with other malevolent beings like rakshasas (giants of darkness and evil) and other spirits of darkness. The gopis made charms for the baby Krishna against the evil effects of these malicious beings. The Purana also gives instructions on how to overcome their evil effects.

The Mahabharata describes the Sapta Matrikas as the mothers of Skanda, in which role they seem to be connected in some way with the six Krittikas who nursed the infant Kartikeya. They are known for the atrocities they wreak upon pregnant women and small children. There is a cult in many villages that recognizes their power and worships them in order to ward off their baneful effects. Though in most cases the Matrikas are seven in number, in some cases there are more; up to sixteen are mentioned. On the whole the Sapta Matrikas are given importance only because of the sinister role they play in the field of difficult pregnancies, infant mortality, the joys of childhood, and the mystery with which this joy and horror are intermingled. The issues they stand for are relevant to all life; hence they are found in some form or other in all the different sects of India.

As we have seen, Maha Devi manifests herself in a great variety of forms. Another group of goddesses given prominence in Devi temples are known as the Mahavidyas: Kaali, Smashan Tara, Bhuvaneswari, Bagala, Dhumavati, Kamala, Matangi, Shodashi, Chinnamasta, and Bhairavi. They are ten in number, and they may be the Shakta version of the ten avataras of Lord Vishnu who appear from time to time when dharma declines. Some texts even claim that Vishnu’s avataras originally came from the Mahavidyas. For example, Kaali is supposed to have become Krishna and Chinnamasta to have become Narasimha. This is only a theory. In actual fact, the Mahavidyas differ quite radically from the avataras of Lord Vishnu.

The Mahavidyas’ first appearance is connected with Daksha’s yajna. As we have seen in chapter 14, Shiva was not invited to this yajna and at first he refused to let Sati, his wife, attend. In her fury at his refusal, it is said that she multiplied herself into the ten forms known as the Mahavidyas. In order to show the superiority of Sati (the incarnation of the Maha Devi), the Devi Purana portrays Shiva as being frightened by these fearful forms that surrounded him, and he gives in to Sati’s wishes and tells her that he can’t prevent her from going if that is her wish.¹

Kaali, as we have seen, has a fierce countenance, is naked, dwells in the cremation grounds, and holds a severed head in one hand and a bloody sword in the other. Her body is gaunt, with her ribs sticking out. She has thin, drooping breasts and a cavernous belly.

Smashan Tara’s nature is similar to Kaali’s, though she differs somewhat in her form. She is the color of collyrium, stands on a funeral pyre with her left foot on a corpse, and wears a girdle of arms, a tiger skin, and a garland of severed heads. Her hair is braided in a single matted plait. She is fully pregnant and has full breasts. Smashana, the Sanskrit word from which her name derives, means “burning ghat.” Smashan Tara’s function is similar to Kaali’s. Her devotees are Aghoris who worship her at midnight in burning ghats where the dead are creamated.

Bhuvaneswari has a light complexion and a smiling face. She is said to nourish the three worlds. Her breasts are large and ooze milk, and she carries a piece of fruit in one hand. In her other hand she carries a goad and a noose.

Bagala has the head of a crane and is yellow in color. She is seated on a throne of jewels. With one hand she appears to be beating an enemy with a club and with the other pulling out someone’s tongue.

Dhumavati is tall and pale with a stern, unsmiling face. She is toothless, her nose is large and crooked, her breasts are long and pendulous, and her hair is disheveled. She is dressed in dirty clothes and looks like a widow. She holds a winnowing fan in one hand and her vehicle is the crow. She appears to be afflicted with hunger and thirst.

Kamala is a beautiful young woman with a golden complexion. Elephants stand on either side of her, pouring pitchers of water over her. She is seated on a lotus and holds a lotus in each hand. She looks like the goddess Lakshmi. In fact, one of Lakshmi’s names is Kamala.

Matangi is black. She appears to be always intoxicated and reels about like an impassioned elephant. She has red, rolling eyes.

Shodashi is a young girl of sixteen. She is red in color and is shown sitting astride the prone body of Shiva, with whom she has obviously been having intercourse. They lie on a bed whose legs are upheld by the gods Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra, and Indra. Sometimes Shodashi is identified with Tripurasundari, and hence the reference to the bed upheld by the gods.

Bhairavi has a reddish hue and her eyes roll as if she were intoxicated. She wears a garland of severed heads. She has four hands; one holds a japa mala (rosary), another holds a book, a third is held in the gesture of fearlessness (abhaya mudra), and the fourth is held in the symbol of conferring boons.

Chinnamasta is depicted stark naked. She carries in her left hand her own head, which she has seemingly severed herself with the sword held in her right hand. Three streams of blood spout from the stump of her neck. One falls into her own mouth and the other two into the mouths of the two yoginis (female yoga practitioners) who are on either side of her. She normally holds the head on a platter, as if to make an offering of it. Beneath her feet lie Kama, the god of desire, and his wife Rati, who are joined together in the act of love while stretched out on a lotus.

Even though a few of the Mahavidyas appear to have appealing forms, on the whole they are meant to be ferocious deities. With the exception of Kaali, they are not known to be warriors but are meant to project certain esoteric truths, which the sadhaka (one who studies a spiritual discipline) is supposed to find out for her-or himself. Most of them play a part in Tantric rituals. Their powers are meant to subdue the enemy by various methods. These powers include maarana (the ability to destroy the enemy), ucchatana (the ability to force a person to stop whatever he or she is doing), kshobana (the ability to cause emotional disturbance), mohana (the ability to cause delusion and infatuation), draavana (the ability to cause people to run in terror), jrimbhana (the ability to cause people to become lazy and keep yawning), and stambhana (the ability to cause paralysis). All the conditions these powers can initiate are not just physical maladies but also psychological and emotional ones, and they can affect our spiritual life and spoil our sadhana (spiritual practice). The Mahavidyas can be invoked to get rid of these emotional ailments and give us moksha (liberation).

Creation and destruction are part of the cosmic process. The economy of the universe is kept in balance by a harmonious alternation of giving and taking life. The ever bountiful figure of Annapurna (Lakshmi in her form as the giver of food) giving food shows only one aspect of the process—that of giving. Kaali shows us the picture of the goddess severing the heads of others and demanding their blood as nourishment. In fact, demons often sacrificed their own heads to the goddess. This represents the truth that the forces of the cosmos as depicted by the goddess require regular nourishment. Since we have received life from her, we are obliged to give it back to her. Life can be maintained only by the ingestion of the corpses of other beings.

Chinnamasta conveys the same message but reverses the roles. She gives her own blood to herself and to her two devotees. Instead of taking the heads of her victims and drinking their blood, she takes her own head and drinks her own blood. She is nourished not by death but by the copulating couple beneath her. This is one of the most dramatic pictorial representations of the stark reality of life. It points out that life, sex, and death are all part of a closely interrelated system. None of them can exist alone. The whole scene, ghastly though it might appear to the casual viewer, becomes clear to the sadhaka who strives for a deeper meaning to reality.

This striking spectacle points out many of the truths that we tend to cloak with a weak sentimentalism to mask our inherent inability to face the gory aspects of life. As far as nature is concerned, the sole necessity for sex is to propagate life, which in turn will decay and feed another life at another time and in another place. In other words, life feeds on and is nourished by death. The copulating couple pump the goddess with their own life-giving energy, which she in turn offers back to herself and to her children or devotees by the sacrifice of cutting off her own head. Life is portrayed by the copulating couple, death by the decapitated goddess, and the renewal of life by the yoginis drinking her blood.

The uninitiated may be shocked at the number of gruesome female goddesses depicted so realistically in Hindu mythology. To the initiate, however, the two types of goddesses only display the two sides of life, as we have seen again and again. Lalitha is worshipped on full-moon days for she represents consciousness at its most beautiful—full and resplendent like the moon. Kaali and all her counterparts are worshipped on new-moon days when the sky is dark and nature herself appears in her most foreboding aspect. The analogy is to human consciousness, which is still unawakened and cluttered with material desires and longs to be freed from this dark hold. Kaali extinguishes desire and Lalitha replaces the vacuum with liberating knowledge. Kaali typifies sunyata or void, while Lalitha is purnata or fullness. But what we should remember is that there is only one moon, whether waxing or waning, new or full. Thus both Kaali and Lalitha are one and the same, pointing to the same truth from different viewpoints.

The harmony of a rich culture’s tones,

Refined the sense and magnified its reach,

To hear the unheard and glimpse the invisible,

And taught the soul to soar beyond things known,

Inspiring life to greaten and break its bounds,

Aspiring to the immortal’s unseen world,

Leaving earth’s safety, daring wings of mind,

Bore her above the trodden fields of thought,

Crossing the mystic seas of the beyond,

To live on eagle heights near to the Sun.

—SAVITRI BY SRI AUROBINDO

Thus ends the twenty-seventh chapter of Shakti known as “Shivaduti,” which describes the seven Matrikas and the ten Mahavidyas.

Aum Aim Hreem Kleem