Devi: Goddesses of India: Volume 7 (Comparative Studies in Religion and Society) - Softcover

Hawley, John Stratton Stratton; Wulff, Donna Marie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520200586 ISBN 13: 9780520200586

Publisher: University of California Press, 1996

Synopsis

The monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have severely limited the portrayal of the divine as feminine. But in Hinduism "God" very often means "Goddess." This extraordinary collection explores twelve different Hindu goddesses, all of whom are in some way related to Devi, the Great Goddess. They range from the liquid goddess-energy of the River Ganges to the possessing, entrancing heat of Bhagavati and Seranvali. They are local, like Vindhyavasini, and global, like Kali; ancient, like Saranyu, and modern, like "Mother India." The collection combines analysis of texts with intensive fieldwork, allowing the reader to see how goddesses are worshiped in everyday life. In these compelling essays, the divine feminine in Hinduism is revealed as never before-fascinating, contradictory, powerful.

About this title

About the Author

John S. Hawley is Professor of Religion at Barnard College and Director of the the National Resource Center for South Asia at Columbia University. Donna M. Wulff is Professor of Religion at Brown University. Together they edited The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India (1986).

From the Back Cover

"Demonstrating the range and complexity of feminine imagery in Hindu tradition, Devi offers to scholars and beginners alike a fascinating and useful anthology."--Elaine Pagels, author Gnostic Gospels

"Thought-provoking and new, yet containing a few classics as well, Devi is a most valuable addition to studies of India--society, religion, culture, and art."--Vidya Dehejia, Smithsonian Institution

"A wonderfully informative group of essays about the main goddess figures of India. These sometimes dominate the male and sometimes stand alone, and they range from the fertile river Ganga to the awesome Kali, who is transforming herself in the West."--Ninian Smart, University of California, Santa Barbara

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Devi

Goddesses of IndiaBy John Stratton Hawley

University of California Press

Copyright © 1996 John Stratton Hawley
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780520200586
Devi: The Great Goddess
Thomas B. Coburn

There are multiple dimensions to posing the apparently straightforward question of who is the Great Goddess of India, the Devi, and how she is related to other Hindu deities. Depending on who is asking the question, and who is answering it, very different features of divinity, both male and female, come to the fore. At least two reasons exist for the easy, but multifaceted, coexistence of oneness and manyhess that we observe in Hindu conceptions of Devi. One is the richness of vision that the classic text of Hindu Goddess worship, the Devi Mahatmya , offers; the other is the variety of significances that have been ascribed to this text in the Indian context. It is the purpose of this essay to explore the former of thesethe vision of the Devi Mahatmya in some detail and then to indicate some of the larger interpretive issues.

It has long been recognized, by both devotees and academics, that the Devi Mahatmya is a text of unique significance to the Hindu religious tradition. The text, which forms a portion of one of the early Sanskrit Puranas, the Markandeya , was probably composed in or somewhat north of the Narmada river valley sometime in the fifth or sixth century C.E .1 Yet it is no mere antiquarian curiosity. The Devi Mahatmya has, through the centuries, been copied by the faithful with such regularity that it now exists in virtually innumerable manuscripts. Its recitation forms part of the daily liturgy in temples dedicated to Durga, as well as occupying a central place in the great autumnal festival of Durga Puja.2 In a lecture delivered in 1840, H. H. Wilson ranked it "amongst the most popular works in the Sanskrit language," and to this day its hymns, in particular, are familiar to vast numbers of Hindus.3 In 1823 it became the second Puranic text ever translated into a European language (English).4 By the turn of the century excerpts had appeared in

French, and another full English translation had been produced, along with one in Latin and one in Greek.5

Of the various features of the Devi  Mahatmya , one stands preeminent. The ultimate reality in the universe is here understood to be feminine: Devi, the Goddess.6 Moreover, the Devi  Mahatmya appears to be the first Sanskrit text to provide a comprehensiveindeed, well-nigh relentlessarticulation of such a vision. From the time of the Rig Veda onward, of course, various goddesses had figured in Sanskrit tradition. But never before had ultimate reality itself been understood as Goddess.

Since the Goddess's varied and often highly nuanced relationship to male deities is particularly revealing of her nature, we shall first explore three "moments"one from each of the three episodes in the Devi  Mahatmya that present this relationship in a particularly vivid fashion. As we shall see, although Devi is understood to bear a special relation to each particular deity, this is never a mere consort relation. She is beyond being a consort to anyone. Then, in an effort to situate the Devi  Mahatmya in the broader realm of Indian religious history, we will consider how certain of its myths and symbols had previously been employed in Sanskrit. As it turns out, certain affinities exist between the worship of Devi, as ex-pounded in the Devi  Mahatmya , and other, quite various theological currents involving Agni and Skanda, Siva, Visnu, and Krishna Gopala. Finally, against the backdrop of this inquiry into the text's content and historical context, we shall take brief note of the ongoing hermeneutics of the Devi Mahatmya , exploring how later Hindus and others have engaged with the text and its vision.

Three Moments in Devi's Identity

The structure of the Devi Mahatmya is both simple and beautifully symmetrical, consisting of a frame story and three myths that tell of Devi's various salvific activities. The first half of the frame story recounts how a king and a merchant, beset by mundane adversity, seek refuge from the turmoils of the world by retiring to the forest. There they encounter a sage, who informs them that their woes are due to the power of mahamaya , a term that can mean either "she who possesses great deceptiveness" or "she who is the great deception." Pressed for further details, the sage then recounts the three myths. The first, that of Madhu and Kaitabha, offers a succinct delineation of the cosmic status of Devi. The second, a more extensive account of her origins on earth and her initial martial activities, culminates in her conquest of the dread buffalo-demon Mahisa. The third and longest myth is an exuberant celebration of her various forms and their role in her victory over the minions of the demons Sumbha and Nisumbha. Finally, in the second half of the frame story, we learn how the king and the merchant then worship

Devi. Their devotion merits her appearance, and she proceeds to answer their prayers.

The feature of the first episode that commands our attention here is its characterization of Devi as mahamaya , a designation that should probably be understood as a proper name. A preliminary indication of its significance can be found in the words with which the sage describes the goddess to the woebegone king and merchant:

O best of men, human beings have a craving for offspring, out of greed expecting those [loved ones] to reciprocate; do you not see this? Just in this fashion do they fall into the pit of delusion, the maelstrom of egotism, giving [apparent] solidity to life in this world (samsara ) through the power of Mahamaya.....This blessed Devi Mahamaya, having forcibly seized the minds, even of men of knowledge, leads them to delusion.... She is [also] the supreme eternal knowledge (vidya ) that becomes the cause of release (mukti ) from bondage to mundane life. (1.39-40, 42, 44)7

The Devi  Mahatmya seems here to reflect the view of the early Upanisads that it is mystical knowledge of ultimate truth that extricates one from the process of rebirth. But something else is clearly afoot as well, for Devi is not simply the knowledge that sets one free. She is also the great illusion (mahamaya ) that keeps one bound. The Devi  Mahatmya is not given to systematic philosophical exposition, so it does not endeavor to resolve this paradox. Rather, it rejoices in it, for paradox is close to the heart of the Devi  Mahatmya's view of Devi. In this regard, two features of earlier Sanskrit usage of the word maya help clarify what the Devi  Mahatmya means when it calls Devi "Mahamaya."

First, the word maya is as old as the Rig Veda , where it means "wile" or "magic power," a power that is frequently associated with the asuras , beings who, in all but the earliest strata of Sanskrit literature, are understood as enemies of the gods (deva s). If maya is thus associated with the demons, we might expect the Devi  Mahatmya to affirm that she who is Mahamaya is also the great demoness. This turns out to be precisely the manner in which Devi is praised later in this same episode: "You are the great knowledge, the great illusion, the great insight, the great memory, and [also] the great delusion, the great Goddess (mahadevi ), the great Demoness (mahasuri )" (1.58). To say that Devi is Mahamaya is thus to affirm that she is indeed Goddess, but it is also to affirm that she transcends the conventional distinction between devas and asuras .8

The second conceptual formulation that prior usage bequeaths to the Devi  Mahatmya is the equation of maya with prakrti , the primordial matter that evolves into the manifest universe. It was in the philosophical school of Samkhya that prakrti received its classical development as one of the two fundamental principles of the universe, the other being purusa (spirit). This

atheistic dualism had, however, been adapted to theistic philosophical needs long before the Devi  Mahatmya was composed. In particular, that watershed of theistic speculation, the Svetasvatara  Upanisad , had formulated the crucial issues in an illuminating way. Having explained the distinction between the Lord and the individual soul, the text then related them both to maya :

The Vedas, the sacrifices, the ceremonies, the acts of devotion, the past, the future, and what the Vedas declareall this does the Lord (mayin , the possessor of maya ) pour forth out of this [i.e., the creator god, Brahma], and in it is the other [the individual soul] confined by maya . Know maya to be prakrti , and the possessor of maya to be the great Lord. This whole world is pervaded by beings that are part of him (4.9-10)

It would be risky to rely on a narrow interpretation of such philosophically pregnant concepts as maya and prakrti .9 Nonetheless, the Devi  Mahatmya is inclined to favor their identification in a way that is reminiscent of the Svetasvatara . Thus, in the first episode Mahamaya is addressed in hymns with the affirmation, "You are the prakrti of all, manifesting the triad of constituent strands (gunas )" ( 1.59) and, later on, with the confession, "You are the supreme, original, untransformed prakrti " (4.6). On the basis of such passages it seems safe to say that the Devi  Mahatmya has shifted the focus of the Samkhya school and the Svetasvatara  Upanisad by understanding prakrti not as the material shroud or possession of spirit but as itself supremely divine, as Devi herself.

By way of summarizing these various implications of the designation "Mahamaya," let us consider the myth recounted in this first episode. As part of his introduction to Devi, the sage declares: "The yogic slumber (yoganidra ) of the lord of the worlds, Visnu, is [this same] Mahamaya, and through her is this world being deluded" (1.41). Such a declaration enables him to move directly to the myth, which involves Visnu, yoganidra , and the asuras Madhu and Kaitabha. But in order to appreciate the unique features of the Devi  Mahatmya 's version, we must ascertain the resonance of this particular myth at the time the Devi  Mahatmya was written.

Throughout the Mahabharata , the Madhu-Kaitabha myth is associated, virtually without exception, with the figure of Visnu. The myth is recounted in full on several occasions, and Visnu's epithet madhusudana , "slayer of Madhu," occurs in the epic more than two hundred times. The classical version of the myth can be summarized as follows.10 It is the time of pralaya , the state of dissolution that occurs at the end of a cosmic cycle. All that exists is the universal ocean. On the ocean, Lord Visnu sleeps, lying on his serpent, Sesa, who is coiled into the shape of a couch. While Visnu sleeps, two asuras named Madhu and Kaitabha arise from the wax in his ear and, puffed up with pride and egotism, begin to assail the god Brahma, who is seated on the

lotus that grows from Visnu's navel. Brahmaawakens Visnu by shaking the lotus, whereupon Visnu engages the two demons in battle, sometimes physically, sometimes in a contest of wits. Given that nothing but ocean exists, Madhu and Kaitabha think they have outwitted Visnuby asking to be slain in a dry place. But Visnu raises his thighs and kills the demons on them. From the fat of the two asuras , which then permeated the waters, the earth was created.

In the Devi  Mahatmya 's retelling of this thoroughly Vaisnava myth are several crucial modifications. Although the setting is exactly the same, Visnu is described as having entered into yoganidra , the twilight slumber of tranquillity, a term not used in the epic. The demons begin their assault upon Brahma, who again endeavors to awaken Visnu. He does so here, however, not by shaking the lotus but by invoking Devi, who is addressed as Yoganidra, that is, as the personification of the state of sleep into which Visnu has entered. The climax of the invocation reads:

Whatever and wherever anything exists, whether it be real or unreal, O [you] who have everything as your very soul, of all that, you are the power (sakti ); how then can you be [adequately] praised? By you the creator of the world, the protector of the world, who [also] consumes the world, is [here] brought under the influence of sleep (nidra );who here is capable of praising you? Since Visnu, Siva, and I have been made to assume bodily form by you, who could have the capacity of [adequately] praising you? May you, praised in this fashion, Devi, with your superior powers confuse these two unassailable asuras , Madhu and Kaitabha, and may the imperishable Lord of the world be quickly awakened, and may his alertness be used to slay these two great asuras . (1.63-67)

Devi then accedes to Brahma's request by withdrawing from Visnu's various limbs, Visnu awakens, and the asuras are dispatched, as in the earlier versions.

Several conclusions seem to follow from this account. First, the Devi  Mahatmya clearly suggests that it is solely through the grace, the gracious withdrawal, of Devi that Visnu can fulfill his familiar duty of slaying the asuras . In fact, it is only through this grace that he can act at all. And if this is true of Lord Visnu, the implication is that each of us human beings is similarly indebted to her.11 Second, Devi is held to be the primary ontological reality. From her the gods explicitly derive their bodily form, and from her, as well, all material existence proceeds. This is evident both from the prior affirmation that Devi is prakrti and from the suggestion that it is the substance of the asuras that comes to form the earthfor Devi is, we have noted, the great asuri . One might go so far as to say that whatever is is Devi. Finally, the text reveals the paradoxical action of Devi Mahamaya. It suggests, on the one hand, that it is she who deludes the two self-important demons into thinking they can outwit the divine. But, on the other hand, it is also

she who shows how, through the frustration of their egotistical desires and their apparent death, those same demons come to participate in a divine plan far larger than themselvesindeed, in the cosmic process of creation. Devi is both the great deluder and the one who redeems the victims of her magic tricks by incorporating them into the life divine.

The event from the second episode that is of interest to us may be dealt with more briefly. This is the point at which the text, having established Devi's cosmic status, turns to an account of her career on earth. It is apparent from the outset that the event precipitating that career is the severe dislocation of the mundane equilibrium. The second episode thus begins:

Once upon a time, a battle between the gods (devas ) and asuras raged for a full hundred years, when [the buffalo-demon] Mahisa was leader of the asuras and Indra [was leader] of the gods. The gods' army was conquered there by the mighty asuras , and having conquered all the gods, the asura Mahisa became lord (literally, "Mahisa became Indra"). (2.1-2)

Faced with this quandary, the remnants of the devas ' army seek out Siva and Visnu and describe the course of events. There follows the famous account of Devi's origin as a force on earth:

Having listened to the words of the gods, Visnu and Siva became angry, with furrowed brows and twisted faces. Then from the face of Visnu, filled with rage, came forth a great fiery splendor (tejas ) [and also from the faces] of Brahma and Siva. And from the bodies of Indra and the other gods came forth a great fiery splendor, and it became unified in one place. An exceedingly fiery mass like a flaming mountain did the gods see there, filling the firmament with flames. That peerless splendor, born of the bodies of all the gods, unified, and pervading the three worlds with her splendor, became a woman. (2.8-12)

Our text then recounts how this womanwho is, of course, Devireceived her various limbs and weapons from different gods and how, thus constituted, she proceeded to vanquish Mahisa and his hordes (see figure 3).

From the perspective of our concern with Devi's relation to specific male deities, two comments are in order. First, whereas there is justification for saying that Devi is here conceptualized as subordinate to the godsbecause she is derivative from, and indebted to, each of themit can also be argued that the reverse is true. It is she who succeeds in restoring equilibrium on earth, a feat that the gods, both individually and collectively, had been unable to accomplish. Moreover, it is clear that, despite having been derived from the gods, Devi is subsequently understood to be a continuing, independent salvific presence in the world. Thus, at the end of this episode she consents to bring relief to those who will call upon her in future calamities. Moreover, the episode concludes not by having her dissipate into the bodies of the gods but by stating simply, yet suggestively, "She vanished" (4.30-33).

Figure 3.
A modern rendition of Devi as the slayer of the buffalo-demon
Mahisa. Dipin Bose, Mahisasura  Mardini , 1957, tempera on paper. Courtesy
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

Second, we must note the conceptual model that the Devi  Mahatmya employs here in describing Devi. The first episode in the text established her primacy in the cosmic context. Now the second endeavors to demonstrate not only that Devi also has an earthly career but that she is the supreme ruler of earthly creatures. To portray Devi in this role, the Devi  Mahatmya draws on a classical Indian model, that of the king as described in a classic text, The Laws of Manu . As part of his vision of social order, Manu, the ascribed author, begins his account of the king as follows:

When this world was without a king and people ran about in all directions out of fear, the Lord emitted a king in order to guard this entire (realm), taking

lasting elements from Indra, the Wind, Yama, the Sun, Fire, Varuna, the Moon, and (Kubera) the Lord of Wealth. Because a king is made from particles of these lords of the gods, therefore he surpasses all living beings in brilliant energy [tejas ], and like the Sun, he burns eyes and hearts, and no one on earth is able even to look at him.... In order to make justice succeed, he takes all forms again and again, taking into consideration realistically what is to be done, (his) power, and the time and place. The lotus goddess of Good Fortune resides in his favour, victory in his aggression, and death in his anger; for he is made of the brilliant energy of all (the gods).12

The conclusion that this model of secular power underlies the Devi  Mahatmya 's vision of Devi's earthly origin seems inescapable. That such a model is utterly appropriate seems equally obvious, for only one whose power, in the world's own terms, is unrivaled can cope with the great disturber of the mundane equilibrium, Mahisa. The Devi  Mahatmya thus affirms that the effective agent on earth, as in the cosmos, is not masculine but feminine, not king but queen.

Finally, we must examine the Devi  Mahatmya 's use of the term sakti , "power," with regard to Devi, particularly in the third episode. As we have already seen, the Devi  Mahatmya understands sakti as a singular and universal phenomenonas a phenomenon that Devi simply is .13 But in addition, it understands saktis as plural and particular phenomena, as something that each individual deity has . This latter conceptualization emerges in the course of Devi's martial engagement with the asuras Sumbha and Nisumbha. When Sumbha, incensed at the destruction of two of his generals, sends forth his legions against Devi, she multiplies her own forces:

At that very moment, O king, in order to destroy the enemies of the gods, and for the sake of the well-being of the supreme gods, very valorous and powerful saktis , having sprung forth from the bodies of Brahma, Siva, Skanda, Visnu, and Indra, [and] having the form of each [of them], approached Devi (candika ).Whatever form, ornament, and mount a particular god possessed, with that very form did his sakti go forth to fight the asuras . (8.11-13)

The text then describes how seven saktis emerged from seven gods, each possessing the distinctive iconographic features of its source. These saktis are named Brahmani, Mahesvari, Kaumari, Vaisnavi, Varahi, Narasimhi, and Aindri.14 Together with another figure whom we shall consider in a moment, they are referred to collectively in the ensuing combat as "the Mothers."

Four features of this passage and its consequent development deserve our attention. First, it is tempting to conclude that the text views each god as having a consort who is called a sakti and is a form of Devi. But closer examination reveals quite a different situation. In fact, the Devi  Mahatmya is careful to avoid using language that would imply that the saktis are consorts of their respective gods. This is evident from the fact that, in the mythology current at the time that the Devi  Mahatmya was composed, two of the gods

who here put forth saktis Indra and Siva (Mahesvara)werealready acknowledged to have consorts. Indra's spouse has been known since Rig Vedic times as Indrani or Saci, while Siva's spouse is referred to throughout the Mahabharata as Uma or Parvati. Indra's spouse has never before been designated by the word aindri , however, and Uma is called mahesvari on only one known occasion (Mahabharata 14.43.14). Consequently, when the Devi Mahatmya calls Indra's sakti Aindri, "the one related to Indra," and Siva's sakti Mahesvari, "the one related to Mahesvara, "it apparently wishes to make clear that a god's sakti is not the same as any previously recognized consort of his.15 A sakti does not have the merely formal and external relation of a consort with her god. Rather, she is far more fundamental, more internal, to his identity, for she is in fact his power (sakti ).

Second,it is clear that although the polarity of Siva and Sakti is well known in later Sakta and tantric circles, the Devi Mahatmya shows no preference for Siva when discussing Devi as sakti . The only special attention paid to Siva at this juncture is that, after their emergence, the saktis are said to gather around him (8.21). However, no particular importance is attached to this fact.

Third, an even more striking contrast with later views emerges from the fact that the Devi Mahatmya does not recognize that a sakti is feminine and that its possessor or vehicle is masculinefor Devi herself possesses a sakti . Immediately after the previously named saktis have gathered around Siva, the text declares: "Then from the body of Devi came forth the very frightening sakti of Candika (Devi),gruesome and yelping [like] a hundred jackals" (8.22). In the subsequent combat, this sakti is treated as kindred to the other sakti s, as one of the Mothers.

Finally, for all this proliferation of forms of Devi, and for all the involvement of some of them with male deities, our text never loses sight of the fact that Devi is the primary reality and that her agency is the only effective one. This is indicated at the very end of the episode, where the text sets the stage for the final dramatic encounter by reducing the combatants to the bare minimum. The demon Sumbha has accused Devi of false pride and haughtiness, for in the foregoing encounters she has relied not on her own strength but on that of others. At this point, Devi proclaims her relation to the apparently heterogeneous forms of the Goddess: "I alone exist here in the world; what second, other than I, is there? O wicked one, behold these my hierophanies (or "extraordinary powers": vibhutayah )entering [back] into me" (10.3). The text continues: "Thereupon, all the goddesses, led by Brahmani, went to their resting place in the body of Devi ;then there was just Devi (ambika )alone" (10.4). Subsequently, Devi throws down the gauntlet for the final combat: "When I was established here in many forms, it was by means of my extraordinary power. That has now been withdrawn by me. I stand utterly alone. May you be resolute in combat" (10.5).

Our text thus concludes as it began, with the assertion that there is but one truly ultimate reality and that it is feminine; with the indication that this reality takes on different forms, to which the ignorant impute independent and permanent existence but which the wise recognize as grounded in Devi ;and with the demonstration that this reality is related to male deities, as to all that exists, not externally but internallynot as consort, but as sakti .

Fourcrosscurrents Involving Devi

Quite apart from the conceptual structure of the Devi Mahatmya , there is a historical dimension to the synthesis it accomplishes, and this, too, contributes to the diverse emphases that the later tradition places on this classical text of Devi. We may here glance briefly at four distinct strands that appear to feed into the Devi  Mahatmya 's synthetic vision of Devi.

First,scholars are virtually unanimous in the opinion that the basic impulse behind the worship of the Goddess in India is of non-Aryan, non-Sanskritic origin. For all its brilliance in incorporating diverse Sanskrit motifs into its vision of Devi, the Devi Mahatmya , too, seems to support this view. Thus, for instance, the most common designation of Devi in this text (other than the word devi itself) is candika , which probably means "the violent and impetuous one" but which is used throughout as a proper name. Although feminine forms of the adjective canda exist in earlier texts, never prior to the Devi Mahatmya does the word candika appear in Sanskrit.16 Since the Devi Mahatmya attests to the existence of a cult of Devi (see 12. 1-12), it seems sensible that we should look for the historical origin of her worship in non-Sanskritic circles, in the worship of a deity known as Candika.

Second,although the Devi  Mahatmya does not understand Devi to be the consort of Siva, there is some evidence that her worship and her identity are intertwined with those of Siva. After Candika, the second most frequent name for Devi in the Devi Mahatmya is Ambika, a name associated in late Vedic texts with the nascent figure of Rudra-Siva.17 In addition, there is the intriguing fact that the destruction of Mahisa, which the Devi  Mahatmya and subsequent Puranic literature clearly ascribe to Devi, had previously been recounted in the Mahabharata , where it appears as the crowning event in the epic's first account of the birth and early career of Skanda.18 Skanda is, of course, known throughout the Puranas as the offspring of Siva and Uma, yet the Mahabharata takes a somewhat different tack. Its account is extraordinarily complicatedlargely because at this juncture Skanda is a new figure in Sanskrit mythology, one whose genealogy is unclearbut also enormously suggestive. Throughout the account, Agni's claims to the paternity of Skanda predominate over those of Siva. At the same time, it is immediately after Siva's claims are introduced (3.220) that the narrative reaches

its climax by telling of Mahisa's defeat at the hands of Skanda. Moreover, although the identity of Skanda's rightful mother is never clearly determined, embryonic "Goddess motifs" abound. One candidate for motherhood is a horde of ogresses euphemistically called "the Mothers," in addition to which are several momentary appearances by a goddess named Sakti. One cannot help but feel that, at least mythologically and perhaps liturgically as well, Devi's identity emerges out of a matrix in which Siva, Skanda, and Agni also figure prominently.19

Third, as we have seen, the Devi Mahatmya incorporates the familiar Vaisnava myth of Madhu and Kaitabha and conceptualizes the Goddess in a way that resembles Manu's conceptualization of the king. There are also further indications of historical interaction between Vaisnavism and the worship of Devi. The regal imagery of the second episode, for instance, has a distinctly Vaisnava aura to it, and the way in which the Goddess enumerates her future appearances at the end of chapter 11 is strongly reminiscent of the Bhagavad Gita 's teaching of the Lord's incarnations (avataras ).20 Further, we learn from the critical edition of the Mahabharata that, just prior to the Bhagavad Gita , a number of manuscripts insert one of the earliest Sanskrit hymns to the Goddess, known as the Durga  Stotra .21 This insertion would seem to reflect the redactors' sense that there is a natural connection between Krishna and Devi. Similarly, there has been an ongoing, but usually only implicit, relationship between the Bhagavad Gita and the Devi Mahatmya , evidenced by the fact that the seven hundred verses of the former appear to have been the model for giving the Devi Mahatmya the very popular alternative title Durga  Saptasati , "Seven Hundred (Verses) to Durga. "22

Finally,the Devi Mahatmya provides further evidence for the relation that Charlotte Vaudeville has perceived between Devi and Krishna Gopala, for references to the myth of Sumbha and Nisumbha are found earlier only in Krishnaite documents.23 In the Harivamsa 's account of Krishna's childhood, Visnu descends to hell (patala )to solicit the aid of the goddess Nidra. He proposes a plan for his birth and that of the goddess to Devaki and Yasoda, and then foretells the future course of events. Among other things he predicts that this goddess will slay the demons Sumbha and Nisumbha

(47.49).24 Later (65.51) the text asserts that she has, in fact, slain them. This connection between a Sumbha-Nisumbha-Goddess myth and the Krishna Gopala cycle is evidently more than a product of chance, for reference to such a myth also occurs in the Krishna story told in the Visnu Purana (5.1.81) and in Bhasa's Balacarita (2.20-25).25 Vaudeville has argued persuasively that the tales about Krishna Gopala originated as a cycle of hero stories among the non-Aryan castes of North India, who were predominantly worshipers of Devi.26 The implications for our understanding of the Devi Mahatmya would thus seem clear. What we have in the Sumbha-Nisumbha myth is

a fragment of the mythology of Devi as it was current among certain North Indian peoples who came to know the heroic exploits of Krishna Gopala. Just as those exploits went on to receive sophisticated religious elaboration in the manifold expressions of Krishna bhakti , so, too, did the Sumbha-Nisumbha-Goddess story become integrated with other mythological motifs and receive its elaboration in such texts as the Devi Mahatmya .

Interpreting The Devi Mahatmya

Given, then, that the Devi Mahatmya accomplishes a conceptually rich synthesis of diverse religious strands, what ramifications has this vision had for Hindu religious life in later centuries? Is. it possible to understand the consequences of the text's existence as readily as we have identified the elements that fed into it? If so, what are they?

Our answers to these questions must be a good deal more fragmentary and tentative than we might wish, in part because a comprehensive history of Devi's worshiptoward which this volume is a contributionhas yet to be written, and in part because the hermeneutical questions involved in understanding the relation between texts and religious life in India are so complex. To conclude this essay, let me identify four different angles from which the later tradition has engaged the Devi  Mahatmya . Although each has sought to bring the text into a conversation with quite different features of Hindu life, together they provide a fair indication of the range of Devi's presence in Indian lives, past and present.

First, if we constitute a phenomenology of the Devi Mahatmya in the narrowest sense, by asking what it is that people do with the words of the text, the answer is simple. They recite them. This could, of course, be said of most religious compositions in India, which have tended to live orally and in performance, rather than constituting the written basis for commentary and exegesis. But the Devi Mahatmya is one of the extreme cases of this oral emphasis, for its words have been understood to embody a unique and eternal power, which is released solely through the proper ritual preparation and verbatim recitation of the words. It is mantra in almost exactly the same way that the Rig Veda is mantra. It is the form of the words, as opposed to their content, that commands attention. The chief concern of commentators has therefore been the precise enumeration of verses and the exact specification of the ritual activity that should attend their recitation. Today, and for centuries past, the Devi Mahatmya has been regarded as an extraordinarily potent mantra. Professional reciters abound, and recitation of the text is thought to be effective in accomplishing a great range of goals, usually worldly onesfrom passing an examination to ending a family quarrel sought by the individual who purchases the services of the reciter. In a devotional context, recitation is also understood to be pleasing to Devi in

one or another of her many guises. It thus forms part of both private and public worship in a great many ways, whether the particular theology be Tantric monism or the modified dualism of bhakti .27

Second, while the Devi Mahatmya remains chiefly a recited text, its mantras also have "meaning of another sort, for together they constitute one of the principal scriptural delineations of the goddess. The text is to be understood as well as chanted , and consequently in the editions available in the ... bazaar the Sanskrit stanzas are given together with their ... [vernacular] translation."28 The oral and performative life of religious words has only very recently begun to command scholarly attention: exploration of the complex relationship between the recitation of a text and the understanding that a reciter (or a reciter's patron) has of that text has scarcely begun. With regard to the Devi Mahatmya , the crucial work to date is that of Cynthia Humes, whose interviews with reciters and devotees lend great subtlety to our understanding of Devi and her worship.29 We know now, for instance, that recitation of the Devi Mahatmya in Sanskrit is dominated by men, whereas women usually recite vernacular translations.30 This in turn tends to produce interesting devotional convergences between recitation of the Devi Mahatmya and folk songs, a traditional form of women's religious expression. Similarly, with regard to contemporary interpretations of the story, Humes documents a widespread consensus between men and women that Devi is more mother than warrior and that she may even be married, judgments that clearly downplay certain elements of the narrative. As Humes also reports, both men and women agree that, while Devi shares characteristics such as creativity, power, and maternity with human women, she is not to be understood as a role model for humansalthough a few women informants demur on this point.

Third, recent anthropological study has demonstrated that text-based ideas about Devi are woven into popular practice in complex, nonlinear ways. Akos Vstvr, for instance, is deliberately concerned not to privilege texts in his analysis of life in a Bengali town. And yet he discovers a striking and close correspondence between the categories villagers use to understand their everyday experience, particularly during the great annual Durga Puja festival, and the categories employed in the popular understanding of the Devi Mahatmya .31 The story of Devi is quite unself-consciously woven into the very fabric of the social order and of daily behavior. Similarly, both Alf Hiltebeitel, drawing on texts and fieldwork in Tamilnadu, and William Sax, in his recent study of Goddess pilgrimage in the Himalayas, have explored how different regional traditions rework basic aspects of Devi's mythology in the light of local approaches to politics, social order, gender relations, and ritual practice.32 As the anthropological record is beginning to show, while the story of the Goddess and her buffalo antagonist is known throughout the subcontinent, its contemporary significance and its bearing on

local culture are always a function of particular historical events, often in the distant past. In anthropological terms, to speak of Devi as a generic Hindu deity is therefore often problematic, for her identity is always strongly colored by local custom.

Finally, given that Devi's identity is so intimately interconnected with the myths about her, it comes as no surprise that psychoanalytic theory, with its attention to dreams and myths, has figured in several contemporary interpretations of the Hindu Goddess. With this broadening of disciplinary perspectives, however, it becomes still more difficult to offer generalized interpretations of Devi and her worship. For instance, the Indian psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar has argued that the mythology of Devi provides "the 'hegemonic narrative' of Hindu culture as far as male development is concerned" and that "certain forms of the maternal-feminine may be more central in Indian myths and psyche than in their Western counterparts."33 More recently, Stanley Kurtz has gone much further, arguing that the dynamics of Indian child-rearing practices call for a radical reshaping of psychoanalytic concepts. The theology of the-one-and-the-many as it emerges in Hindu conceptions of Devi finds a social parallel in the practice of joint mothering, and Freud's Oedipus complex must give way in the Indian context to what Kurtz calls "the Durga Complex."34 To evaluate such an argument would take us well beyond the scope of this essay. But it serves as a fitting reminder of the varied ways that Devi has seized the human imagination, whether devotional or academic, for millennia in India and now in many other places throughout the world.

Notes

1. See F. E. Pargiter, trans., The Markandeya  Purana (Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 1888-1904), pp. viii-xiii; and V. V. Mirashi, "A Lower Limit for the Date of the Devi  Mahatmya ??, "Purana 6, no. 1 ( 1964): 181-84.

2. See Louis Renou, L'Hindouisme: Les textes, les doctrines, l'histoire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958), p. 67; and P. V. Kane, History of Dharmasastra , 5 vols. (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1930-62), 5:154-87, esp. pp. 154-56, 171-72. See also Pratapchandra Ghosha, Durga Puja, with Notes and Illustrations (Calcutta: Hindoo Patriot Press, 1871 ), pp. 20, 39.

3. H. H. Wilson, Works , ed. R. Rost, vol. 1 (London: Tr|bner, 1862), p. 68.

4. As Shrivatsa Goswami pointed out to me, Juan Roger Riviere is in error when he claims, in "European Translations of Puranic Texts" (Purana 5, no. 2 [1963]: 243-50), that this translation of the Devi Mahatmya is the first European translation of a Puranic text. The first such translation is in fact from the Bhagavata  Purana ?? :Daniel H. H. Ingalls alludes to it in his foreword to Milton Singer, ed., Krishna: Myths, Rites, and Attitudes (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1966), p. viii. The full reference is: Bagavadam ou Doctrine Divine, Ouvrage Indien, canonique; sur l'Jtre Suprjme, les Dieux, les Gians, les hommes, les diverses parties de l'Univers, &c ., traduit du Sanskrit

d'aprhs une version tamoule, par Miridas Poulli, un Malabare Chritien (Paris: Foucher d'Obsonville, 1788).

5. For full documentation of this point, see my Devi-Mahatmya  :The Crystallization of the Goddess Tradition (Delhi and Columbia, Mo.: Motilal Banarsidass and South Asia Books, 1985; hereafter cited as Crystallization ), pp. 51-52.

6. Since there are neither capital letters nor articles in Sanskrit, whereas English employs both, the translation of devi as "the Goddess" can be misleading. In English, when we wish to speak of ultimate reality as masculineof God with a capital "G"we automatically omit the article: "Praise be to God." But it sounds odd to say, "Praise be to Goddess"; the language wants us to say, "Praise be to the Goddess" or "to a goddess." The Devi  Mahatmya would not allow such a qualificationnot only on grammatical grounds but also, as we shall see, on theological ones: Devi is not one goddess among others, but Goddess Supreme. In this essay I shall force Sanskrit to bear the brunt of a compromise by employing the term "Devi, "with a capital. In the long run, however, we speakers of English ought to accustom ourselves to such phrases as "Praise be to Goddess"an idea that has been richly elaborated in recent feminist scholarship and practice.

7. The crux of the merchant's dilemma is that, although abysmal abuse at the hands of his family prompted his retreat to the forest, he now finds that he yearns for news of them. Hence the sage's opening statement. I will follow here the numbering of verses adopted in my recent English translation, Encountering the Goddess: A Translation of the Devi-Mahatmya  and a Study of Its Interpretation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991). For the original Sanskrit, see Durga-saptasati , saptatika-samvalita , ed. Harikrsnasarma (1916; repr. Delhi and Baroda: Butala and Company, 1984).

8. In the light of the interpretation of the Devi  Mahatmya's first episode that I will shortly offer, one could argue that one reason why Mahamaya has such power over the asuras is that, in a sense, she is the asuras .

9. The same Sanskrit word, maya , has, for example, been extensively explored in the philosophical discussions of the Vedanta school.

10. This reconstruction of the myth is based on a consideration of all the epic variants. For a full translation of one particular version, see J. A. B. van Buitenen, trans., The Mahabharata [Books 1-5], 3 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974-78), 2:611-12 (Mbh . 3.194.8-30).

11. See, for instance, 5.15, where Devi is said to "abide in all creatures in the form of sleep (nidra )."

12. Wendy Doniger, trans., with Brian K. Smith, The Laws of Manu (London: Penguin Books, 1991), 7.3-6, 10-11 (p. 128).

13. See 1.63, a portion of Brahma's invocation of Devi quoted above. See also 5.18, 11.8, and 11.10.

14. The seven gods from whom they emerge are, respectively: Brahma, Siva, Skanda (Kumara ),Visnu, Varaha (Visnu's boar incarnation), Narasimha (Visnu's man-lion incarnation), and Indra.

15. As further evidence for this interpretation, we might note that the D evi Mahatmya never employs the name Uma and that it uses the name Parvati on only three occasions, never with emphasis.

16. This assertion, made tentatively by Pargiter in his translation of the Markandeya Purana (p. xii), has been confirmed by my own inquiries into the Vedic and epic literature.

17. See, for example, Yajur Veda 1.8.6; Satapatha  Brahmana 2.6.2. 13-14.

18. This account, to which the balance of this paragraph refers, occurs at Mahabharata 3.207-21 (see van Buitenen's translation, 2:638-61). The epic preserves a second account of Skanda's birth (9.43-45), but this does not include the Mahisa story. Moreover, the "Goddess motifs" that we are about to take note of are also much less in evidence there.

19. Although the post-Vedic figure of Agni was clearly of limited cultic significance by the time the Devi Mahatmya was composed, it is worth noting a certain homology between Devi and Agnibeyond what we might expect by virtue of Agni's relation to Sivainthe conceptualization of the divine as "the flaming one" (see Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva [London: Oxford University Press, 1973], pp. 90-l00). One finds, for instance, a plurality of mothers attributed to Agni as far back as Rig Veda 10.5.5. (See also the material discussed in my Crystallization , pp. 313-30, esp. pp. 316-17.) One of the distinctive forms of Devi in the Devi Mahatmya is Kali, a name that also appears in Mundaka  Upanisad 1.2.4 to designate one of Agni's seven quivering tongues. Likewise, Devi's names Sri and Laksmi are intertwined with the figure of Agni in an appendix (khila ) to the Rig Veda known as the Sri Sukta (see J. Scheftelowitz, ed., Die Apokryphen des Rgveda [Breslau: M. and H. Marcus, 1906], and J. Scheftelowitz, "Sri Sukta, "Zeitschrift fur  die Deutschen Morgenlandischen  Gesellschaft 75 [1921]: 37-5o). Another of the Devi Mahatmya's common epithets for Devi is Durga, a name that contains a play on words: Devi is the great protectress from worldly adversity (durga ), and at the same time she is herself unassailable and hard to approach (durga )(see 4. 10, 4.16, 5.1o, 9.29, and 11.23). A similar play on words can be found in earlier texts: Taittiriya  Aranyaka 10. 1 quotes Rig Veda 1.99, a one-verse hymn to Agni that praises him for leading us through difficulties (durgani )and then declares: "In her who has the color of Agni, flaming with ascetic power (tapas ), the offspring of Virocana, who delights in the fruits of [one's] actions, in the goddess Durga do I take refuge; O one of great speed, [well] do you navigate. Hail [to you]!" In the sutra literature, this same Vedic hymn to Agni comes to be known as the Durga  Savitri (see, for example, Visnu  Dharmasutra 56.9, and Baudhayana  Dharmasastra 4.3.8; see also the qnotation of Rig Veda 1.99 in the Ratri  Khila in Scheftelowitz, ed., Die Apokryphen , pp. 110-12).

20. The appendix to the Devi  Mahatmya known as the Pradhanika  Rahasya goes so far as to characterize the text as an account of "the avataras of Candika "(see my Encountering the Goddess , p. 185). Although this appendix is a somewhat later composition, such a phrase attests to the ongoing interplay between Vaisnava and Goddess-oriented conceptualizations of divinity. For more on the issues raised in this paragraph, see Encountering the Goddess , pp. 24-27.

21. For a translation of this hymn, see Crystallization , pp. 272-75.

22. The fact that the Devi  Mahatmya actually has somewhat fewer than six hundred verses creates a fascinating dilemma for later interpreters, as I discuss in Encountering the Goddess (pp. 27, 31, 139-40, 162). The relationship between Devi and royalty, both human and divine, is a significant, but as yet inadequately traderstood, phenomenon. For important foundational studies, see Madeleine Biardeau, Autour

de la Diesse hindoue (Paris: Editions de l'Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1981); the essays in Purusartha , vol. 5; Sanjukta Gupta and Richard Gombrich, "Kings, Power and the Goddess," South Asia Research 6, no. 2 (1986): 123-38; J. C. Heesterman, The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985); and Alf Hiltebeitel and Thomas J. Hopkins, "Indus Valley Religion," in Mircea Eliade, ed., The Encyclopedia of Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1986) 7:215-23.

23. See, for example, Vaudeville's "Krishna Gopala, Radha, and the Great Goddess," in The Divine Consort , ed. Hawley and Wulff, pp. 1-12.

24. References are to the critical edition of the Harivamsa , ed. P. L. Vaidya, 2 vols. (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1969, 1971).

25. Visnu  Purina (Bombay: Oriental Press, 1889), readily available in H. H. Wilson's English translation (see vols. 6-10 of his Works , which have been frequently reprinted); and Balacarita (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1959), available in English in A. C. Woolner and L. Sarup, trans., Thirteen Trivandrum Plays Attributed to Bhasa (London: Oxford University Press-Humphrey Milford, 1930-31). See also Devi  Mahatmya 11.38-51, where Devi, describing five of her future appearances, announces that when two new demons, also named Sumbha and Nisumbha, have arisen, she will be born "in the house of the cowherd Nanda, in the womb of Yasoda "in order to slay them.

26. See Vaudeville's "Aspects du mythe de Krsna-Gopala dans l'Inde ancienne," in Milanges d'Indianisme ` la mimoire de Louis Renou (Paris: iditions de Boccard, 1968), pp. 737-61; and "The Cowherd God in Ancient India," in Pastoralists and Nomads in South Asia , ed. Lawrence Saadia Leshnik and Gunther-Dietz Sontheimer (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1975), PP. 92-116.

27. In Encountering the Goddess , pp. 159-69, I present two case studies demonstrating this variety. The issues addressed in this paragraph are discussed at much greater length in the second half of that volume, particularly on pp. 99-117.

28. Lawrence Babb, The Divine Hierarchy: Popular Hinduism in Central India (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), p. 218; my italics.

29. See Humes's "The Text and Temple of the Great Goddess: The Devi-Mahatmya and the Vindhyacal Temple of Mirzapur" (Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1990). See also her "Glorifying the Great Goddess or Great Woman? Women's Experience in Ritual Recitation of the Devi-Mahatmya , "in Women and Goddess Traditions , ed. Karen King (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, forthcoming), on which the balance of this paragraph is based, as well as Humes's chapter in this book. On the performative dimension of religious texts more generally, see William A. Graham, Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987).

30. This raises the interesting question of whether recitation of a vernacular translation possesses the same mantric power as recitation in Sanskrit. When I put this to one of my colleagues and informants, A. N. Jani, in July 1991, asking whether recitation of my English translation of the Devi  Mahatmya would be likely to produce consequences comparable to recitation of the Sanskrit original, he replied with characteristic empiricism: "Let us see!"

31. See Vstvr's The Play of the Gods (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), as well as my discussion of his analysis in Encountering the Goddess , pp. 154-56.

32. See Alf Hiltebeitel, The Cult of Draupadi , 2 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988, 1991); and William S. Sax, Mountain Goddess: Gender and Politics in a Himalayan Pilgrimage (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

33. Sudhir Kakar, Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 131-32.

34. See Stanley N. Kurtz, All the Mothers Are One: Hindu India and the Cultural Reshaping of Psychoanalysis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), chap. 5. Kurtz calls the pre-Oedipal stage in Hindu culture "the Ek-Hi Phase," the phrase ek hi meaning "Just one," that is, Just One Mother. "The Durga Complex" is the title of chap. 6.

Continues...

Excerpted from Deviby John Stratton Hawley Copyright © 1996 by John Stratton Hawley. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520200586
• ISBN 13: 9780520200586
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 366