The Worship of Devi by T v Kapali Sastri

THE WORSHIP OF DEVI T V Kapali Sastri

There is no festival other than the Dasara that is annually celebrated for ten days with an unsurpassed grandeur and enthusiasm, with religious sentiment and appeal, with the exhibition of the country’s skill in craftsmanship and aesthetic creation presented in the shape of art productions and artistic designs adorning India’s temples and Mutts and homes in their thousands and millions. All over this subcontinent, over this ancient land of Bharata Varsha, from Kanyakumari to Himachal, from Kamarup to Dwaraka, the several sections of Hindus, whatever their differences in caste, creed or social stratum, share the rejoicings of this country-wide jubilee. They offer their worship in accordance with their domestic practice or communal custom and thus maintain the hoary tradition of laying their offerings at the altar of the Divine Mother, in a temple, in a Mutt or Mandir, in their own homes where a sacred and sanctified quarter is set apart for the purpose or in any other manner in obedience to the promptings of their hearts.

All agree that it is the Divine Mother to whom they pay their homage and offer themselves to Her, invoking Her blessings to shower upon Her children. To the Shaivite, She is Shiva-Shakti, the Consort of Shiva or the ardhānga, the inseparable half, of the very body of the great god, Mahadeva. To the Vaishnavite, She is Sri, the eternal Splendour abiding in the heart of Vishnu, the Supreme Being who maintains the manifestation of this cosmic existence. To the fullblown Shakta1

Many are Her names, for many are Her aspects, many Her parts and cosmic functionings. But the one Name by which India has recognised and worshipped Her for untold centuries is Durga—the Goddess whom it is difficult to approach with all the thought-vision, the devotional seeking and yogic efforts of man. She is the Devi whom Arjuna at the bidding of Sri Krishna worshipped on the eve of the Mahabharata war, receiving Her blessing and the boon of victory, confirmed by the assurances of the Lord, as is mentioned in the Bhishma-Parva of the great Epic.

At this distance of time, it is difficult to fix the exact period when the Durga-Puja, the worship of the Divine Mother, began to be celebrated for the first nine nights, navarătra, or ten, dasară, of the lunar month of Ashwin. But there is a tradition that Arjuna took back his gändiva and other weapons that were lying asleep during the life in cognito of the Pandavas, on the tenth day, daśami, of Ashwin at the commencement of Sharat, the autumnal season which, as it progressed, witnessed the great battle of Kurukshetra. Hence, the tenth day that completes the Navaratra Festival of our times is called Vijayadasami, Vijaya being an epithet of Arjuna, the victorious.

Devi-Mahatmya The sacred text that is most important and universally used in the Worship of Durga especially during the Dasara is called Devi-Māhātmya, “The Glory of the Goddess”, or Chandi as it is popularly known in Bengal. It covers thirteen chapters of the Markandeya Purana (Chs. 76-88) containing seven hundred verses, Saptašati and is narrated by the sage Markandeya to Kroshtuki. Though it forms part of a Purana, the Tantras recognise its deserved pre-eminence in the field of sacred literature devoted to the worship of Shakti, the Female Energy or Mother of the Worlds; and in fact, the Katyayani Tantra treats each of the seven hundred verses as a mantra mentioning its use in accordance with the formulae prescribed for the elaborate ceremonials in Tantric rites. The Saptašati is held in so much reverence that the very text is worshipped as identical with the Goddess, manifest in its mantras or inspired verses. Even on ordinary days, its pārāyaṇam, sacred chanting, goes on in many households, for the warding off of evil influences, for the invoking of the blessings of the Devi, for the removal of earthly sufferings or for the attainment of higher and lasting happiness. Always it is the initiate alone who is competent to do the pārāyaṇam and others are prohibited.

There are three Charitas or Stories of the Devi contained in these seven hundred verses and the whole Saptašati is read every day, if possible; or one Charita, every day, is read finishing the text in three days, or again in some parts of the country as in Kerala, the reading of the whole text of thirteen chapters is spread over the seven days of the week in the order of 1, 2, 1, 4, 2, 1, 2, chapters beginning every Sunday and completing the text every week; year in and year out this convention is preserved in the code word pathoyem vi prakarah.

The three Charitas of the Goddess in the Devi Māhātmya are indeed illustrations of the Glory of the three outstanding Personalities and Aspects of the Mother, viz. Māhākāli, Mahālakṣmi, Mahasarasvati ; and it is these three that are spoken of respectively in the first, second and third Charitas of the Chandi. The first Charita devoted to Mahakali is complete in the first chapter which commences the story. The second Charita is the story of Mahalakshmi given in the next three Chapters and the third, the story of Mahasarasvati, is given in the remaining chapters of the Saptašati.

THE FIRST CHARITA Near the hermitage of the sage Medhas in a forest, two persons of ill-luck met, one of whom was a Kshatriya, Suratha by name, and the other Samadhi, a Vaishya. Suratha had lately lost his kingdom as a result of its invasion by another king whose victory was achieved by the intrigue of Suratha’s ministers and the disloyalty of his subjects. The Vaishya had his own tale of woe, for he had been a wealthy merchant and was later abandoned, driven out of the house by the members of his own family-by his wife and sons and relatives from their greed of power, wealth and influence. After an exchange of knowledge of their pitiable plight, both of them decided to approach the sage who was living nearby and place before him their difficulties in which there was a common element. After paying their respects to the hermit, they narrated the story of their misfortune and then put this question to the sage. The king spoke:“Great sage! Though I have lost my kingdom and have nothing now to do with it, my heart still clings to the sense and feeling of ’mine’, mamatva, in regard to my former associates, in the ministry and military, officers and subjects. Why should this ego-feeling of ’mine ’ still persist while there is no justification or truth for its basis? And here is the merchant (pointing to Samadhi) who is no longer required by his relatives who have abandoned him; still he sails in the same boat as I, with his heart clinging to his wife and daughters, sons and relatives, and past associations. What is the mystery? What is the cause of this incorrigible delusion, moha, to which we are victims? We are not fools unaware of what is wrong and evil; still knowingly we are drawn by a compelling force to this enchantment of mamatva, ’mine’. Is there a cause ? Is there a remedy? Deign to come to our rescue, O sage."

THE Root CAUSE Medhas, the sage, replied, expounding the root cause of all suffering and pointing out the remedy: “All creatures have a consciousness of their own and are instinct with the desire to preserve themselves and their knowledge is spread over the objects of senses. Of the created beings, some are born day-blind, some night-blind, while others are, day and night, of equal vision. The knowledge of man is in no way better than that of birds and beasts which show great skill in preserving themselves and what is theirs. Here again, the sense and feeling of ‘mine’ is spread over all creation—man and beast alike. Know then, the cause of all this is ignorance, avidyā, which is not the creation of any being on earth or in heaven. It is a product of the workings of mahāmayā, the great illusory Power of Lord Vishnu. She is the power for bondage as well as for liberation, for ignorance and for knowledge. By Her the whole universe is set in motion revolving incessantly and containing in it all that is mobile and immobile. She, in short, is the Power of Hari, the Lord of the Universe, called yoga-nidrā, the Sleep-Power of Yoga or the superconscious poise of the Supreme Being."

Requested by Suratha to speak more about Her, the sage proceeded: “Though She is eternal, immanent in the whole universe which is Her embodiment, She takes birth again and again, incarnates Herself in a special form of Her choice for the successful regime of the Gods, Devas-for establishing Divine Principles in the world-order so that its functionings may increasingly harmonise with the eternal verities and higher laws of the creative Godhead.”

At the close of a former cycle when the cosmos was asleep in the Oceanic Being of its own Cause, and Vishnu, the Lord, also was in his supra-cosmic sleep, yoga-nidrā, two Asuras, Madhu and Kaitabha were born of the ear-dirt of the Lord and tried to kill Brahma, the creator residing in the navel-lotus of Hari. Upon this, Brahma sought the grace of the goddess of Sleep lodged in the Lord’s eyes and sang the praises of the Devi. In response, Mahakali, the terrible ruler of the Night, the pitch Dark, tamasi rātri, granted Brahma’s prayer in rousing Vishnu from the sleep and caused the destruction of the two Asuras: this is how she came to be titled Madhu-Kaitabha-Našini. Thus ends the first Charita, the story of Mahakali who is the Goddess presiding over the Divine tamas.

THE SECOND CHARITA In the second Charita of the Devi, Medhas the sage narrates the story of Mahalakshmi. Mahishasura, the buffalo-faced demon, as a result of his mother Diti’s austerities and penance, was born powerful, growing impetuous and endowed with a world-shaking passion for power over the gods. Conquering the gods, he established his power in heaven. The vanquished gods headed by Brahma approached Shiva and Vishnu for consultation. When the latter learnt of the plight of the gods, they got so much enraged that their wrath emitted fire; powerful lights of splendour emanated from the bodies of Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, Indra and other gods, forming into a vast mass of Light that took the shape of a woman whose radiant effulgence filled the three worlds. The forceful light of each of the gods formed into a particular limb of the woman—her face was shaped by Shiva, hair by Yama, her rounded breasts by Soma, waist by Indra, shoulders by Vishnu and other limbs similarly by other gods. She was also provided with the respective weapons of the gods. This is the Devi, the Goddess Mahalakshmi, who appeared and challenged the Asura with a thundering roar that shook the three worlds. The gods rejoiced when She slew the Asuras with her weapons and got close to Mahishasura and pressing him under Her feet, thurst the trident, śūla, into his body. The gods regained their lost kingdom, adored the Devi and sang Her glory. Highly pleased, the Goddess promised to come to the rescue of the gods whenever there was need or they were put to trouble by the asuric forces, the demons. Thus ends the second Charita, the story of Mahişāsuramardini, the title of Mahalakshmi, the Goddess who presides over Rajas, the cosmic quality and power of all action.

THE THIRD CHARITA Then comes the last or uttama charita, the best story, of the Mother: Two brothers, Shumbha and Nishumbha, sons of Sunda and Upasunda, the well-known Asuras of the house of the demon Hiranyakashipu, were engaged in severe austerities from their very boyhood and by the sheer force of their tapas, succeeded in getting audience of Brahma, who granted them all their desires in addition to the boon (at their own request) that they would not meet death at the hands of gods or men except at the instance of a kanya, a virgin, who was not born of a mother’s womb, ayonijā. Then puffed up with pride and power, the brothers challenged Indra, took away his rights and privileges enjoyed in yajnas, scarifices, displaced him from his position as king of the gods, established their rule everywhere, enjoying the rights and positions of the Devas. The gods assembled and remembering the promise of the Devi to come to their help when needed, went to the Himalayas and offered their prayers to Her in their distress, invoking Her presence and help.

The Mother was moved. She made Her appearance before them in a very attractive form, at once luminous, charming and graceful. The Asuras were there, the leaders, messengers and the party of the demon king Shumbha; they were infatuated by the melting beauty of Her form and made overtures to Her to become the spouse of their king. Many generals were sent for the purpose, but no one returned with his life. Among the most important generals that were playfully done away with by the Mother, Dhoomralochana was the first. Next came the turn of Chanda and Munda, two generals who met their fate at the hands of the laughing Mother who is therefore called Chamunda. Then came to the field Raktabija who was so called because every drop of his blood touching the ground would produce an Asura, a fighter equal to him. But without allowing a drop of blood to fall on earth, the Mother finished with him. Then last came in person Shumbha and Nishumbha who attacked the Devi in vain, and were struck down by Her.

It is to be noted that Her encounter with Shumbha was preceded by the destruction of his brother Nishumbha, who embraced the fate of millions of the Asura forces that were all dealt with by the “Little Mothers”, mātrikas, who were emanations and vibhūtis of the great Mother who at last called back and gathered all these powers and Mother-Personalities into Her own Body and killed the demon-king Shumbha, taking up his challenge to fight with him single-handed. Virile and vehement in Her attacks, She is referred to as Chandi or Chandika.

The Saptașati is full of descriptions and details, and of names of weapons and of Asuras and Devi-Murtis.

When the work of the Devi was finished, the gods adored Her and chanted many hymns in praise of her prowess, of Her many manifestations and of Her motherly heart. The Goddess was pleased and once again gave Her word of assurance to stand by the side of the gods in times of need and stress, and also declared that She would ever be present in places where these hymns were read and used in prayers. Finally the Devi spoke of Her future incarnations.

This is the story of Mahasarasvati (called Shumbhadamani), the Goddess who presides over sattva, the balancing quality of universal Calm amidst all activity and tribulations of external nature or in the inner existence.

CONCLUSION OF THE DEVI-MAHATMYA Hearing the greatness of the Divine Mother as expounded by the sage Medhas and revealed in those stories of Her three great perosnalities of Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasarasvati, the king and the merchant were convinced that nothing was impossible for the Supreme Goddess and decided to worship Her and become the recipients of Her gracious blessing. Receiving instructions from the sage as to the method and secret of worship, they retired to the solitudes of the forest, and lived an austere life for three years, fully engaged in tapas using for japa,2 At his own request Samadhi, the merchant, received from the Divine Mother that knowledge by which real detachment from worldly objects and desires is effected and the sense of “I” and “mine” is dissolved into the ever blissful state of consciousness of the Divine, the Supreme Truth, the Absolute. This is the gist of Saptaśati, the Devi-Māhātmya, the closing chapter of which recounts the good, worldly and other-worldly, that accrues to the benefit of those that perform the Durga Puja, especially in the beginning of sarat, the Autumn, and chant in their prayers the hymns addressed by the gods in their invocations of Chandi.

PERSONAL FEATURES An account of the Devi-Māhātmya will be incomplete without mention made of the distinguishing personal features of the three main mürtis of the Divine Mother, for purposes of worship by the devotees. There are ten chapters in the Mārkandeya Purana following the Saptašati (serving the purpose of a supplement to it) in which the sage Medhas gives details of worship and descriptions of the personalities, emanations and vibhūtis of the Mother. The Mantras (mystic syllables), Tantras (rituals), Yantras (diagrams of occult significance) are also spoken of in addition to the account given of the Trinity, trimūrti, both on the Purusha (male) side and on the side of Shakti (Female Energy).

The origin, function and purpose of some of the vibhutis and embodied Powers of the Mother and method of their worship are also described, as also the past and future Avataras or incarnations of the Devi.

Mahakali is distinguished by Her ten faces (three-eyed faces), ten hands and ten feet-She is daśabhujā, Kali, blue stone colour; it is She who was invoked to rouse Mahavishnu to tackle the dark and pervert activities of Madhu and Kaitabha, hostile to the cosmic manifestation of the Lord.

In Her ten hands she holds these-sword, arrows, club, trident, conch, a weapon called bhusundi, bow, a head from which blood is flowing.

Mahalakshmi: She is known by her eighteen arms, asta-daśabhujā. Her eighteen hands hold in each of them the following: rosary, lotus, arrows, sword, thunderbolt, club, the sudarśana discus, trident, hatchet, conch, bell, rope, iron spear, stick, shield, bow, drinking vessel, water-pot. Under Her feet is Mahishasura. She is the Goddess who shaped Herself into being out of the massed light and collective force of all the Devas. Hence She has in Her all the three qualities (Sattva, Rajas, Tamas) that dominate the world-existence, triguņā sā mahālakṣmi sākṣān mahişamardini.

Her face and breast are white, waist and feet are red, her shoulders blue and so on. These colours indicate the aforesaid gunas of the Mother. But generally she is described as pravāla-prabhā, She whose radiance is of the colour of coral. This is to denote that rajas is Hers, even as Kali is tamoguņā. Mahalakshmi is seated on a lotus. Mahasarasvati: This is the Devi who is recognised by Her eight arms, aștabhujā, which hold in them bow, arrow, conch, discus, bell, plough, pestle, trident. The light of her body is white resembling that of the moon after the rains when the sky is cloud-free, ghanānta-vilasat sitamşu-tulyaprabhā.

These characteristics of the three embodiments, mūrtis, of the Mother (especially the ten, eighteen and eight hands) are enough to enable one to identify the particular Idol that we find installed in temple for the Mother-worship. As has been already noted, this mention is made conforming to the text in the Markandeya Purana which is the great authority for the Chandi school of tantric thought in the matter of Mother-worship. The names of Kali, Lakshmi, Sarasvati of the Chandi-Mahatmya should not be confounded with the same mentioned in the Tantras or Puruans; for the Mantras, Tantras, rituals, the very mūrtis, and their special modes of worship often differ. The Chandi does not come under the category of the well-known Dasa-Mahavidyās-Kali, Tara, Kamala, Tripura-Bhairavi, Chhinna-masta, Bagalamukhi and the rest, each of which is a “great science and art” of approaching the Divine Mother of the Universe for help that She may carry the devotee across the ocean of ignorance and mortality to the supreme Light immortal, the final destination. In the worship of Chandi, great prominence is given to the pārāyaṇam of saptašati which is much more important than the Japa of the Chandi Mantra.

Rituals form such a great part of the tantric worship that accounts for the popular belief that there is no tantric worship without ritual. External worship can never be dissociated from some form of ceremony, whether it is the Vedic worship of sacrifice for the Vedic gods or the Agamic worship of Shiva or Vishnu in the temples. But the Shakti-cult (the tantric) is looked down upon by the other cults as something very despicable. Why? Certain elements feature in its rituals which are undoubtedly the outcome of the moral and spiritual degradation of those who take to the cult with their unregenerated nature fed by intemperance and sexual indulgence. But there is a higher side of the Tantra, of the Mother-cult, which should be sufficient to put the critical mind on guard that it may refrain from condemning the whole method of the tantric worship because of its perversion by the depraved and the degenerate. As for the murti-pujā, idol-worship, which forms an important part of that “many-sided and synthetic whole which we call Hinduism”, a defence or justification is no longer necessary. A more decisive and weighty pronouncement on the subject is hard to find than a few sentences culled from the old writings of Sri Aurobindo in regard to idol-worship and the forms and colours of the God or Goddess worshipped as mentioned in the Tantras. After stating that the tantric worship and discipline provides for the worship of the formed and the formless and for many stages of the aspirants, he proceeds: “How can the Formless invest Himself with Form, asks the religious rationalist. The universe is there to reply. Hinduism worships Narayana in the stone, the tree, the animal, the human being. That which the intellectual and spiritual pride or severity of other religions scron, it makes its pride and turns into its own form of logical severity. Sticks and stones, the quadruped and the human being, all these are equals in God, our brothers in the Divine, forms that the Omnipresent has not disdained to assume. But beyond the material forms there are others that are ideal and symbolic, but not less, if anything more real, more full of divine power than any actual physical manifestation. These are the mental images in which we worship God.”

Again, “If there is a consciousness in the universe and transcending it which answers to the yearning of these creatures and perhaps Itself yearns towards them, then it is idle to suppose that It would assume or create for Its own pleasure and glory the forms of the universe, but would disdain as an offence to Its dignity or purity those which the love of the worshipper offers to It and which after all Itself has formed in his heart or his imagination. To these mental forms, mental worship may be offered and this is the higher way; or we may give the material foundation, the pratifthā, of a statue or a picture image to form a physical nodus for a physical act of worship.” In the same connection, finally he remarks: “In our human ignorance, with our mental passion for degrees and distinctions, for superiorities and exclusions, we thus grade these things and say that this is superior, that is for ignorant and inferior souls. Do we know? The theist looks down with reprobation on the form-adoring, man worshipping idolator and polytheist; the Advaitin looks down with a calm and tolerant indulgence on the ignorance of the quality-adoring personality-bemused Theist.”

Here is the conclusive statement: “It seems to us that God scorns nothing, that the Soul of all things may take as much delight in the prayer of a little child or the offering of a flower or a leaf before a pictured image as in the philosopher’s leap from the summit of thought into the indefinable and unknowable and that he does best who can rise and widen into the shoreless realisation and yet keep the heart of a little child and the capacity of the seer of forms.”

We have come to the end; and here we offer our meed of praises3 The cause and Mother of the world, She whose form is that of the Shabdabrahman, And whose substance is bliss, Thou art the primordial One, Mother of countless creatures, Creatrix of the bodies of the lotus-born, Vishnu and Shiva, Who creates, preserves and destroys the worlds. Although Thou art the primordial cause of the world, Yet art Thou ever youthful, Although Thou art the Daughter of the Mountain-King, Yet art Thou full of tenderness. Although Thou art the Mother of the Vedas, Yet they cannot describe Thee, Although men must meditate upon Thee. Yet cannot their mind comprehend Thee.

The “opening is full of the supreme meaning of the great Devi symbol, its close is an entire self-abandonment to the adoration of the body of the Mother. This catholicity is typical of the whole tantric system, which is in its aspiration one of the greatest attempts yet made to embrace the whole of God manifested and unmanifested in the adoration, self-discipline and knowledge of a single soul ” (Sri Aurobindo).

1. The worshipper of Shakti. She is the great Goddess, the Mother of all creation, of all the gods and their worlds, who creates, preserves and dissolves, who constitutes and directs all the activities of the Universe. She veils Her own truth-the Absolute Truth beyond—from the vision of Her creatures, gods as well as men, and also by Her own Grace unveils Herself, Her transcendental Truth to their vision and experience for the final beautitude, for crossing the Ignorance, for their liberated and illumined life or for their absorption in Her own Blissful and Absolute Being.
2. Repetition of a mantra in an inaudible voice. the Mantras of the famous Vedic Hymn, the Devi Sukta of the Rig Veda—-devi-sūktam param japan. At the close of the three years, Chandika, the Goddess who is the upholder of the World, Jagaddhatri, appeared before them, expressed Her pleasure to grant them their desired ends. By the boon he got, the king regained his lost kingdom and in the next birth, he became the Sävarņi Manu with his unfailing regime throughout the cycle of time named after him, Savarni Manvāntara.
3. From a hymn in the Tantras?ra (translated by Arthur Avalon). to the Devi in the language of the Tantra: