Mahishasura

All of us know who is Durga and how she kills the demon called Mahishasura.

But who is Mahishasura?

Once upon a time there were two demons by the name of Ramba and Karamba who were the sons of the demon Danu. They decided to undertake penance and so Karamba entered in water and Ramba entered in fire. Seeing the severity of the penance, Indra (the king of gods) felt insecure and decided to eliminate them before they could become a threat. Indra took the form of a crocodile and killed Karamba who was in the water. Seeing his brother dead, Ramba got scared and decided to commit suicide before Indra reached him.

Seeing the plight of Ramba, Lord Agni stopped him and granted him a boon. Ramba asked for a son, who could never be killed by a mortal or an immortal. Agni granted him the boon. On his way back, Ramba saw a beautiful demoness who was in the form a buffalo. He fell in love with her and took her home. At night when they were making love a buffalo charged in and killed Ramba. The grief-stricken demoness decided to kill herself and jumped onto the funeral pyre of Ramba.

But the boon of Agni could not be wasted, so from the funeral fire was born a child who was later known as Mahishasura – the buffalo demon.

Ramba’s relatives brought up Mahishasura to be their king. When Mahishasura grew up, he undertook a severe penance and pleased Lord Brahma. On Lord Brahma’s asking he got a boon from him that no man could kill him. At that point of time, it had never occurred to him that a woman could even think of killing him. Having got the boon, Mahishasura became a threat to the gods, till the gods invoked their energy to create a female principle in the form of Devi Durga to kill him after a violent nine day battle.

This is the story of Mahishasura – the buffalo demon.

The above is a statue of Mahishasura at Chamundi Hills in Mysore

Clay for Durga Idols

I am sure many of my readers will recollect a scene from the Hindi movie ‘Devdas’ (any version, but latest being that of Mr. Bhansali), where Paro goes to Chandramukhi’s house (read brothel) to take clay for usage in making the idol of Devi Durga.

An age old practice is to collect the punya mati (blessed soil) from outside the nishiddha pallis (forbidden territories) of Calcutta to be used amongst other things to make the idol of Devi Durga by the now-famous artisans from Kumartuli (the potters town in Kolkata). It is now a ritual and the practitioners feel that this is a vital ingredient in the clay to be used in the idol making, without which, one cannot proceed.

So what could be the reason behind this practice of collecting mud from the doorstep of a sex-worker?

The most prominent reason cited is that when a man enters these dens of vice, he leaves his virtues outside the doorstep, making the soil virtuous. When the man comes out of the house, he has left all his vices at the house of the sex-worker. Another reason given is that this is to ‘purge’ the sex-workers of their sins! This sounds quite ironic as it is well known that no woman in the area is there out of choice and no man is there out of force. So to use this reason is quite unfair to the already wronged women of the area.

But then, let us look at the same practice differently. This practice could have been initiated by some, to include the otherwise ostracised members of the society. It could also have been a way to honour the erstwhile courtesans who were proficient in different form of arts. Or could it be that people of all religions and communities come to a brothel and involving the soil from there in the ritual could just be a fitting tribute to the all-encompassing nature of the Mother?

So does the practice have a religious reason or does it have a social relevance? Has the ritual made any difference to the way a layman looks at them? What kind of ‘elevation of status’ (if any) is it when they are so important for a day, but whores for the rest of the year? If worship of Durga is of stree-shakti (feminine power), then why is this practice so demeaning to a set of the womenfolk who seem to be so integral to the ritual? Unfortunately, all I can say is that the practice is still on; the sex-workers are in as squalid condition as they were but definitely the ritual has lost its social relevance, if it had any.

It sure is quite a blotch on the land of social reformers like Raja Ram Mohun Roy and Swami Vivekananda, to say the least.

The Myth of Sati

As per the Shiva Purana, Daksha’s youngest daughter left her father’s house to follow Shiva, the mendicant as she had given her heart to him. She became Shiva’s obedient consort and became known as Sati, the perfect wife, much to the dislike of her father Daksha. 

Daksha’s dislike of Shiva goes back to a previous episode mentioned again in the Shiva Purana. According to this reference, one day Daksha was invited to a gathering of the gods, and as he entered the hall, all the gods rose in reverence, all but Shiva. Shiva’s intention was not to insult as he was oblivious to the prominence of Daksha who was considered to be the patriarch. Though Shiva’s intention was not to be disrespectful, his action of indifference did not amuse Daksha. He swore never to invite Shiva to any yagna or occasion as he did not find him worthy of such respect.

Once, Sati found that all the gods and goddesses were invited to a yagna organised by her father Daksha. She reached her father’s house only to find that there was no place reserved for her husband, who obviously was not invited, and this was a deliberate act. When she asked her father the reason for this, she was told by Daksha, that her husband’s ways did not warrant an invitation to such get-togethers. This was so insulting to Sati, that she decided to avenge her husband’s insult and even before anybody could understand, she jumped into the yagna fire and self-immolated herself, thereby causing a vighna – an obstacle to the yagna.

When Shiva came to know about the death of Sati, he was filled with both  grief and uncontrolled anger. In his fury, he took the charred remains of Sati and wandered around the cosmos in a destructive spree. The world would be engulfed in this fury and he had to be stopped.

At that moment, Lord Vishnu decided to hurl his ‘sudarshan chakra’, the heavenly discuss, to dismember Sati’s body into different pieces. These pieces fell in ‘Jambudwipa’, i.e. the present day Indian sub-continent.

It is said that there were 108 pieces made of Sati and each place where a piece of the body fell became a ‘Shaktipeeth’, a place of reverence. However, man in due course of time has lost out on majority of these places, and today we have 51 Shaktipeeths known to mankind. All these are well known places of religious significance.

Shaktipeeths in the Indian Sub-continent

Shaktipeeths are holy places of cosmic power; they are places of worship consecrated to the goddess ‘Shakti’. Throughout the Indian Sub-continent, there are many Shaktipeeths. A few prominent Shaktipeeths are:

v      Kalighat in Kolkata

v      Kamakhya in Assam

v      Katyayini in Vrindavan

v      Manibandh near Ajmer, Rajasthan

v      Naina Devi Temple in Himachal Pradesh

v      Bahucharaji in Mehsana district of Gujarat

A few Shaktipeeths exist in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

All these places have been said to have received some body part of Goddess Sati and the place is revered as a Shaktipeeth.

The Cult of Shakti

Shaktism is a Sanskrit term and means “Doctrine of the Goddess”. It is that aspect of Hinduism that focuses upon worship of Shakti (feminine power) or Devi, who is the Divine Mother. In Hinduism, the Great Divine Mother is regarded as the symbol of motherhood and power/energy. In Shaktism goddess worship, in all her forms is the practice. Shaktism regards Mahadevi as the Great Goddess. Here Shakti is the dynamic feminine aspect of the Supreme Divine.

Deities of Shaktism possess the very energy of existence, as Shakti is active, creative energy and each Goddess is profiled with her Shakti (power). The Goddess is seen as the personification of all creative energy and the source of all divine and cosmic evolution including all aspects of Nature.

In Hinduism, Adi Shakti is the ultimate Shakti, the final feminine power inherent in all creations. There are supposed to be a group of seven or eight mother goddesses, called the Matrikas. They are Brahmani, Vaishanvi, Maheshwari, Indrani, Kumari, Varahi and Chumnda and/or Narasimhi. The matrikas are considered Shaktis of the most important gods like Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Indra, Skanda or Kumara, Yama and Narsimha. Shakti is seen as a sign of protection of the country, the punisher of evil people, the curer of diseases and the one who gives happiness to the village.

The worship of Mother Goddess or Shakti, can be traced back to the Pre-Vedic or Indus Valley Civilisation. Devisukta of the Rig Veda is the primary source of Shakti Cult. In the Rig Veda there is a description of a goddess named 'Aditi'. She is depicted not only as Mother Goddess but also as an emblem of the divine spirit. Some other references of Mother Goddesses are Prithvi (earth), Vac (speech) and Usas (dawn).

Over time when the Puranic gods and goddesses gained prominence, the prominence of the Shakti worship did not ebb. It continued to flourish and the associated myths and the temples associated with this myth remained prime centres of pilgrimage. Needless to say, that in many a case, myths got inter-woven with that of the Puranic deities to co-exist.

To conclude, according to Shiva Purana, Shiva is shava (dead body) without his energy, Shakti. This underlines the significance of the concept of Shakti.

Navratri

Navratri literally means ‘nine nights’ – a festival of nine nights. Navratri is the festival of the feminine power, Shakti, the fountainhead of all creation and energy on the earth. This Shakti is worshipped in the form of goddess Durga, who in turn is referred by different regional names, like Sherawali, Vaishno devi or simply Mataji.

Durga derives her name from the Sanskrit word durg, meaning a fort. Devi Durga stands like a fort in front of her believers and shields them from all sufferings on the earth, and needless to say is the universal mother.

This day also is the beginning of the traditional dance form in Gujarat called Garba, which derives from the word ‘garbha’ or the womb. A pot is worshiped for the nine days by all women and all dance around the same. The jar is a common symbol for a womb and a recurrent theme in both mythology as well as folklore. The pot is a very prominent symbol of fertility and the same is used in many forms during the entire life cycle of human beings. But, we will discuss symbolism of a pot or jar on some other day.

The nine days also signify the battle between Ram and Ravana, with the victory of all that is good over evil and the tenth day is thus known as Vijaya Dashami, with the death of Ravana.