By Rajiv Theodore
New Delhi, Dec 11, 2019: Brutalization of women never seems to end, worse, there is always an upward spike in the number of such cases in the country.
These shocking, almost bone-chilling incidents keep surfacing almost each day as the female gender in India face extreme violence and murder. These incidents never seem to end, so much so that India has been billed as the most dangerous country in the world for women, even abysmally worse than countries such as Afghanistan, Syria or Saudi Arabia where women hardly have any rights to speak off. And eerily so when India after all is the world’s largest democracy.
All these force us to rethink and introspect, look inward into our inner recesses, to weigh our cultural and spiritual worth and of course our shared past.
The question arises, have we lost our past, does our tradition give an answer or at least a clue to the current savaging the women in India are subjected to? A little glance back at our heritage and culture which is so much women centric, needs a relook from the perspective of the importance given to women. Let us look at the other side of the spectrum of an India that boasts of a great tradition of goddess worship.
Of the world’s living religious traditions, it is only in Hinduism that such extensive worship of divinity in the female form may be found. Unlike any other living religious tradition this goddess worship attributes supreme divinity, power over creation, all speech, nature, mind, and liberation, the universe itself, to devi, the Goddess, who exceeds even the great gods Shiva, Vishnu, Indra, and Brahma, depicted many times as upon whose bent backs she sits in glory.
It is from this tradition that gave birth to some of the most sublime images of feminine divinity the world has ever seen, as well as some of the most mysterious and powerful as is seen from a range of graceful miniature paintings of Sita pining for her beloved husband Rama, or Radha awaiting a tryst with Krishna in a forest grove to imposing images of Durga and Kali gracing south India’s stone temples. The centrality of the women has been celebrated again and again.
The worship of divinity in the female form is so extensive that the tradition of devī worship has been more about a way of life than going through the paces of a ritual. The goddess may take the form of a simple rock, a mound of mud, a wooden carving, a bronze statue, a painting, a poster, a sword, a tree dead or living.
his devī worship has been the force majeure for much of the social fabric especially so in Kerala where most of the temples still worship Bhagwati. From cooking to business, to dance forms and sculptures, to seeking knowledge the devi is the fount from where all success and joy flows
She functions as the protector, provider, and punisher of the social fabric. She demands constant propitiation, worship and consultation in order to assure order and avert disease and disaster. Kali, Sitala, Mariyamman, Bhagwati and Durga are aspects of goddess, which also symbolize the existence of womanhood.
Although these form of goddess worship is prominent in village shrines, it is also very important at the temple level, particularly in Bengal and Kerala, where temples to Kali or Bhagavati predominate. Infact, the feminine divine goes far beyond even this almost infinite wealth of images and poetry. Hindu philosophy also includes sublime and intellectually sophisticated theologies of the Goddess
It is well worth peeping into this great tradition of goddess worship in Hinduism. It is true that goddesses had played a relatively minor role in the Vedic days but by 1st-11th C. CE of Hinduism, their presence had become central. As temples and devotional Hinduism underwent a dramatic period of growth in response to the challenge of Buddhism and Jainism, goddesses rose in importance.
Powerful and appealing female divinities embodying every possible aspect of existence began to be envisioned in temple sculpture and eulogized in hymns of praise.
The tradition of the goddess infuses deep reverence to the earth called as the Mother Goddess. Since the past the rivers, mountains, hills, the sky, and in fact all of the earth, have been respected as the body of the goddess itself. The river Ganga, the most important of the Hindu river goddesses, is liquid divinity whose can even empower, cleanse, purify, heal, and enlighten.
The Shakti Pithas—locations, where parts of the goddess’s body mythically fell to earth and installed themselves, are seats of power where pilgrims can directly experience the goddess. Hills, mountains, stones, and anthills all manifest miraculous powers throughout the Indian subcontinent, and are ancient places of pilgrimage and renewal. Before building a house, undertaking cultivation of plants, starting a ritual, or beginning a dance, Hindus pray to Bhumi Devi, the earth goddess, for her blessings and forgiveness.
It is in the ancient tantric tradition of Sri Vidya that the feminine goddess is worshipped in numerous forms, the devī as the Tripurasundari, the beauty of the three worlds ; as Rajarajeshwari- queen of the universe etc. She is the supreme creator; all worlds and powers dwell within her body in the form of minor Devis’, who are each enumerated and propitiated through the worship.
The essence of Sri Vidya practice is encoded in the texts Lalita Sahasranama and Saundarya Lahari, which are recited daily in many parts of India, but can be properly understood only through initiation by a guru of the tradition. Through the use of mantras (sacred syllables embodying the energies of the goddess), mudras (ritual hand gestures that awaken subtle energies and seal the relationship of the seeker to the chosen deity), guided meditation, and external puja (offerings of various kinds) to the Sri Yantra, a complex geometric pattern of energies that describes the inner workings of the universe.
It may take time to fully grasp the depth of the symbolism and beauty of the ritual practice encoded in feminine goddess tradition but a basic of understanding of goddess has great potential to expand our concept of the women in divinity in many religions and to realize the presence of the goddess within their own minds and bodies. India’s traditions had made room to allow men to respect and revere the feminine. An attitude worth glancing back–that embraces all of creation and all beings as pulsations of divine love emanating from the goddesses is bound to heal and uplift our world.