Woman and Goddess in Hinduism

by Tracy Pintchman

  Padoux goes on to note other features of tantrism that are distinctive, even if not unique: “the use of means pertaining to this world for supramundane ends” (20), particularly desire and pleasure, that are not to be renounced, but maximized, albeit for ultimately spiritual purposes. Included in this utilization of pleasure are transgressive practices such as those signaled in the famous five m’s—drinking wine (madya), eating meat (mamsa), fish (matsya), and fermented grain (mudra), and engaging in sexual intercourse (maithuna) outside of marriage.3 Sexual desire is often objectified in a young, unmarried woman, and particularly in the female sexual organ. Finally, Padoux mentions some other distinctive features of tantra, such as the emphasis on ritual, the great esteem for mantras and their use in meditation, the fashioning of ritual diagrams (such as yantras, including the r Cakra mentioned later), and ritual hand gestures.

  The Saundarya Lahar is generally assumed to have been composed in the context of the rvidy (“auspicious wisdom”) tradition, as Douglas Brooks puts it. By name she is primarily connected with iva and iva’s deeds, since it is he who is famously “the destroyer of the three demon cities.” She is invoked as Tripur (“she of the three cities”), Tripurasundar (“the lovely consort of [the lord of] the three cities”), or r Lalit Tripurasundar (“the lovely goddess of the three cities”). But nowhere in the Saundarya Lahar is she called Tripur, Tripurasundar, or r Lalit Tripurasundar, even if she is invoked as the spouse of Siva who is the destroyer of the three cities. Dev bears her own set of mythological exploits. For instance, Brooks details the myth of the goddess as Lalita, destroyer of the demon Bhanda4; such a myth is perhaps background taken for granted by readers of the Saundarya Lahar. But the hymn itself is decidedly nonmythological and makes no mention of such acts.

  As tantric, the Saundarya Lahar is part of a tradition that prizes the material and bodily as well as the spiritual and intellectual external beauty and also internalized norms of virtue, desire, and the renunciation of desire and of the female as well as the male.5 Even spiritual advancement is marked according to physical and psychological mastery, particularly of the centers of power in the body known as the cakras (to which we will return later); these cakras are in the physical human body. In the Saundarya Lahar, however, they are also comprehensive of the divine and human worlds, which are themselves included within Dev. On a ritual level, the Saundarya Lahar is recognized as one of the first examples we have of the cult of the goddess as the r signified by the sacred diagram (yantra) known as the r Cakra, and as evoked in her sacred name (mantra) of fifteen or sixteen syllables. But, again, such features in their specific detail seem largely to function as background elements in this hymn where Dev is seen directly, invoked directly, approached by one and all who have sufficient desire.

  In the tantric context worship is transgressive of the dominant Brahmanical moral norms, and is aimed at overcoming traditionally settled boundaries by strategies such as the five m’s mentioned earlier. The Saundarya Lahar, however, seems uninterested in any actual transgression such as might characterize its tantric background: no violations of dharma are described; no anti-Brahmanical claims are made. Even the complete physical description of Dev in the latter part of the hymn omits reference to her sexual organ, the description moving from her navel to her hips and down from there. Her breasts are described in detail, but primarily in terms of her role as mother. Yet the Saundarya Lahar also maintains inclusive values— such as nonelitism—that are defended by the transgression of all elitist boundaries; no thing and no one are beyond the realm of Dev.

  That the hymn intends a wide audience is confirmed in the fact that it is attributed to the eighth-century Vednta theologian amkara. It is one of many intellectual-devotional compositions grouped under his authorship. Even if there is little inclination among modern scholars to accept this attribution (and, accordingly, little need to accept as firm the eighth-century date), it is important to appreciate the significance awarded to the Saundarya Lahar by attributing it to one of the most important of all Hindu intellectuals. This is a measure of the esteem in which the hymn is held but also, I suggest, a sign that it is meant for wide use, composed by a renowned author whose contribution to Indian religious and intellectual life is popularly portrayed as public and for the benefit of all. As his composition, the Saundarya Lahar in a sense offers a public face for traditions, tantric and others, that could have remained largely inaccessible, preserved for an elite few. The hymn does presume learning, and does not repeat all that needs to be known—much remains implicit in the background—but it is largely informative in what it says, positioning Dev and the cult of Dev in relation to a complex religious background abbreviated and streamlined for this hymnic representation. It appears as a devotional hymn accessible to the devout, with few strictures about its audience or decipherment—other than expectations related to proper acknowledgment of Devi’s primary role as inspiring the poet and the devotee.6

  In the following pages I work with the notion that the Saundarya Lahar is communicative and not essentially secret or entirely dependent upon the skills of initiate readers. It is one thing to admit, as I certainly do, that prolonged study with a learned practitioner is a marvelously helpful practice; but it would raise a more daunting barrier to insist that its real meaning is in essence unavailable without a teacher. Though evocative of a complex religious world that goes well beyond the one hundred verses, the Saundarya Lahar nonetheless invites us to read it as a coherent, theoretical, and practical exposition of the approach to Dev, an approach that subsumes and simplifies that background. It is not fundamentally esoteric, even if its context has strong esoteric elements, since it does not conceal its major points regarding the devout meditation on Dev. It is a Sanskrit-language poetic document, meant to be used—heard, recited, read, studied—and is quite clearly accessible, to an important extent, even without the otherwise invaluable guidance of a teacher.

  DEV AS A“CONVENTIONAL GREAT GODDESS”

  Let us now turn to the thealogical content of the Saundarya Lahar and its thealogy of Dev, the focus of this essay. At the start of the hymn Dev is proclaimed iva’s power; without her he cannot act. She is his consort yet the one on whom he depends; she is transcendent and yet irresistibly approachable to devotees who wish to praise her. Devi’s power is subtle; she is not a warrior goddess who asserts herself violently to dominate or even to conquer evil. She is power, and so does not exercise power. She is life, vitality, beauty, desire, and conquers accordingly. Almost no mythology of Dev appears in the Saundarya Lahar, while references to the mythology of her consort iva are relatively more frequent. Yet it is only by her pleasure, in her pleasure, that other beings have their place. On her depend the gods and goddesses, all lesser-conscious beings, and the entire universe. She is manifest in the centers of physical and psychological energy in the body known as the cakras, visualized abstractly in the geometric detail of yantras and particularly in the r Cakra, and manifest as sound in her precious sixteen-syllable mantra name. Visualizable as a beautiful woman, she is also settled in a rather standard and expected cultural frame that is used and reused to great effect. A mother, she remains the most beautiful of women, the one upon whose figure one gazes in loving detail in order to gain the liberation that is the fullness of bliss, desire entirely, endlessly satisfied. She is lovely, her figure is full, and she even dresses better than anyone else. While she surpasses every conventional image and standard mode of contemplation, she must be seen, since only by that vision is bliss attainable. By design the Saundarya Lahar aims at this contemplation of beauty; accordingly, “Saundarya Lahar” is by tradition the name of the whole as well as the name of the second part of the hymn (vv. 42–91).

  Of course, it is neither novel nor helpful to discover that a “woman is there primarily to be looked at.” However lofty the characterization of Dev’s beauty, one might argue that she turns out to be a superwoman far removed from the realm of ordinary women; the promises made regarding male pro
sperity and desire might indicate that she is simply a high-level projection of male fantasies. I suggest, on the contrary, that the point of the hymn is to receive, deconstruct, and restore the image of Dev as a beautiful woman, to make it a viable religious goal that both takes into account and also transforms ordinary cultural expectations. Her beauty is remarkable and the correct object of worship and pleasure, but it is accessible in its potent fullness only after an ascesis of tantric distillation and by way of an assertion of a post-tantric devotion as the premier way of access to Dev.

  The key problem addressed by the Saundarya Lahar is therefore the sdhana (spiritual practice) by which blissful union with Dev is to be achieved: ostensibly ordinary worship, with extraordinary results, a refined version of tantric bhakti. This transformation is achieved by the reception and reuse of ordinary conceptions of woman, and standard bhakti approaches to the divine, for the sake of a more nuanced and effective appropriation of the divine reality.

  The hymn may be divided according to this outline:

  1. Thesis: iva needs akti (v. 1)

  2. Traditional opening praise (vv. 2–7)

  3. A purification and distillation of the worship of Dev (vv. 8–41)

  4. A new viewing of Dev (vv. 42–91)

  5. A climactic entrance into Dev’s love chamber (vv. 92–95)

  6. Traditional closing praise (vv. 96–100)

  Let us first review the frame structure of the hymn, the thesis stated in verse 1, and the representation of traditional praise in verses 2–7 and 96-100. The thesis of the Saundarya Lahar is stated in the first verse:

  1. Only joined with Power has the God power to rule, otherwise He cannot even quiver.

  The verse continues with a corollary about other deities:

  You are worthy of adoration by Hari, Hara, Viriñci, and all the rest,

  This is in turn personalized in light of the author’s own condition:

  How dare I who’ve done nothing meritorious reverence and praise You?

  The full thealogical ambition of the Saundarya Lahar is implicit in this first verse, and one might say that the rest of its verses elaborate, defend, and apply its thesis. How iva relates to Dev is a theme to which the Saundarya Lahar returns regularly. Verse 34 indicates that Dev is iva’s body, but also that she is his self as well; ultimately they are mutually dependent and unable to live apart:

  You are the body of ambhu, the sun and the moon are your breasts, my lady, and so too I reflect on your self as the flawless self of Bhava. This relation—that which depends, that on which all depends—is common to you both, both of you intent on the highest bliss in a single taste.7

  Later in this essay (in commenting on vv. 35–41) we shall see how iva and his consort function within Devi’s cakras, and then too (in the “Flood of Beauty”) how iva “performs” in the social setting created by Devi’s beauty. The promises early in the hymn are, as it were, a tease; it will only be at the end of the entirety of the hymn that the repeatedly deferred intimate pleasure of iva and Dev seems to reach satisfaction (vv. 92–95), a satisfaction involving a wide range of other beings, including the viewer.

  In the opening scenario and the concluding colophon, Dev is portrayed as a classic deity of beauty and power:

  2. Brahmā gathered the tiniest speck of dust from Your lotus feet and fashioned a world lacking nothing; with much effort Indra carries the same on his thousand heads; iva pulverizes it and rubs it on like ash.

  3. For the ignorant, You are the island-city of light illumining their inner darkness; for the dull-witted, honey streaming from the flower bouquet of consciousness; for the destitute, a double for the wishfulfilling jewel; for those drowning in the ocean of births, the tusk of Mura’s enemy, the boar lifting them up: that’s how You are.

  4. The league of gods, other than You, dispels fear and bestows boons with two hands, and only You have no need to make boon-bestowing and fear-dispelling gestures—by themselves Your feet are able to protect from fear and bestow boons beyond desire, as You afford shelter to every world.

  5. You bestow prosperity on those who make obeisance before You, and thus once, after adoring You, Hari assumed the form of a damsel and fascinated even the destroyer of cities; Memory too worshipped You and became powerful enough to infatuate even great sages, his frame fit for licking by Pleasure’s eyes;

  6. He has no limbs but carries a bow made of flowers, a bow-string of bees, five arrows, his servant is spring, the mountain breeze his chariot: thus armed, O daughter of the snow-capped mountain, still he obtains grace only from Your glance, and by that conquers the whole world single-handedly.

  7. O great pride of the vanquisher of cities, with jingling girdle You stoop under breasts like the frontal globes of a young elephant, You are slim of waist, Your face like the autumnal full moon, in Your hands are bow, arrows, noose and goad: may You stand forth before us!

  The conclusion of the Saundarya Lahar returns to a similar straightforward praise:

  96. How many poets have not courted the wife of Vidhatr? Which poet does not become the Lord of the goddess r, whatever his wealth? O foremost among good women, except for the great God, embracing Your breasts is not easily accomplished even by the kumvaka tree.

  97. The knowers of the traditions call You the goddess of letters, the wife of Druhina, Padm, wife of Hari, companion of Hara, daughter of the mountain, but You are also that fourth state, unsurpassed and hard to attain splendor, the great My, and so You make everything unsteady, O queen of highest Brahman.

  98. I desire wisdom, mother, so tell me, when I shall drink that essence of chewed betel juice reddened with lac dye, the water that washed Your feet, the essence of betel from Vn’s lotus mouth that makes poets even of those mute by birth?

  99. Whoever is devoted to You will play with Sarasvatī and Laksmī, rival Vidhi and Hari, have a beautiful form that melts even Pleasure’s chastity, live a long life free from the bonds that bind beasts, and enjoy the taste known as “highest bliss.”

  100. Illumining the sun with small flames, bathing the moon whence nectar flows with drops from moonstones, satisfying the ocean with its own drops of water—and me too, praising You with Your own words, O mother of all words.

  By my reading, and without ignoring the rich complexities surely latent in the text, these verses offer a largely unproblematic and accessible representation of the sentiments and practices related to the worship of Dev. One seeks her presence, surrenders to her, gropes for the appropriate words and acts, and worships her as best one can. This is the frame for the two inner sections of the Saundarya Lahañ, to which we shall now turn; but the overall point is that one can imagine beginning from ordinary worship, and returning to that ordinary worship—even if for the transformed practitioner the ordinary is now steeped in deeper spiritual insight and power.

  DECONSTRUCTING DEV

  IN THE “FLOOD OF BLISS” (vv. 8-41)

  If the framing verses present her in a fairly traditional manner, the “Flood of Bliss” section (vv. 8–41) takes apart and recomposes that image in a way that is strikingly abstract and yet at the same time powerfully charged. The most complex features of the Saundarya Lahar are specific to the tantric tradition that stands as background to the portrayal of Dev in the “Flood of Bliss.” In the “Flood of Bliss” we see an exalted deity, praised superlatively, possessed of extraordinary powers, and signified in a densely codified language that is (partially) unpacked in the elaborate commentaries on the hymn. The “Flood of Bliss” offers a careful deconstruction of the goddess tradition by means of a tantric rarification that, in turn, is itself deconstructed, so that Dev turns out to be the nearby but elusive différence of the divine; in the “Flood of Beauty,” this différancc will be enunciated anew, revisualized, in terms that are both direct and ironic.

  Earlier tantras may have been thought to have defined her subtle reality, but they are nonetheless relegated to a secondary position, inferior and misleading with respect to this new tantra—her t
antra— that iva brings to earth:

  31. After deceiving all the worlds by the sixty-four tantras dependent on the perfections attributed to them Paupati rested, but due to his connection with You He once again brought down to earth Your tantra which of its own accord accomplishes all human goals at once.

  The point is not how many tantras there are, or the importance of knowing them, but only the superiority of her new path over those complex and lesser paths. While the commentators meticulously list the tantras, that information does not seem to be the author’s concern.

  To understand the use and reuse of tantric resources in an economic fashion, I highlight three key strategies of “tantrification”: spiritual-material (with respect to the cakras), the visual (with respect to the r Cakra), and the auditory (with respect to Devi’s holy mantra name).8These presume and build on the claim (v. 1) that Dev is the Power of iva. First, the Saundarya Lahar situates Dev with respect to the cakms, material/spiritual centers of power that, in other texts but not here, are usually located in the subtle body with correspondence to specific bodily locations: anus (mldhra), genitals (svdhisthna), navel (manipuro), heart (anhata), throat (viuddhi), brow (j), and along with these cakras, a point at the top of the head (sahasrra). It is not clear whether the cakras are somehow inside Devi’s own form, or simply her domain. In verses 36 ff, the cakras are described as belonging to her; in them iva resides. Here too there is a rich evocation of traditional knowledge in order to assert Devs freedom with respect to those cakras:

  9. You pierce earth in the mldhra cakra, water in the manipura cakra, fire in the svdhisthna cakra, wind in the anhata cakra and the ether above that, and mind in the cakra between the brows; thus You pierce the entire kula path and then take pleasure with Your Lord in the secrecy of the thousand petaled lotus.