Woman and Goddess in Hinduism

by Tracy Pintchman

  10. You sprinkle the evolved world with a stream of nectar flow ing from beneath Your feet, and from the resplendent abundance of the nectar moon You descend to Your own place, making Yourself a serpent of three and a half coils, and there You sleep again in the cave deep within the foundation.

  As the kundalini, she moves freely up and down through the cakras; they belong to her as her domain. Verses 14 and 21 seem to reflect on her brilliance surging even beyond the cakras—that is, beyond the corresponding elements and lotuses:

  14. Fifty-six rays in earth, fifty-two in water, sixty-two in fire, fifty-four in air, seventy-two in the heavens, sixty-four in the mind: but far above them all are Your lotus feet.

  21. Slender as a streak of lightning, the essence of sun, moon, and fire; though seated in the great forest of lotuses, You stand high above even the six lotuses; if great souls in whose minds impurity and illusion are obliterated look upon You, they gain a flood of highest delight.

  Later we shall return to the cakras at the climax of the “Flood of Bliss,” but for now it suffices to see that the cakra system is valorized—as subordinate to her.

  A second strategy aimed at locating Dev with respect to the tantric tradition and purifying her image of extraneous cultural influences comes by way of attention to the refined, geometrical form of the r Cakra. As a complex web of intersecting triangles with bordering margins and a central single point, the r Cakra symbolizes the interplay of iva and akti in their cosmic roles and cosmic play. Almost every edition of the Saundarya Lahar includes a reproduction of the r Cakra, and occasionally also yantra designs for each verse.

  Even if the r Cakra is crucial and central, in the Saundarya Lahar its importance is downplayed:

  11. Nine base components—four Sr-triangles and five iva-triangles—around a distinct center point, plus lotuses of eight and sixteen petals, three rings and three bordering lines: thus, altogether Your angle-home evolves as forty-three.

  Verse 19 seems to suggest a meditation on her form—her face—as symbolized in the r Cakra. The pleasure of seeing her is deflected, at this point in the Saundarya Lahar she cannot be observed directly.

  19. Making your face the center point, under that your breasts, and under that one half of Hara: whoever thus meditates on your desire portion, O Hara’s queen, at once fascinates women easily, but very soon he unsettles even the goddess of the three worlds who has the sun and the moon for breasts.

  That the r Cakra should be referred to so minimally, twice, and only twice, does not mean that the author dismissed its importance, or saw it as unnecessary for practitioners using the Saundarya Lahar. Perhaps it is very important. Nonetheless, this reference too has a primarily practical purpose, the subordination of the r; Cakra to Dev. It is her abode; it is not identified with her; she can be approached by other and better means.

  The reduction of her name to pure sound in the form of mantra is a third rarification of Dev and renders her form more subtle. In the Saundarya Lahar Dev is usually addressed in the second person. Most of the names by which she is invoked are simply standard references to Parvat/Umā, the consort of iva9: she is the “daughter of the mountain lord” (vv. 6, 12, 58, 75, 76, 78, 81), Umā (vv. 47, 71), the consort of arva (v. 60), “ivā” (Dev as the female power associated with iva; vv. 25, 32, 35, 43, 57, 77), and even ambhu’s grace (v. 93).10 She is occasionally addressed as Goddess (vv. 72, 80, 88, 91), and also as Mother (vv. 17, 28, 39, 64, 65, 74, 76, 77, 84, 87, 98). In general, though, the point seems to be that names specifying her as a particular sectarian deity are ruled out; she is marked in terms of her relation to iva, as Parvat, but we get the impression that no great conclusions are to be drawn from this marking.

  Only in several other places do we find more elaborate claims about her name, most importantly in verses 32–33, which indicate a secret name for Dev, words encoding a mysterious, subtle articulation of her name:

  32. “Sivā,” “power,” “desire,” “earth,” and “sun,” “cool-rayed moon,” “memory,” “swan,” “akra,” and “the higher,” “death,” and “Hari:” when these syllables are joined together, and finished with the triple heart syllable, they become the parts of Your name, O mother.

  The names have some meaning in themselves, but the commentators read them as markers for encoded syllables, to each set of which hr (the heart syllable) is added:

  ka + e + + la + hrm (= 5)

  ha + sa + ka + ha + la + hrīm (= 6)

  sa + ka + la + hr (= 4)

  Noting a tradition that Dev’s name has sixteen and not just fifteen syllables, Laksmdhara informs us that the sixteenth syllable is + r + + . Verse 33 extends her name by prefixing another syllable to it, “smara, yoni, laksm,” or, in the tantric calculus, kl + hr + r:

  33. Eternal one, some people with a taste for great, uninterrupted pleasure place the triad “memory,” “womb,” and “prosperity” before Your mantra and worship You with rosaries strung with jewels that grant desires, they offer hundreds of oblations, streams of butter from the cow Surabhi flowing onto the fire of iva.

  Her name thus turns out to be enunciated as follows:

  kl + hr + r11

  ka + e + ī + la + hr

  ha + sa + ka + ha + la + hr

  sa + ka + la + hr

  r

  There is no other reference to the mantra-name in the Saundarya Lahar; it seems probable that the point is to acknowledge and include the mantra in the repertoire of claims made about Dev and in praise of her.

  These reflections on Dev as power (v. 1) and then on her materiality as the cakras, her visible form as the r Cakra, and her name as mantra are all preparatory to the final verses of the “Flood of Bliss,” verses 34–41. Here we find an enactment of the thesis proposed in verse 1: our conception of her now purified of grosser identifications, Dev can be meditated on as possessed of the cakras in which iva resides. In verse 34, his intention to reflect on her thoughtfully (manana) is stated:

  34. You are the body of ambhu, the sun and the moon are Your breasts, my lady, and I contemplate Your self as the flawless nine-fold self; this relation—that which depends, that on which all depends—is common to You both, both of You intent on the highest bliss in one simple taste.12

  35. You are mind, You are air, You are wind and the rider of wind, You are water, You are earth, beyond You as You evolve there is nothing higher, there is only You, and when You transform Yourself by every form, then You take the form of consciousness and bliss as a way of being, O iva’s youthful one!

  Verses 36–41 suggest purer and clearer worship that perhaps balances the more standard worship offered in verses 2–7. The preliminary notion that Dev can be distanced as an object of worship has been discarded, and so now she is reverenced rather indirectly by the worship of iva and his consorts within her:

  36. I salute the supreme ambhu who abides in Your jñ cakra, shining with the radiance of countless suns and moons, at His side embraced by Highest Consciousness; by worshipping Him with devotion, we begin to live in that region of light beyond the reach of sun and moon and fire too, the place no sorrow can touch.

  37. In Your viuddhi cakra I worship iva as clear as pure crystal, the source of air itself, and I also worship the goddess, in act the same as iva; by the radiance of these two as they travel the path to a oneness in form with the moon’s rays, the universe has banished its inner darkness and dances with joy like a partridge.

  38. I worship the pair of swans whose only taste is the honey of the blooming wisdom lotus, who somehow cross the mind lake of the great ones, from whose chatter emanate the eighteen forms of knowledge, who extract all quality from what is flawed, like milk from water.

  39. I glorify the dissolver who, quieted, sets fire in Your svdhihna cakra, O mother, and also His great Samay goddess; when His glance, fueled with great anger, burns the worlds, her glance, moist with compassion, serves to cool it.

  40. The rainbow lit with power shining against the darkness, gems sparkling diversely,
set among jewels, the dark-blue cloud finding its only refuge in Your jeweled city and showering all three worlds scorched by Hara and the sun: that I worship.

  41. In Your mldhm cakra I contemplate the one whose self is nine-fold, who dances wildly in all nine moods with His Samayā goddess also intent on the dance; these two indicate with compassion the way to ascend, they rule, and so this world recognizes its mother and father.

  It is striking that these concluding verses do not mirror verse 1 exactly: there is no complete pairing of Dev and iva, while he and his consort(s) somehow remain a reality “within” her large, complete reality. iva and his consorts are included in the reality of the “you” to whom the hymn is directed; above and beyond the cakras with their accompanying mythology and imagery, and beyond the god and goddess imagined within the world of the cakras, stands the all-encompassing Dev herself. As we shall see, it is only in verses 91–95 that their complete unity is reimagined in full clarity once again.

  By my reading, a tantric analysis contributes to the Saundarya Lahar a demythologization and rarification of the Dev tradition. Her public image is deconstructed; ordinary and simply received material, anthropomorphic conceptions of her are put aside. But so too, the notion that she is accessible only in tantra is itself deconstructed. There is as it were a triumph of bhakti over tantra, a “post-tantrification” of the understanding of Dev. Already in the “Flood of Bliss” but, as we shall now see, more completely in the “Flood of Beauty,” the goal is a unitive vision of Dev.

  THE AESTHETIC AND DRAMATIC

  REPRESENTATION OF DEV IN THE “FLOOD

  OF BEAUTY” (VV. 42–91)

  Most commentators, traditional and modern, have focused their energies and interests on the “Flood of Bliss,” mining it as a source of information on the tantric tradition; they have shown much less interest in the second major part of the hymn, the “Flood of Beauty.” By the standard line of thinking, one might see the contemplation of iva and his consort(s) in her cakras in verses 36-41 as the culmination of the whole Saundarya Lahar; accordingly, the remaining, major portion of the text would become a rather large appendix to an already complete whole.13

  In the Saundarya Lahar as we have it, however, it is the “Flood of Bliss” that is preparatory to the “Flood of Beauty,” and thus in service of a more important visualization—or revisualization—of Dev who is to be contemplated head to toe. There are no directives given in the “Flood of Beauty,” which is rather straightforward and vivid in a kind of first-person eye-witness account of Dev’s beauty, giving the impression that the poet is engaged in meditation and reporting on what is seen. This is a key action in keeping with what was stated at the end of the introductory section of the Saundarya Lahar before the “Flood of Bliss”:

  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 “Flood of Beauty” fulfills the wish to see her directly. After the “Flood of Bliss” has cleared away uncritical stereotypes, a rejuvenated vision can take place. Conversely, the visualizations of the “Flood of Beauty” promote the main goal of the Saundarya Lahar, the engagement in a direct encounter with Dev that is posterior to and transcendent of the tantric tradition out of which the hymn was generated.14

  Each verse focuses on a particular aspect or detail—the crown on her head, hair, vermilion forehead mark, eyebrows, eyes and glance, ears, nose, teeth, smile, tongue, betel nut in her mouth, singing, throat, hands, breasts, navel, waist, hips, thighs, feet, toes, nails, gait—as a physical and religious referent regarding which a particular point or suggestion may be made. Each occasions some direct or oblique praise of her, by way of some comparison and contrast framed in terms of a natural or social or mythological reference. In most, some result or opportunity for the appreciative viewer is stated or implied. It is noticeable throughout that this beauty is not voided by a shift to a spiritual interpretation. Each detail is given a spiritual value and (often) spiritual cause, but the “surface” is not discarded for the sake of the “interior.” Observation of Dev is rather enacted, dramatized in a scenario where Dev interacts with other divine and human agents. Let us see how this works in a few verses.

  Verse 42 initiates the process by envisioning not Devi’s head but the crown resting upon it:

  42. If someone praises Your golden crown inlaid with every jeweled sky-gem, O daughter of the snow-capped mountain, won’t he imagine it the crescent moon made manifold by the luster spreading from the varied gems set there, or unsra’s bow?

  The implication is twofold: the outright beauty of the crown, and the way in which the poet’s mind is affected by it. The dynamic is established in a visualization shifting from the crown to the moon, and then from the moon to unsra’s bow, the rainbow. By imagining the verses for themselves and savoring the scene and even the subtle suggestive language, readers are invited to share the state of mind of the speaker who is bewildered enough by what he sees; he draws out the association: her crown, the crescent moon, rainbow. Such vision from the start evokes insight and a mood—here a mood of confusion—in the viewer; along with the first-person voice in the hymn, the listener/reader is put into a position where multiple insights overlap and as it were confuse one another.

  That Dev’s ears are beautiful is just the beginning of the little scene presented in verse 50, since those same ears are also actively enjoying the praises directed to Dev, and their involvement in turn engages her eyes:

  50. The poets’ anthology, the honey of a flower bouquet in which alone Your ears delight, while Your two eyes never stop glancing, like bees—or young elephants—eager to swallow all nine subtle tastes, while the eye in Your forehead sees all this and becoming jealous turns a bit red.

  The ears are captivated by song, the two eyes by the ears, the third eye is uncomfortable in jealousy when it is faced with that preoccupation of the first two eyes. Included is a powerful aesthetic claim, of course, the swallowing of the nine rasas, and even this is ironicized by the reference to the third eye’s immediate jealousy.15 In this way the simple act of praising her ears is richly complexified and deepened by putting it in the context of the pleasures of the ear—music, poetry—where Dev is active and in ownership of her pleasures, and by creating a drama by which to reinterpret how the eyes respond to the ears, and by investing even the redness with an active engagement in the scene. One sees Devi’s ears and eyes, and by viewing them one also rediscovers human delights and courtesies—not merely subsumed in a higher divine reality, but rather reenergized there, made all the more splendid.

  Even the most ordinary feature can be taken as suggestive of a spiritual meaning. Her nose is aquiline and adorned with a pearl; it is thus, by a classical Indian convention, supple and smooth like bamboo:

  61. O banner on the bamboo staff of the snowcapped mountain, Your nose too is a bamboo, and may it soon bear us our proper fruit— just as inside it bears pearls fashioned by Your very cool breath, and in its abundance carries a pearl on the outside too.

  In turn, the reference to bamboo serves to help explain the fact of the pearl adorning her nose since popular tradition held that pearls are produced from within bamboo. The coldness of the mountains, the delicacy of her features—like bamboo—and her ornament, all coalesce to make this view of her a promise of abundance for those willing to see.

  According to verse 85, it is fine enough that iva and Dev kick each other during their lovers’ quarrels; but now the Kankeli tree, itself unknowing and fruitless, yearns for the touch of her feet in order to be made fruitful again:

  85. We speak words of reverence for Your feet, so very lovely to the eyes, bright, freshly painted with lac dye—even the Lord of beasts grows extremely jealous of the kakeli tree in Your pleasure garden that so ardently desires Your kick.

  If kicked, the tree
will flourish, so iva wants to be like the tree, since by the touch of her foot his own fertility would come to fruition. The observer is similarly thrust into the scene: it is not enough to contemplate her foot—”if only she would kick me with it.” We find here echoes of the discussion of jealousy already noted at verse 50.16 We can also see here how the poet has imaginatively filled out the image of iva in relation to Dev: both exist, both are divine; they play, and he is psychologically at a disadvantage.

  The complex and tense beauty of Dev is viewed and imagined to be an active force even in the world of “ordinary” sense experiences and relationships and moods. There is nothing about this divine woman that is merely passive or inert, or so ethereal as to be comprised of matter in name only. By implication, every slight and small portion of her generates well-being for the devotee. Observation and the contagion of desire go together, and the simplest of observations becomes charged with insights that go deeper and suggest new possibilities for the viewer. There is no question of either avoiding the material specificities of the image or of taking it merely as a physical feature. But the vehicle of deeper meaning remains attention to aspects of the evident and visible object of sight, conf igured, accented in resemblances, comparisons, and emotions. There is spiritual meaning, but deeper meanings do not cancel out meanings more quickly evident to the senses.

  To sharpen our view of how Dev is a woman according to conventional expectations while at the same time extraordinary too, let us conclude this section by noting the treatment of Dev’s breasts in verses 72–75. We see here how thoroughly constructive and active is the author’s imagination in producing the verses (plus the commentators’ skill in reading them). For the breasts—one of the quintessential symbols of “woman”—are thoughtfully imagined and complexified here, with a rejection of any notion that they might be the passive object of the male gaze.