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Durga : Narrative Art of an 'Independent' Warrior Goddess
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One of the most invoked forms of the Great Goddess is her
manifestation as the youthful, multi-armed deity who successfully
battles the mighty buffalo demon that symbolizes among other
things, the elemental powers of brutish ignorance. In her this
incarnation she is referred to as Durga, the 'unattainable'.
Illustration :
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/artimages/ba48.jpg
The Great Goddess Durga was born from the energies of the male
divinities when the gods lost the long drawn-out battle with the
asuras (demons). All the energies of the gods united and became
supernova, throwing out flames in all directions. Then that
unique light, pervading the Three Worlds with its luster,
combined into one, and became a female form.
Illustration :
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/hindu/ha50sm.jpg
The Devi projected an overwhelming omnipotence. The awesome
three-eyed Goddess was adorned with the crescent moon. Her
multiple arms held auspicious weapons and emblems, jewels and
ornaments, garments and utensils, garlands and rosaries of beads,
all offered by the gods. With her golden body blazing with the
splendor of a thousand suns, seated on her lion or tiger vehicle,
Durga is one of the most spectacular of all personifications of
Cosmic Energy.
Illustration :
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/jewelry/ja56.jpg
The tremendous power of the Goddess was poised ready for the grim
battle to wipe out demonic forces, the asuras whose exaggerated
ego-sense was destroying the balance of the universe, and whose
sole purpose was to dominate and control. It was the universal
war between knowledge and ignorance, truth and falsehood, the
oppressor and the oppressed.
The world shook and the seas trembled as the Goddess engaged the
Great Demon Mahisasura and his hosts in fierce battle, creating
her own female battalions from her sighs breathed during the
fighting.
Illustration :
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/hindu/ha14sm.jpg
The Great Goddess first annihilated the army of the titan. Then
she roped his own mighty buffalo-form with a noose. The demon
escaped, however, emerging from the buffalo body in the form of a
lion. Immediately, the Goddess beheaded the lion, whereupon
Mahisa, by virtue of his Maya-energy of self-transformation,
escaped again, now in the form of a hero with a sword.
Illustration :
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/artimages/za87.jpg
Ruthlessly the Goddess riddled this new embodiment with a shower
of arrows. But then the demon stood before her as an elephant,
and with his trunk reached out and seized her. He dragged her
towards him, but she severed the trunk with the stroke of a
sword. The demon returned, now, to his favorite shape-that of the
giant buffalo shaking the universe with the stamping of its
hoofs. But the Goddess scornfully laughed, and again roared with
a loud voice of laughter at all his tricks and devices. Pausing a
moment, in full wrath, she lifted to her lips, serenely, a bowl
filled with the inebriating, invigorating, liquor of the
divine-life force, and while she sipped the matchless drink, her
eyes turned red. The buffalo-demon, uprooting mountains with his
horns, was flinging them against her, shouting defiantly at her
the while, but with her arrows she was shattering them to dust.
She called out to the shouting monster: "Shout on! Go on shouting
one moment more, you fool, while I sip my fill of this delicious
brew. The gods soon will be crying out for joy, and you shall lie
murdered at my feet.
Even while she spoke, the Goddess leapt into the air, and from
above came down on the demon's neck. She dashed him to the earth
and sent the trident through his neck. The adversary attempted
once again to abandon the buffalo-body, issuing from its mouth in
the shape of a hero with a sword; but he had only half emerged
when he was caught. He was half inside the buffalo and half
outside, when the Goddess, with a swift and terrific stroke,
beheaded him, and he died.
Illustration :
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/artimages/ha48.jpg
The chief demon Mahisasura was thus dead, and the gods praised
the Goddess, joyfully worshipping her with flowers, incense and
fragrant paste:
Thou Ambika [a name of Durga] dost overspread the universe with
thy power.
The power of all divine beings is drawn into Thy from.
Thou art Great Mother, worshipped by all divine beings and Sages.
We bow ourselves in devotion to Thee.
Bless us with all that is good for us.
We bow before Thee, O Devi,
Thou who art the good fortune of the virtuous,
Ill-fortune in the house of the evil,
Intelligence in the minds of the learned,
Faiths in the hearts of the good,
The modesty of the high born.
--------------Devi Mahatmya.
The world was at peace again. The skies cleared, the rivers kept
their courses, there was sweet singing and dancing. The winds
blew softly, the sun shone brilliantly, the sacred fires burned
steadily. Strange sounds that had arisen in the various quarters
died away.
The departing Durga offered the gods a boon. She promised that as
'Sakambhari' she would nourish the world in time of need with the
vegetation grown from her own body, and that in her 'terrible'
form she would deliver her worshippers from their enemies, and
bless them. Then she vanished from the very spot on which the
gods were gazing.
Thus the reveries of Mahisa are exterminated. Into this wondrous
male fantasy intrudes the Mother Goddess. She lures and entices
him and, because she represents the power of the unconscious and
the pull downward and backward into the protective womb, the
demon unwittingly plunges into her dangerous orbit. In a
throwback to reciprocal animal mating postures, they dance in
mutual desire and dread. Mahisa is forced into sacred, single
combat with the fascinating but enigmatic, dangerous creature. On
the battle stage the disguise of each is penetrated; then the
demon and the Goddess are reduced to their true nature; in the
last analysis they are alike. Finally, like the ancient
bull-kings who were themselves royal sacrifices, fecundators of
the earth, bearers of vicarious guilt, hero is transformed into
victim and, having lost his position in heaven, now Mahisa loses
his very life. He is decapitated by the Mother Goddess, and on
earth, paradise is restored, but only temporarily, for the demon
inevitably returns to earth for the eternal cyclical repetition
of the entire life process.
The myth is saturated with the potential for violence inherent in
the male-female oppositions. As the story unfolds, the
relationship between Mahisa and the goddess is manifested at many
levels: psychologically both demon and goddess become what the
other is, both behave like ferocious animals and one never knows
what will happen in the next instant, as the constant
alternations, which range from the bestial to the divine, are the
only reality. Thus each of the antagonists can be symbolically
interpreted as now the monster/dragon, now with feminine or with
masculine attributes. Each can represent justice and power or
evil and danger; and each contributes to the orgiastic disorder
necessary for recreation. The myth thus transcends the
male-female alternative, signifying psychic totality.
The condition of the contemporary urban dweller who howls in fear
in the dark as he confronts the bad animal of his nightmare
differs little from the fright syndrome of the jungle dweller,
forced into struggle with a live animal. Until the dreamer
awakes, he is in the same situation as his prehistoric ancestors
were. Pervading the deepest levels of the psyche, ready to spring
at random, the residual animal, source of human energies, seeks
recognition. The unfocused, floating primordial imagery, rooted
in the biological heritage, is stabilized in culture.
Externalized projections, first structured into dance, cultish
animal rites, orgiastic fertility ceremonies and much later into
literature, art, myth and ritual, provide the camouflage of human
respectability and channel the anxiety into an acceptable form.
Left to itself without organization, animal nature will surely
erupt.
When left unrecognized and unattended, under stressful
conditions, animal impulses break through in random fashion, and
blind fury re-emerges in full force. As repository for the
archaic residue, Mahisamardini, the Goddess who slays the
buffalo, is a therapeutic symbol.
Durga's name literally means "Beyond Reach". This is an echo of
the woman warrior's fierce, virginal autonomy. In fact many of
the figures associated with her are officially virgin. This is
not meant in the limiting sense understood by the patriarchal
order, but rather in Esther Harding's sense: she is
"one-in-herself", or as Nor Hall puts it, "Belonging-to-no-man".
As Harding further observed of 'The Virgin Goddess': 'Her divine
power does not depend on her relation to a husband-god, and thus
her actions are not dependent on the need to conciliate such a
one or to accord with his qualities and attitudes. For she bears
her identity through her own right.'
The disappearance of Durga from the battlefield after the victory
over aggression expressed one of the deepest truths of the
episode, for the feminine action in the cosmic drama is without
retentive, ego-seeking ambition.
Durga is linked also with some of the oldest known prayers for
humankind's protection. In the Ramayana, Rama went to Lanka to
rescue his abducted wife, Sita, from the grip of Ravana, the
Emperor of Lanka. Before starting for his battle, Rama aspired
for the blessings of Goddess Durga . He came to know that the
Goddess would be pleased if offered one hundred blue lotuses. But
after traversing the whole world, he could gather only
ninety-nine. Rama finally decided to offer one of his own eyes,
which resembled blue lotuses. Durga, being pleased with the
devotion of Rama, appeared before him, stopped him from
committing this act and blessed him. In the fierce battle that
followed, Rama was able to annihilate Ravana, thus again
triumphed good over evil. To this day, this day is celebrated as
Vijaydashmi (Day of Victory), and Goddess Durga worshipped all
over India.
Illustration :
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/artimages/ha37.jpg
Indeed the Mother Goddess, it is believed, controls the fate of
all. But even though she makes her appearance when the male
deities conglomerate their respective energies, she is, in fact,
not 'created' by them. All her incarnations are the result of her
will to be in the world for the benefit of mankind; she chooses
when and how to effect her lilas (play of the Goddess in the
world). In this situation her sudden arrival spells doom for
Mahisa, but only after a protracted interaction during which the
confrontations between animal/demon and Goddess, male and female,
son and mother, lover and beloved, equal combatants, victim and
sacrificer, hero and deliverer, are given due attention as an
exploratory venture into the dynamics of the laws of opposites.
Their combat is, in the final analysis, an enactment of a
many-aspected reality, reflecting a mode of thought which
perceives seeming opposites as mere stages in a graduated
spectrum of reality which has a minimum of definite b!
oundaries.
This article was sent as a newsletter from the website
http://www.exoticindiaart.com
To view the illustrations along with the text, you can read the
HTML version at:
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/durga.htm
Nitin G.
Durga : Narrative Art of an 'Independent' Warrior Goddess -
05-19-2001, 09:02 PM
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