Hindu Deities-Godess Durga

[Guest guest]

Respected Solaiji,

 

Many years back once I was searching books in Collage Street of Calcutta-which

is a treasure house of old books. I suddenly stumbled upon a book written in

bengali which explained the various Chandi Shloka (Goddess Durga in her

fighting form killing demon Mahisasura), a spiritual scripture. It was so

fascinating and changed my idea completely about forms of deities and later as

I read more works of Swami Chinmayanandaji and Swami Dayananda Saraswati-I was

gradually convinced that Hinduism is more a absolute philosophy of life and

universe rather than a "religion". In Hindu deities, ultimate power or the

shakti behind evrything is worshipped as female.

 

I shall try to convey my little knowledge that I have received from various

sources about the form of Godess Durga.

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There are great philosophies behind each Hindu deity. The concept is whole to

part. In Geeta Srikrishna tells “I am immovable like mountain”.

Many western scholar have misinterpreted the shloka but the concept is –

as we cannot move from one part of our body to other part (because we are

everywhere in our body), in the same manner Almighty cannot move because He is

everywhere. We are part of it just like our houses are part of the space (break

the walls and roof-we are standing in the space). Likewise all the powers-good

or bad are universal, whatever good or bad we see around us is only a part of

that universal power. Our power to see, our power to hear, our power to

understand, our anger, our greed everything is part of those universal power.

(This concept has been elaborately dealt with in Mandyukya Upanishad)

These good powers each have been assigned a Devata (Deva means to illuminate and

Devata means who illuminates) and each evil powers like anger, greed etc. are

assigned as Asura. Our Puranas tell very deep philosophy in the form of simple

story so that common human being can understand.

Form of Godess Durga – which is worshipped is having 10 hands with various

weapons, riding on a lion and killing Mahisasura, the king of Asura. She is

flanked by Kartikeya-the chief warrior of Devatas, Saraswati-the godess of

learning, Lakshmi-the Godess of wealth and Ganapati-the siddhidata. All are

said to be her children.

Story about Godess Durga briefly goes like this. Mahisasura captured heaven and

defeated Indra, king of Devatas and other Devatas repeatedly. All Devatas went

to Bramha, Vishnu and Shiva who are creator of the universe, sustainer of the

universe and destroyer of the universe respectively. They advised Davatas to go

to Himalaya to request Parvati, daughter of the king Himalaya to save them. When

approached, hearing about the distress of the davatas Parvati became furious.

She took a terrible form of Durga. All Devatas gave their respective weapons to

her. King Himalaya, her father gave her lion to ride. Thus Durga asked

Mahisasura to fight with her. First Mahisasura sent his generals-but all were

killed by Durga. Then Mahisasura came to fight and during the fight he started

taking various forms to dupe the Godess. But the Godess ultimately killed him.

A very deep philosophy has been described here about the process through which a

sadhaka goes during his last stage of sadhana (meditation). Actually Mahisasura

is the condition of the sadhaka at a very high stage. With our conscious

actions it is not possible for anybody to get rid of the bad powers like anger,

greed etc. A sadhaka can perform great tapasya and attain powers but he cannot

get rid of his I-sense (sense that it is my body, my name etc.) and other

related gunas. This I-sense is Mahisasura and his generals are anger, greed,

lust etc. Even at very higher stage of realisation all these are present in a

sadhaka (tapasyi) in a very subtle form. He gets worried when he realises that

these senses (asuras) still try to defeat his higher intelligence (asuras

capture heaven, here higher intelligence is Indra-the king of Devatas).

Sadhaka sees that he cannot overcome the power of his senses (at subtle stage it

is not possible to get rid of earthly senses with own effort), he prays to

Godess Durga. Another name of Durga is Shruti (meaning-which has been memorized

by hearing). Earlier days there was no book or instrument for writing. All

philosophies and scriptures were tranfered from guru to his disciples through

words and disciples used to memorize the verses. So these knowledge is the

Godess herself. As these knowledge were received by the sages through

meditation (sadhana) in the himalaya, She is also called daughter of himalaya.

When the sadhaka surrenders to the knowledge leaving all his weapons to fight

(all indriyas handover their weapons to the Godess), the Godess-riding on the

Lion (symbolic to the dharma i.e religion, king who is capable of controling

the animal senses within us) removes the I-sense (kills Mahisasura) along with

its other generals. At the last stage also the I-sense try to reside inside

taking various shapes (Mahisasura takes various shapes to dupe the Godess). The

sadhaka thus gets moksha.

Ganapati, Kartikeya, Saraswati and Lakshmi are Her children. Because She is

everywhere, the ultimate truth, the nature in this universe. She fights as

Kartikeya, She gives sidhhi as Ganapati, She is Saraswati - the knowledge of

creation in Brahma (Saraswati is called wife of Brahma-the creator. Without

knowledge no creation is possible) and She herself is Lakshmi transfering her

power to Vishnu for sustainance of this universe (without finance no

sustainance is possible-so Lakshmi is described as wife of Vishnu).

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I am not very sure if I have been able to convey my idea as I am not very fluent

in language. If you think so please correct my ideas.

Regards,

J.K. Dasgupta

 

-

Solai Kannan

sjvc

Sunday, November 11, 2001 12:23 PM

[sjvc] Request to Lakshmi Ramesh and others

OHM SHRI RAGAVENDRAYA NAMAH

JAYA JAGANNATHA

 

Namaste Lakshmi and other Jyotisha,

 

There is going to be more lessons on Nakshatra and divisional charts later. We

are covering some fundamentals for the benefits of very beginners.

 

Meanwhile, I want to make a request to you and others. Your flow of writing is

marvelous. I know you are tied up with your official and personal works and in

addition you have taken up the SJVC web maintenance. But, whenever you find

time, please write about Hindu Gods and Goddesses. It can be anything related

to a deity. It can be epic story or their nature etc.,

 

The reason is there are many non-Indian students in this list. Some of them at

least know about Krishna and his various incarnations. But, many of them

doesn't t know anything about our Hindu deities. This was voiced by many of

them. In fact this is the part those people found difficult in the Ishtadevada

lesson. It is our obligation to explain to them.

 

If I say 'turbinectomy', we will be confused. It is an ENT surgical procedure.

Similarly all those non-Indian sisyas, confuse when we say "Dhakshinaamoorthy"

 

I am making this request to all the members who know about Hindu deities, to contribute.

 

Thanks

Solai Kannan

lakshmi ramesh

[b_lakshmi_ramesh ]Friday, November 09, 2001 12:42 PMTo:

sjvcSubject: Re: [sjvc] Evaluation of "small exercise" - Part

2Om Gurave Namah----------------Namaste Solai,Yes, it was indeed a typo and

propagated thanks tocopy and paste! I verified my rough sheet and carriedout

the correction in my file.Thanks for the lesson/correction. Now, navamsa

doesn'tscare me any longer. Can we have a lesson on otherD-charts'

calculation/fixation too? Regards,LakshmiYour use of is subject

to the