Kinsley David L
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What is one to make of a group of goddesses that includes a goddess who cuts her own head off, a goddess who sits on a corpse while pulling the tongue of a demon, or a goddess who prefers sex with corpses? Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine deals with a group of ten Hindu , tantric goddesses, the Mahavidyas, who embody habits, attributes, or identities usually considered repulsive or socially subversive. It is within the context of tantric worship that devotees seek to identify themselves with these forbidding goddesses. The Mahavidyas seem to function as "awakeners"—symbols that help to project one's consciousness beyond the socially acceptable or predict• able. Kinsley not only describes the eccen• tric qualities of each of these goddesses, but seeks to interpret the Mahavidyas as a group and to explain their importance for understanding Tantra and the Hindu tradition. This is a far-ranging and impressively comprehensive book... Kinsley's book will set a new standard for the kind of thorough scholarship that can and ideally should be brought to bear upon the interpretation of Hindu goddesses and Tantric deities." MIRANDA SHAW "A wonderful study of these fascinating and colorful goddessess...Readable and engaging...this is a very important work." KATHLEEN ERNDL ISBN: 81-208-1522-x (Cloth) Rs. 295 ISBN: 81-208-1523-8 (Paper) Rs. 195 Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine The Ten Mahavidyas DAVID KINSLEY MOTILAL BANARSIDASS PUBLISHERS PRIVATE LIMITED • DELHI This page intentionaly left blank First Indian Edition: Delhi, 1998 © 1997 The Regents of the University of California Published by arrangement with the University of California Press All Rights Reserved ISBN: 81-208-1522-x (Cloth) ISBN: 81-208-1523-8 (Paper) Abo available at: MOTILAL BANARSIDASS 41 U.A. Bungalow Road, Jawahar Nagar, Delhi 110 007 8, Mahalaxmi Chamber, Warden Road, Mumbai 400 026 120 Royapettah High Road, Mylapore, Chennai 600 004 Sanas Plaza, Subhash Nagar, Pune 411 002 16 SL Mark's Road, Bangalore 560 001 8 Camac Street, Calcutta 700 017 Ashok Rajpath, Patna 800 004 Chowk, Varanasi 221 001 This edition may not be sold outside India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Maldavies, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan PRINTED IN INDIA BY JAINENDRA PRAKASH JAIN AT SHRI JAINENDRA PRESS, A45 NARAINA, PHASE I, NEW DELHI 110 028 AND PUBLISHED BY NARENDRA PRAKASH JAIN FOR MOTILAL BANARSIDASS PUBLISHERS PRIVATE LIMITED, BUNGALOW ROAD, DELHI 110 007 To my friends and teachers Om Prakash Sharma and Virendra Singh Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix Introduction i PART I. THE MAHAVIDYAS AS A GROUP The Ten Mahavidyas 9; Typical Literary and Iconographic Contexts 14; The Mahavidyas as Forms of the Mahadevi 18; Mahavidya Origin Myths 22; Interrelationships among the Mahavidyas 38; Worship of the Mahavidyas 49; The Mahavidyas and Magical Powers 55; The Significance of the Term Mahavidya 57; Concluding Observations 61 PART II. THE INDIVIDUAL MAHAVIDYAS Kali: The Black Goddess 67 Tara: The Goddess Who Guides through Troubles 92 Tripura-sundari: She Who Is Lovely in the Three Worlds 112 Bhuvanesvari: She Whose Body Is the World 129 Chinnamasta: The Self-Decapitated Goddess 144 Bhairavi: The Fierce One 167 Dhumavati: The Widow Goddess 176 Bagalamukhl: The Paralyzer 193 Vlll CONTENTS Matarigi: The Outcaste Goddess 209 Kamala: The Lotus Goddess 223 PART III. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS Corpses and Cremation Grounds 233; Skulls and Severed Heads 238; Sexuality and Awakened Consciousness 241; The Conjunction of Death and Sexual Imagery 244; The Roles of Women and Reverence for Women 246; The Potentially Liberating Nature of Social Antimodels 251 NOTES 253 GLOSSARY BIBLIOGRAPHY 289 INDEX 299 Acknowledgments I first became aware of the group of Hindu goddesses known as the ten Mahavidyas while conducting research on the goddess Kali in Calcutta during the academic year 1968-69. Kali is nearly always listed as the first of this group of ten unusual goddesses and in many ways is the exemplary Mahavidya. It was not until 1983-84 in Varanasi, how• ever, that I began to undertake detailed research on this group. With the help of a fellowship from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, I investigated literary sources and did field research on Mahavidya temples, iconography, and worship. I returned to Varanasi in 1992-93 to continue my research, this time with the help of a grant from McMaster University Arts Research Board. During my research in Varanasi I was fortunate to have the assistance of many people. Om Prakash Sharma was indispensable in helping me locate several Mahavidya temples and paintings, putting me in touch with many knowledgeable people, and finding relevant texts. Virendra Singh, who patiently attempted to teach me Hindi, was always encouraging about my work. Mahant Sri Rama Shankar Tripathi of the Kashi Vishvanath temple held frequent useful discussions with me during 1983-84 and translated several relevant Sanskrit texts about the Mahavidyas for me. Hemendra Nath Chakravarty was especially important in helping me think through the meaning of several of the Mahavidyas and in locating and translating for me several crucial passages relating to the Mahavidyas as a group and to individual Mahavidyas. I also appreciated the many dis• cussions I had with Mark Dyczkowski at his home overlooking Assi Ghat. I remember these chats as a pleasant blend of sober scholarly inquiry and ACKNOWLEDGMENTS amusing speculation on the mysteries presented by this unusual group of Hindu goddesses. Doug Abrams Arava, my editor, has made several discerning sugges• tions that have very much improved this book and has been unwavering in his attentive support throughout its preparation. I owe special thanks also to the three readers who reviewed the manuscript: Kathleen Erndl, Miranda Shaw, and an anonymous reviewer. Their comments and criti• cisms proved very useful in revising the book. Victoria Wilson-Schwartz, the University of California Press copyeditor, was attentive, construc• tive, and unhesitant in scrutinizing my prose—to her, thanks very much. I am also grateful to my wife, Carolyn, for the many hours she spent lend• ing this book consistency and clarity, from an early draft through subse• quent stages of production. • Introduction What is one to make of a group of goddesses that includes a goddess who cuts her own head off, another who prefers to be offered polluted items by devotees who themselves are in a state of pollution, one who sits on a corpse while pulling the tongue of a demon, another who has sex astride a male consort who is lying on a cremation pyre, an• other whose couch has as its legs four great male gods of the Hindu pan• theon, another who prefers to be worshiped in a cremation ground with offerings of semen, and yet another who is a haglike widow? Are these goddesses, who are known as the ten Mahavidyas, bizarre creations of radical groups within the Hindu tradition, obscure beings whose significance is peripheral to the basic themes of Hindu spiritual• ity? Should we dismiss them as tangential, perhaps even irrelevant, to Hindu religion? After years of studying and musing on them, it seems to me that there is a logic to the group as a whole and that even its most outrageous members, if understood within their proper context, reveal important spiritual truths. We know the Mahavidyas from a variety of sources. Many goddess temples across North India contain paintings and images of them. Con• temporary lithographs portray them both as a group and individually. Dhydna mantras describe them for liturgical and meditative purposes, and they are the subject of several tantric digests. The Mahavidyas have been known as a group since the early medieval period (after the tenth century C.E.).1 Some of them predated this devel• opment and continue to be very well known in their own right, such as the fierce black goddess Kali. She is also usually the primary, or ddi, INTRODUCTION Mahavidya. Kamala, who is the same as the very popular goddess Sri- Laksmi, is also a member of the group. Tara and Tripura-sundari, lesser known but still far from obscure, are other examples of Hindu goddesses who are popular on their own and as part of the group. On the other hand, Bagalamukhi, Chinnamasta, Dhumavatl, and Matahgi are rarely mentioned apart from the Mahavidyas. The aim of this study is to reflect on the meaning of the Mahavidyas, both as a group and as individual deities. As a group, the Mahavidyas pre• sent a curious collection. It is not at all apparent why these particular ten goddesses have become associated with one another. As for the individ• ual goddesses, several are obscure and have received no scholarly atten• tion. In some cases the sources available on individual Mahavidyas are so limited that it is difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct their histo• ries or gain a clear impression of their worship. In many respects this study is not definitive or conclusive. I seek here to bring a preliminary order• ing to the Mahavidya tradition in the hope that it will encourage other scholars to undertake more detailed studies of the group and of its indi• vidual members. Throughout my study of the Mahavidyas, I was told many times by a number of people—priests, scholars, painters, and practitioners—that the Mahavidyas are "all one." Sometimes they were responding to a ques• tion concerning the significance of the group as a whole and sometimes to one concerning the peculiarities of an individual goddess. I often took this reply to indicate that the person did not have an appropriate answer to the question and that the main point, in any case, was to understand the group as so many manifestations of one (or the) great goddess.