Christian Encounters with the Fierce Goddesses of Hinduism
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Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies Volume 16 Article 10 January 2003 Meeting 'the Mother Who Takes Across': Christian Encounters with the Fierce Goddesses of Hinduism Rachel Fell McDermott Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs Part of the Religion Commons Recommended Citation McDermott, Rachel Fell (2003) "Meeting 'the Mother Who Takes Across': Christian Encounters with the Fierce Goddesses of Hinduism," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 16, Article 10. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1299 The Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies is a publication of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please contact [email protected]. For more information about Digital Commons @ Butler University, please contact [email protected]. McDermott: Meeting 'the Mother Who Takes Across': Christian Encounters with the Fierce Goddesses of Hinduism r Meeting 'the Mother Who Takes Across': Christian Encounters with the Fierce Goddesses of Hinduism Rachel Fell McDermott Barnard College THIS essay revolves around a simple By "Saktas" here I do not mean Hindus question: what does Hindu-Christian of a Vaisnava turn of mind, that is, Hindus dialogue look like from the Christian side for whom the goddess is Visnu's consort Sri when the Hindu side is represented by or Laksmi in some fonn, a goddess who Saktism? Or, how do Christians, whether mediates or intercedes with her more Protestant or Catholic, react and what do powerful Lord. Rather, I. concentrate on they learn when the Hindus they encounter Kali and Durga, goddesses who, although worship a supreme female divinity who is typically paired with Siva, assume the both compassionate and wrathful, whose dominant role in the relationship, and can cult is often associated with blood sacrifice, themselves grant liberation and material whose philosophical underpinnings tend to benefits. Iconographically, both are be monistic, and some of whose devotees depicted as saving the world from demons: have been involved in esoteric, often sexual Durga sits astride her lion mount, piercing Tantric rites? Where are the cross-overs, the the chest of a buffalo-demon named Mahisa bridges to understanding? with her lance. The "Devi-Mahatmya," the I ask this question about the relationship sixth-century Sanskrit text which first tells between Christians and Saktas because of of her exploits, recounts that although who I am and what I study. As an beautiful to look at, her visage and the Episcopalian who has spent the last fifteen weaponS in her sixteen hands strike terror in years researching the Bengali devotional her foes. Kali, the goddess who beams forth traditions to the goddesses Kali and Durga, I from Durga's angry forehead to help her find this question at the center of my battle evil, is even more fear-inspiring: her theological thinking. How is my academic typical iconography portrays her standing on immersion in the study of powerful Hindu her husband Siva on a cremation ground or goddess figures affecting my Christian battlefield after she has just run amuck spiritual life? killing demons; she wears a'necklace of cut Rachel Fell McDennott is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures at Barnard College, where she has been teaching since 1994. She received her Ph.D. from the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University in 1993, and is a specialist on Indian, specifically Bengali, religious traditions. Her publications include: Mother of My Heart, Daughter of My Dreams: Kali and Uma in the Devotional Poetry of Bengal (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), and Encountering Kali: In the Margins, At the Center, In the West, edited with Jeffrey Kripal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). Hindu-Christian Studies Bulletin 16 (2003) 48-57 Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 2003 1 Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol. 16 [2003], Art. 10 Christian Encounters with the Fierce Goddesses of Hinduism 49 The Kali of Kalighat, Calcutta Photo by Jayanta Roy, 2001 i I I heads, a mini -skirt of arms sewn together at these attempts. The other half of the the elbows, and children's corpses for dialogue - Sakta feelings about Christianity - earrings. She is often, however, shown is of equal interest, but not my subject for smiling, and two of her four hands betoken the present. boons and fearlessness. Both of these goddesses are the center of a popular cult in Not Seeking Saktas: Bengal and Assam, where they receive Crossing Elsewhere Along the Shore blood sacrifice, all year around but especially during their annual festivals. It is The most extraordinary surprise that awaits this part of eastern India, where I have done anyone investigating this topic is how little my fieldwork and where Christian anyone has thought about it. Christians who missionaries made quite an impact in the have wanted to engage in dialogue with first half of the nineteenth century, that is Hindus have typically found two other the focal point of this essay. These same avenues for theological exploration: questions could also arise in other parts of Vedantic philosophy and Vaisnava India with large numbers of Saktas and devotionalism. Saktism enters nowhere - Christians, particularly Tamilnadu and not even in the Bulletin of the Society for Kerala, but I do not address them here. Hindu-Christian Studies. Some of the most In what follows I present a historical famous Christian exponents, intellectually survey of Christian attempts to effect a and practically, of Hindu-Christian dialogue rapprochement with Saktism, noting the Bede Griffiths (1906-1993), Raimundo absences, peculiarities, and challenges of Panikkar (b. 1918), and Swaini https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol16/iss1/10 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1299 2 McDermott: Meeting 'the Mother Who Takes Across': Christian Encounters with the Fierce Goddesses of Hinduism 50 Rachel Fell McDermott Abhishiktananda (1910-1973) - have found eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, whether the philosophical monism of Vedantic scholars, mIsslOnaries, or European thought to provide the best links to Christian travelers, found the goddess worship they ideas about God. These theologians encountered off-putting. This was true elucidate Christian notions of the Trinity and whether they were commenting on idolatry the functioning of the Holy Spirit by in general, on the Kali of the famed temple plumbing the Vedanta Sutras; the in Calcutta, Kalighat, on blood sacrifices philosophical treatises of Sankara, within temple precincts, or on the Ramanuja, and Madhva; and the Upanisadic supposedly licentious practices of goddess concepts of atman (self) and Brahman worshiping Tantric votaries. (Absolute).l "In the evening," wrote Fanny. Parks in The other route to dialogue, perhaps her travelogue from 1850, "I drove to see the even more well traveled, involves not far-famed Bengalee idol, Kala Ma, to which, philosophy but piety. Generations of in former times, [human] sacrifices were Christian missionaries and scholars have publicly offered. The temple is at Kala Ghat, found in Hindu bhakti poetry traditions, about two miles from Calcutta. The idol is a especially those centered around Visnu and great black stone cut unto the figure of an Krishna, analogs for Christian beliefs: enormous woman, with a huge head and Visnu incarnates; his incarnations staring eyes; her tongue hangs out of her sometimes suffer and/or trick demons;2 he mouth, a great broad tongue, down to her offers, like a father, forgiveness and grace; breast. The figure is disgusting. ,,5 The he is willing to stoop low to win the souls of sacrifice of chickens, goats, and even the trapped; and his consort, Sri, like the buffalos has horrified onlookers since Virgin Mary, acts as a maternal mediator William Ward's succinct summary of his between the devotee and God. Mathew experiences at Kalighat in 1811: "The Muttumana, an Assamese Christian writing bleating of the animals, the number slain, in the mid-1980s about the possibility of and the ferocity of the people employed, dialogue between Christianity and Hindu actually made me unwell, and I returned traditions, concludes that it is Vaisnavism, about midnight filled with horror and not Saktism, that offers the greatest indignation.,,6 Geoffrey Parrinder, in his resources; Vaisnava bhakti and Christianity book Avatar and Incarnation, echoes this "teach with astonishing similarity, that [the] sentiment as recently as 1970: "The Gita, justification and salvation of a man is the stories of Rama and Krishna, the songs· merely an act of divine Grace which of the medieval mystics, the monotheism of demands no precondition.,,3 Many Christian Saiva Siddhiinta, all lead men to God. But converts in Bengal were first Vaisnava; this there is also a dark side to Hinduism, background seems to have prepared them haunted by demons,· diyided by caste theologically to accept Christian doctrines prejudice, and married by blood sacrifices and ideas.4 such as those still practiced by the followers of Kala."7 Throwing Stones Across the River: Not surprisingly, this cntlque of A History of Christians Disgust "degraded" Sakta tradition was also asserted, sometimes even more vehemently, by Indian Why such silence or lack of· engageme~t converts. Krishna Mohan Banerjea vowed with Saktism on the part of Christians in 1851 to fight "the idolatry and hero interested in inter-religious dialogue? The worship of the Puranas and Tantras, and all most important reasons are historical: the moral, social and spiritual evils which colonialism and missions. Simply put, most have accumulated in the country by the Christian observers in India in the late prevalence of those monstrous errors and Published by Digital Commons @ Butler University, 2003 3 Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies, Vol.