Nidan Volume 24

International Journal for the Study of Hinduism Volume 24 December 2012 ISSN 1016-5320 Nidān International Journal for the Study of Hinduism Theme: Fierce Goddesses of South Asia 2012 December Durban, South Africa Printed at the University of KwaZulu-Natal • Nidān is an international journal which publishes contributions in the field of Hinduism • Articles published in Nidān have abstracts reflected in the Index to South African Periodicals • Articles published in Nidān are now available on Sabinet [http://www.journals.co.za/ej/ejour_nidan.html] and also at: [http://nidan.ukzn.ac.za] Editor-in-Chief P. Pratap Kumar University of KwaZulu-Natal Associate Editor Ajaya K Sahoo Guest Editor William Harman The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Local Editorial Board P. Pratap Kumar (University of KwaZulu-Natal) Anand Singh (University of KwaZulu-Natal) M. Clasquin (University of South Africa) Goolam Vahed (University of KwaZulu-Natal) International Editorial Board Prof. T.S. Rukmani, Concordia University, Canada William Harman (University of Tennessee, USA) K. Jacobsen (University of Bergen, Norway); M. Bauman (Universität Luzern, Switzerland); P. Bilimoria (Melbourne University, Australia); Y. Sawai (Tenri University, Japan); R. Lamb (University of Hawaii, USA); K. Knott (University of Leeds, UK); ISSN 1016-5320 © 2012 Copy Right Reserved: Nidān: International Journal for the Study of Hinduism Criteria for Submission of Articles Articles should relate to the study of any aspect of Hinduism. As such, the study of Hinduism is broadly conceived to include, not merely the traditionally recognized areas within the discipline, but includes contributions from scholars in other fields who seek to bring their particular worldviews and theories into dialogue with Hindu studies. Articles that explore issues of history, ecology, economics, politics, sociology, culture, education and psychology are welcomed. Papers will be subject to evaluation by referees drawn from a pool of local and international scholars. Papers should be prefaced by an abstract of approximately 100 words, setting out the gist of the paper. The article itself should not exceed 6000 words. Gender discrimination should be avoided, unless it is necessary for the sense intended. The author’s full name, address, qualifications and present position must be supplied on a separate page. Each paper must be accompanied by a signed declaration to the effect that the article is the original work of the author. Articles must be submitted electronically using an IBM or Macintosh compatible word processing programme. Articles should be saved as a Word Document. Note that the publication of articles cannot be guaranteed. Further, an article, which is accepted for publication, maybe held over for a publication in a subsequent issue of the journal. South African Authors of the articles should arrange, through their institutions, to have page costs paid for. Subscription rates: Africa R120-00 Other Countries: US $ 30 Cheques should be made payable to: ‘UKZN-Nidān (1969)’ and must be sent through to the correspondence address. Correspondence Address The Editor: Nidān c/o School of Religion, Philosophy & Classics Private Bag X10, Dalbridge, 4041, Durban, South Africa. Tel: +27(31) 260 7303/7539 Fax: +27(31) 2607286 Email: [email protected] Volume 24 December 2012 International Journal for the Study of Hinduism Theme: Fierce Goddesses of South Asia Table of Contents Preface P. Pratap Kumar Introduction William Harman i Loss and Recognition: the Historical Force of a Goddess Diane P. Mines 1 The Dynamics of Emotions in the Ritual of a Hot Goddess Barbara Schuler 16 From Fierce to Domesticated: Mariyamman Joins the Middle Class William Harman 41 The Ascetic Goddess Who is Half Woman: Female Authority in the Discourses of Māriyammaṉ’s Tapas Perundevi Srinivasan 66 An engagement with the forces of time: Worship at the goddess Guhyeswari temple Vivienne Kondos 84 Female Danger: “Evil “, Inauspiciousness, and their Symbols in Representations of South Asian Goddesses Xenia Zeiler 100 The Half Male, Half Female Servants of the Goddess Aṅkāḷaparamēcuvari Elaine Craddock 117 Preface As we take the journal each year to its new heights, this year we have been fortunate to have Prof William Harman who became its guest editor and introduced a theme that remains very popular among South Asian scholars as well as general readers. The theme: ‘Fierce Goddesses of South Asia’ is looked at from historical, sociological, psychological, feminist and ritual perspectives by very enthusiastic and well qualified scholars in the field. As the editor-in-chief I thank all of them for their valuable perspectives on the theme. I wish to particularly thank Prof Harman for his hard work and for critically editing of the papers presented here. All the papers have been externally peer reviewed by specialists in the field and I thank them all for their critical and helpful comments that enabled authors to improve their work. I hope that this volume offers both scholars and students of South Asia with new insights into the phenomenon of Goddess worship. All views expressed in these papers belong entirely to their authors and the editorial team is not responsible for them. Finally, this year we have been joined by two new scholars to expand the local editorial board. They are—Prof. Anand Singh (Anthropology) and Prof. Goolam Vahed (History), both from the University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. I thank them for joining us and look forward to their contributions in future. Editor-in-Chief Prof. P. Pratap Kumar Emeritus Professor University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa Nidān: International Journal for the Study of Hinduism, Vol. 24, December 2012, pp. i-iii. Introduction Fierce Goddesses of South Asia William Harman The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Rudolf Otto’s classic study, The Idea of the Holy,1 was one of the earliest modern attempts to discuss western notions of the divine in the context of experiences that involve fearful, frightening, and dangerous supernatural encounters. Alas, his insights have remained – in both the best and the worst sense of the term – academic. Western theology’s preoccupation with a consistent monotheism has generally preferred not to engage the problem of theodicy by talking about frightening or frightful deities. In the West, a deity may occasionally come across as fierce, but cannot be fierce essentially. If the divine is singular, the divine must be good. Evil, then, comes not from any divine source. It emerges from human waywardness and disobedience. Not so in the polytheistic context of South Asia. Deities can take a variety of forms, and they do: male and female, fierce and sublime, even jealous and irrelevant. Why so many female deities have been associated with the horrifying and the fierce is not an issue that will be quickly or easily dispensed here. In planning this series of essays, we did not suggest that anyone ask the “Why-would-females-be fierce?” question. But the question seems worth posing as we read these essays. Two articles, both fascinating and masterfully done, provide clues as to why we have the fierce and the female so closely associated, those by Barbara Schuler and by Vivienne Knodos. Schuler suggests that the ominously and sensuously violent rituals associated with Icakkiyamman plunge participants into a dangerous world where domestic chaos lurks but where eventually order, particularly domestic order over which the female takes classic responsibility, emerges. Such a world, and such concerns, are basically feminine, concerned as they are with fertility, marital relationships and responsibilities Kondos’ description of the puja exercises associated with Guhyeswari, a form of Kali, show how devotees must sometimes live and celebrate their lives in light of everyday messiness and its slimy, unpredictable chaos, realities associated with prakriti, the feminine, matter, that which is created and all-too-real. In Samkhya philosophy prakriti 1 Trans. By John W. Harvey, New York: Oxford University Press, 1923. i Harman/Introduction is contrasted with purusha, which literally means “male.” Purusha is the un-entangled, pure, unconditioned and unstructured consciousness, without any other messy attributes found in matter. To ask a man if he has a “samsara” is to ask if he has an emotional entanglement in this rebirth that ties and binds him to life’s messiness: does he have a woman, usually a spouse, who gives this round of constant rebirth weight, texture, and contour, a distinctive identity? Two of our articles feature the widespread Tamil goddess Mariyamman. Though history shows that the goddess has assumed many distinctive changes in identity and form, the earlier forms we can isolate recapitulate basic gender issues in Indian society: the extraordinary dependence women experience in relation to men, to the demands of marriage, and to social roles. Mythic cycles recounting Mariyamman’s origins dwell on such conundrums for women. Solutions available to the goddess, and to those women for whom she is a crucial role model, include declaring a fierce gendered independence through religious ritual, even when it means posing a threat to male order. About this strategy Perundevi Srinivasan writes persuasively. Or the goddess can relocate, appearing in middle-class places like Singapore or Detroit, finding herself in a context where the limits and desperations of rural village life no longer define her limits. She can appear even in the form of a kind and generous man whose role is to eliminate the suffering of the less fortunate. Such a strategy is described in my article. Diane Mines and Elaine Craddock treat two separate goddesses with decidedly ferocious reputations. Malaiyammal, a goddess whose history commemorates violent death and loss, is nurtured and celebrated by the Valaiyar community, but she is attached to a particular locale, the dry-forest region which is always wilderness, uncontrolled, and a place of death. That goddesses tend to define place, to represent it, is nothing new. “Mother earth,” reverberates with the emotional refrain of the feminine marker of space.

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