@be @olbeddeg of jUnlis, @ibet,@binu^ un! luPun by Lawrcnce Durdin-hobertron Cesata Publications, Eire Copyrighted Material. All Rights Reserved. The cover design. by Anna Durdin-Robertson. is a mandala oi a Chinese rlraqon goddess. Lawrence Durdln Rot,erlson. li_6 r2.00 Copyrighted Material. All Rights Reserved. The Goddesses of India, Tibet, China and Japan Copyrighted Material. All Rights Reserved. The Goddesses of India, Tibet, China and Japan by Lawrence Durdin-Robertron, M.A. (Dublin) with illustrations by Arna Durdin-Robertson Cesara Publications Huntington Castle, Clonegal, Enniscorthy. Eire. Printed by The Nationalist, Carlow. Eire. Anno Deae Cesara. Hiberniae Dominae. MMMMCCCXXIV Copyrighted Material. All Rights Reserved. Thir serle. of books is written in bonour of The lrish Great Mother, Cessrs aod The Four Guardian Goddesses of lreland, Dsna, Banba' Fodhla and Eire. It is dedicated to my wife, Pantela. Copyrighted Material. All Rights Reserved. CONTENTS I. The Goddesses of India'...'...'........"..'..........'....'..... I II. The Goddesses of Tlbet ............. ................."..,',,., 222 lll. Thc Goddesses of China ...............'..'..'........'...'..' 270 lV. The Goddesscs of Japan .........'.............'....'....'.. " 36 I List of abbreviations ....'........'...."..'...467 Bibfiogr.phy and Acknowledgments....'........'....'...,,,,.,'.,, 469 Index ................ .,...,.........,........,,. 473 Copyrighted Material. All Rights Reserved. Copyrighted Material. All Rights Reserved. Copyrighted Material. All Rights Reserved. SECTION ONE The Goddesses of India and Tibet NAMES: THE AMMAS, THE MOTHERS. ETYMoLoGY: [The etymology of the Sanskrit names is based mainly on Macdonell's Sanskrit Dictionary. The accents denot- ing the letters a, i and 0 are used in the Egrmology sections; elsewhere they are used only when they are necessary for identification.] Indian, amma, mother: cf. Skr. amba, mother: Phrygian Amma, N. or ep. of Cybele: Assyr, ummu and Heb. aima, mother. ASSOCIATED PLACES: India, The Indus Valley, Harappa. Female pottery figurines have been lound at the Harappa sites in the Indus Valley. Brosn describes these as "corres- ponding in general appearance to figurines found to the west in Baluchistan, Elam, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Cyprus, C(ete, the Cyclades, the Balkans . It is considered that in western Asia these are representations of the Mother Goddess, or the Great Mother, or the Earth Mother, whose worship u'as generalll observed throughout all this region, and it is assumed there' fore that the same worship existed in the Indus valley". The same author, in his survey of the development of In- dian religion, also writes: "Unfortunately, it is not until long after the period of thc Harappa civilization that we get lit- erary records in India expounding beliefs about the Great Mothcr, and relating mythology connected with her. We hear of her in literature of the middle of the late classical period, rspecially in the Puranas . and also in the Tantras, whose Copyrighted Material. All Rights Reserved. dares are indcterminable though proMbly later than the Pur- anas. She appears as a part of thc syncretic deit!' Parvati. known also by the names Devi (goddess) The reason uhv $e do not hear of her sooner doubtless is that the Great l,toiher is not Arvan in origin and was late in Setting Brah manical recognirion. She is quite different from the female deities of rhe Rig Veda. It is true that in the earl! post-Rig- vedic times we find literary allusions to ideas similar to some associated rvith Dcvi. such as the lotus, \\,hile in earl]' Bttd- clhist sculpture we see vegetation rhizomes and lotuses, $hich the late Dr. A. K. Coomaras$'amv pointed our are assi- milared to representations of the deified earth, but these items become associated in Brahmanic Hinduism rlith Iakshmi, uifc of Vishnu. rather than Par!ati"- Writing on the influcncc oI the di-fierent races on Indi',rn culrure, F-ergusson statcs: lt is most important a]rval's to bear in minJ that the Sanskril -.peakjng Arlan Nas a srranger in India . all, indeed, l-hich is $ritten-belongs to them: but all that is built-all, indeed, which is art jstic-belongs to other races. rtho were eithe( aboriginal or immigrated into India at earlier or subsequent periods, and from other sollrces than rhose rvhich supplied the Ar1'an stock." In a description of a primitive Indian statue of the Maurva period. aboui two thousand two hundred lears old' -Mme. beneck writes: "This terra-cotta statuette probably depicts lhe Nlother Goddess. the s,Tnbol of fertilit)'. protectress of all beings and creator of life, whose cult seems to have been com- mon to ancient religions of India. Iran and the Near Easi. similar statuettes have been found in thc sites of the Indus civilizarion. The represcn{alion of the figure is ven srvlised: rhe clothes are indicared onll bv a few incised strokes and the hair is built up into a kind of turban, decorated with three rosettes." This figure. of pink terra-cotta. is about seven inches hrgh. Mis, Ions refers to an earl]-Kond rribal ligtrre o[ a mothcr o[ rnolhcr ',"rrr.ao,tusoddcss t\ilh a chitd at her breast. In a descrilrion 6qurine from Bengal about two rhousand one hunJred lears olcl she writes: "such figures survived into the Vedic age and were to be revived in the Devi cults of the Hindus. It combines the symbols of abundance with the staring 'fish eves"', A female bust in terra-cotta of about the same date ii described by her as "probably a votive ofiering or amu]et invoking the protection of a fertility goddess". Copyrighted Material. All Rights Reserved. Writing on the characteristic represefltadon of the Indian Vother Goddess, Neumann states: "In late plastics of the Indian (;reat Mother (whose broad well-rounded haunches characterize the dominant type in all Indian sculpture), the genital zone rs tusually covered: but the covering, u'hich is represented from the earliest rimes and lecurs even in the latest Indian idols, lends emphasis to this zone. As early seals shon, the nude Great Mother ruith emphasized genital zones was also knoun in India as the goddess of sexualitl, and fertility". In this connexion the same author writes: 'lt would bc a mistake to derive this stearopl'gia from any racial charactei- istics. This qualitv (i.e. breadth and fulness of the posterior) of [he G(eat Primordial Mother is exceedingly $-idespread Wherever the stout woman is the favoured sexual object, rve mar infer an unconscious domination of the mother arche_ tl'pe . " The $orship of The N{others in India at the prescn! time is rhus described b) Brown: The Creat Nfother Gotlcless. the Earth Mother. is sidell $orshipped in India todat' in non-Arl'' an circles: in South India every village has its collection of Amnras or Mothers. and rheir u'orship is the chief exercise of the village. Frequenrl)' one of these is rhe heati of rhe soror' itv. rvhich the others are local deities manifesting particular po\\'ers or having control over limited subjects. The priests oi such deities are nor Brahmins, as those serving other aspe(s of Parvati in the great remples rhus indicating the pre- Arvan or at Jeast non-Ar1'an, u-orship of rhese goddesses. Mother Gorldess rrrship is also prevalent in the north. and sculptures of the l',lother Co.ldesses appear in mediaeral times. Cradualll such rleities and especialll. the Creat \rother gocldess. make their v!'a], inro Brahmanical Hinduism to be- come best established in Tantric literature. But the scriptrrres dealing $ith them and $ith Parvati as the Great Mother ate Agamic or non Vedic . ' NAMES: ADIT]. ADDITTEE, ADIT. ETYMOLOGY: Skr. aditi. adj. infiniter n. fem. infinity: N. oi the mother of the gods; hence adit1,a. adi. belonging to or rlescended from ALliri. and prps. Diti (q.r.); (S.D.) Aditi (a. not. and diti, cut, torn or bound) The Boundless Whole, Adiri, Mother of the Gods. Eternal Space: (Ayeen Akberl') Adit, Adrlittee, wife of Kushup (Kasyapa); hence Aditnr.ar. Sundal' and Aditlogue (Aditloka), see also belol'. Copyrighted Material. All Rights Reserved. GENEALOGY: self-formed; uife of Kasyapa; wife of Vishnu; mother oI eight sons (sometimes stated as 7. lO. ot 12)'. Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman, Indra, Savitri, Bhaga, Ansa and Marttanda (Vivasvat); prps. mother of son: Surya; molhe( 1f son: Daksha: "mother of the Adityas", "mother of the gods", (Ayeen Akbery) "mother of the Dewtahs" (Celestial Beings). OFFICES AND TITIES: The Boundless Whole, M},stic Space, Cosmic Space, Eternal Space, The Substance of the Earth,'Ihe. Supporter of the Sky, The Sovereign of the World, Nature, The Moth€r, Surarani, Devamatri, The Mother of the Gods, The Mistress of the Race, The Celestial Virgin, Shakti, The Un- fathomable Dcpth, Mulaprakriti, Prima Materia, The Primordial Watcr of Space, Aether, Akasha, The Word, Univcrsal \{isdom' Infinite Light, Prcsiding Deit1, of The Lunar \lansicn Puna- vasu. ASSOCIATED PLACES: Iran, India, Priyasamgamana; The Heavens, The Highest Heaven. The cosnlic aspect of this goddess is summarized in the many different epithets by which shc is named. According to The Secret Doctdne it is from her Cosmic Matrix that all the heavenly bodies of our system are born, includiflg the Sun and Planets. She closel1, corrcsponds to the "Mother Space" of The Secret Doctrire and the two may both be aspects cf the same deity. Aditi appears odginally to have been regarded as mother of the deities of Iranian origin, the early Asuras and Asuris; later she was regarded as mother of all the deities. Referring to the Adityas, Brown \\.rites: "their mother (i.e. Aditi) figures fre' quently in the Rig Veda as a benevolent feminine deiry". According to Muller, "Aditi . the infinite still shows a {erv traces of her being originally connected with the boundless Dawn" (see Ushas). In the Vedas Aditi's husband is said to be VishnLr: but more often he is considered to be her son.