Some Aspects of Shakti Worship in Ancient India
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SOME ASPECTS OF SHAKTI WORSHIP IN ANCIENT INDIA Some Aspects of Shakti Worship in Ancient India JITENDRA NATH BANERJEA he beginnings of the worship of the by Marshall as Proto-Shiva. The ornamental female principle go back in India, as ring stones of the historic period no doubt Tin many other countries of the ancient represent some variety, but their general world, to a very remote past. Remains of the character shows that ‘they were cult objects cult of the Mother Goddess have been comparable with the prehistoric ring stones recognized by many scholars among the of the Indus Valley on the one hand and the various interesting objects unearthed in the cakras and the yantras of the later Shàktas pre-Vedic sites of the Indus Valley. One of on the other.’2 the commonest of such objects is a pottery One such, of a representative nature, figurine of a female, practically nude, with a unearthed by Marshall at Hathial near very short skirt held round the loins by a Taxila, has been described by him in this girdle. It has been said that ‘these pottery manner: ‘It is of polished sandstone, 3¼´´ in images of the goddess whose name is diameter, adorned on the upper surface with unknown were kept almost in every house in concentric bands of cross and cable patterns the ancient Indus cities, probably in a recess and with four nude female figures or on a bracket on the wall.1 alternating with honeysuckle designs The early Indus Valley settlers seem engraved in relief round the central hole.’3 also to have worshipped her in her aniconic These female figures either represent form; many ring stones, some of a very different aspects of the goddess, or are mere suggestive nature, discovered at repetitions of the same theme. The Lady of Mohenjodaro and Harappa can be described the ring stone exactly resembles the gold with a great deal of justification as cult leaf female figure dug out of the stupa at objects symbolizing the Mother aspect of the Lauriya Nandangarh by Block and correctly goddess. An earlier suggestion of some identified by Coomaraswamy and others as scholars that these objects were of an the Mother Goddess. architectural character; being no other than mere components or sections of a peculiar Seal amulets type of a column, cannot be seriously The juxtaposition of the much earlier considered. They should be studied along undecorated ring stones with the phallic with not only the much decorated types of objects of the Indus region leaves little doubt ring stones of the Maurya period found in about their original character. With the many north Indian sites like Taxila, Kosam, aforesaid iconic and aniconic objects Rajghat, and Patna, but also the phallic associated with the cult of the female objects symbolizing the Father God of the principle may be considered a few devices Indus Valley people conveniently described on some seal amulets of the early Indus sites. Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture September 2017 17 JITENDRA NATH BANERJEA One such device only, on the right side of one cannot fail to recognize the importance the obverse face of an oblong terracotta seal, ascribed to them by the ancient rishis of unearted at Harappa, may be noticed here. It India. Aditi, the Divine Mother, Ushas, the shows a nude female figure upside-down great Goddess of Dawn, on whose with legs wide apart, and ‘with a plant description and characterization the Vedic issuing from her womb’; her arms are shown seers employed their highest poetic fervour in the same position in which those of the and genius, Sarasvati, primarily deifying a Proto-Shiva on the Mohenjodaro seal amulet river, on the banks of which distinctive traits are depicted. Marshall rightly compared this of Vedic culture were formulated. Prithivi, striking representation of the goddess, with a the great mother earth, Ràtri, the goddess plant issuing from the womb, with the personifying a starlit night, Purandhi, Ilà, device on an early Gupta terracotta sealing and Dhishanà, etc—personifications of such showing a goddess with her legs in much the abstract attributes as abundance and same position, but with a lotus emerging nourishment—all these were the different from her neck instead of from her womb. manifestations of the great divine principle The idea of vegetation emerging from conceived by the old sages in its female some part of the body of the goddess aspect. reminds us of the Devi-màhàtmya concept of the Shàkambhari aspect, in which she is said Divine energy to have nourished her drought-afflicted But it is in the sublime conception of people with vegetation produced from her Vàc, the great goddess of speech, that is to body (Yato’hamakhilam lokam be found one of the greatest and, at the same àtmadehasamudbhavaih; bharishyàmi suràh time, simplest expositions of the idea of the shàkairàvrishteh prànadhàrakaih. divine Energy or Shakti inherent in Shàkambhariti vikhyàtim tadà yàsyàmyaham everything—animals, men, and gods and in bhuvi).4 The pre-Vedic archaeological data the universe. The Devi-sukta,6 in the eight discussed above throw much light on the verses of which occurs this sublime early stages of the cult long before it was characterization, came to occupy a very fully developed in the Shakti worship of the prominent position in the Shàkta ritual of epic and the Purànic age. subsequent times. A place of honour was It has been usually accepted by scholars also given in it to the Ràtri-sukta.7 All these that Vedic ritualism was characterized by the facts show that the developed Shakti prominence given to male deities, and worship of later days was not a little goddesses, comparatively few in number, indebted to the goddess concepts of the early play very little part in it. Macdonell says that Vedic age, the very idea underlying the word ‘Goddesses occupy a very subordinate Shakti being based on the central theme of position in Vedic belief and worship, and the Devi-sukta. play hardly any part as rulers of the world.’5 It is, however, a well-known fact that But the female deities, though few, are of a there is no mention in the Rig-Veda of such very interesting character. Some of them names of Ambikà, Umà, Durgà, and Kàli, bring out in a striking manner the inner which became singly or collectively the workings of the Vedic seers’ minds. name of the central figure of the Shàkta cult. If an analysis is made of the nature of Such names begin to appear in the later such goddesses as Aditi, Ushas, Sarasvati, Vedic texts. Thus, Ambikà appears as Prithivi, Ràtri, Purandhi, Ilà, Dhishanà, Vàc, Rudra’s sister in the Vàjasaneyi Samhità 18 Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture September 2017 SOME ASPECTS OF SHAKTI WORSHIP IN ANCIENT INDIA (III. 57) and in the Taittiriya Bràhmana composite goddess was no doubt made up of (I. 6. 10. 4-5), and as Rudra’s consort in the such various elements as her Mother, Taittiriya âranyaka (X. 18). There is an Daughter, and Sister aspects, her Vedic invocation to the goddess styled Durgà Aryan element, inasmuch as she or her Vairocani in the tenth book of the same particular forms were the objects of worship âranyaka; she is described here also as of the members of such Aryan sage clans as Kàtyàyani and Kanyàkumàri in the Durgà- the Kushikas and the Kàtyas (compare her gàyatri (X. 1 .7). The Kena Upanishad appellations âryà, Kaushiki, and Kàtyàyani), referes to Umà Haimavati as the personified and the various non-Aryan strands in her Brahmavidyà (III. 25). The Mundaka character. It is specially mentioned in the Upanishad mentions Kàli and Karàli, but âryàstava that she was well worshipped by they are described here as two of the seven the Shavaras, the Barbaras, and the Pulindas tongues of Agni; the names are Kàli , Karàli, (Shavarairbarbaraishcaiva pulindaishca Manojavà, Sulohità, Sudhumravarnà, supujità), and she is often described in other Sphulingini, and Vishvaruci (I. 2. 4). Their contexts as Aparnà (not even covered with a number is to be noted, for it corresponds to leaf garment, that is, nude), Nagna-Shavari the number of the Divine Mothers—the (the nude Shavara woman), and Parna- Sapta Màtrikà. Shavari (the leaf-clad Shavara woman). It is true that the Durgà-stotra in the Greek parallel Viràtaparvan is not found in all the The name of Shri as a concrete goddess recensions of the Mahàbhàrata and thus is concept occurs for the first time in the regarded as an interpolation, but this fact Shatapatha Bràhmana, such words as siri does not minimize the importance and and rayi, indicating wealth, prosperity, and authenticity of its contents. The original fortune, occurring in earlier literature. The Ràmàyana, on the other hand, is less Shatapatha Bràhmana account of the origin indicative of the prevalence of Shakti of this goddess reminds us of the story worship in India. The incident of the current in Greek mythology about the birth worship of the Devi by Ràma, when he was of Pallas Athene. Such names of the Devi as in some difficulty about Ràvana’s Bhadrakàli, Bhavàni, and Durgi are found in destruction, is to be found in the Bengali late Vedic work like Sànkhyàyana and Ràmàyana by Krittivàsa. In its Sanskrit Hiranyakesh in Grihya-Sutras, and in the original (Yuddhakànda, 106), it is the wise Taittiriya âranyaka. The aforesaid data counsel of the sage Agastya to propitiate the clearly prove that some features of the cult, Sun-god by ceremonial recitation of the which were in a nascent stage in earlier âdityahridayastava, that helps Ràma to put times, were gradually taking the shape and the demon king of Lankà to death.