Goddesses And Divine Females
The most common Hindu goddesses are Sarasvati, Laksmi and Parvati. Sarasvati is the daughter of Brahma, sometimes depicted as his consort; Laksmi is Vishnu’s spouse, and Parvati is Shiva’s better half. Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh (also called Shiva) are the three Supreme Gods in Hinduism, while Sarasvati, Laksmi and Parvati are the three Supreme Goddesses. There are numerous other goddesses who embody features of Sarasvati, Laksmi and Parvati. All Hindu goddesses are said to be one of the forms of these three goddesses. However, very much like Shiva’s numerous forms, no other goddess but Parvati has so many variations. Shiva and Parvati are multiplied in both kind and terrifying aspects.
The Shakti Cult
Shiva is substance, Shakti is energy. Shiva is time, Shakti is space. The root of the Hindu religion, popularly called Dharma, is the Shakti (Divine Female) cult, which esoterically is denoted with energy and space. Shakti is the World Mother, her invocation or installation is done in different forms, and the most popular one is Kali—the Terrible One. She snarls, blood drips from the decapitated human heads in her hands, and she wears a garland of human skulls. However, the World Mother is also venerated in a more enduring form, the Mother Earth. She, her benevolent form, appears as Tripura Sundari, Sodasi, Raj Rajeshvari, Kamala and other manifestations.
Shiva is the God of destruction and also of procreation. Parvati is worshipped under several different names, Durga, Kali, Uma, Satidevi and others, whose lives and experiences with Shiva and his different avatars are related as different individual goddesses. Apparently, the goddesses appearing in myriad forms are actually parts of the World Mother popularly known as Matrika. Propitiating the Mother Goddess as the deity of procreation has been in practice since primeval times.
Vedic Goddesses
The Vedas are believed to have been composed in and around 1300 Before Common Era (BCE). There are four Vedas and the oldest and most sanctified one is the Rig Veda. The ancient people contemplated on the Mother Goddess in eight forms, and they are named Asta Matrika who are said to represent aspects like “kama” (that has two meanings, desire and sex) “krodha” or anger, and six other aspects.
In the Rig Veda, there are prayers dedicated to Aditi, the mother of time and space. Aditi is also the mother of deities and demons.
Likewise, the Rig Veda also mentions the Sky Goddess and Earth Goddess. In the Yajur Veda, Rudra has a sister named Ambika. However, she is his spouse in the Teitrya Aranyak, one of the supplements to the Vedas. This feminine power has many names like Durga, Parvati, Uma and Kali.
The ferocious Uma—in another form, the Undefeatable Durga and the Terrible One Kali—is the World Mother. Uma is the daughter of the Himalaya. Hima, in its ancient meaning, is Kal. Uma, created out of Kal, the power behind annihilation and creation, is worshipped as Rudra’s consort. Rudra also means the Terrible One, or Kal to be precise. It is thus expected of Uma to be a daughter and wife at the same time, because females are daughters, wives and mothers. This is what Hindus philosophise when they venerate a girl as Kumari, the Vestal Virgin.
According to the Rig Veda, the sky represented as white and the earth as black cordially form Ardhanarishvor—half male and half female, an androgynous form of Shiva and Parvati, or Sky-Earth. A story in the Purana, one of the sacred Hindu scriptures, tells how Rudra (the Vedic name of Shiva) created Virbhadra and Bhadrakali in order to destroy Drakshya’s Yagya.
Tantric Goddesses
Tantrism is esoteric practice in Hinduism (also in Buddhism). A tantric adept, it is believed, can invoke his chosen goddess and accumulate occult powers. Many Tantric goddesses are equally worshipped by Hindus and Buddhists. There are basically two cults in tantrism, the Kali cult and the Sri cult. In the Kali cult, goddesses appear in ferocious forms, whereas in the Sri cult, goddesses are benevolent.
The Tantric belief is about worshipping divine females. And it is generally accepted that Shiva acts as a consort to many goddesses. In a single, consistent form, these goddesses are called Shakti. According to the Shakti cult, in the beginning Shakti made love with Shiva thus creating the universe. Shiva is always thought to be a potential form, whereas Shakti is kinetic power. The Sanskrit word Shakti literally means energy.
Shakti came out of Shiva, and without Shakti, Shiva is “shava”, the corpse. Mahakali is the consort of Mahakal and was brought into the universe out of his fury. She is the Divine Female of Eternal Darkness, the Divine Female of Eternal Power, where everything disappears, because she is related to midnight and the cremation ground. She stands naked, snarling and drinking liquor, standing on a corpse, which is the world itself. Why is she drinking liquor? Well, it represents the fact that she makes everyone oblivious. During the apocalypse, the universe is dead and Kali manifests into Mahakali, the Great Kali. Mahakal—the Great Kal—becomes a corpse and lies beneath her feet. Kali, with her terrible power, controls the mystery of life and death—of birth, procreation and futility. She is the dark malignant Destroyeress wearing a necklace of skulls, standing on the mangled bodies of her victims, her long tongue dripping blood.
Divine Females In Hinduism
Matriarchy has been assumed to be the primordial condition of mankind by various anthropologists during the 19th century. The woman was the matriarch, politically dominant over men and the descent was reckoned through her line.
However, American anthropologist Marvin Harris in his book, Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches, writes: Modern-day women liberationists’ persistent belief on this idea is just a myth; no one has ever been able to authenticate a single case of a true matriarchy. Of course there are evidences of kinship and descent reckoned exclusively through females, but the tracing of lineage through females is matrilineage, not matriarchy.
Our own Madan Mani Dixit, though not an anthropologist, has a similar view. In Shree ShashvatNari he writes, a female-dominated social system did not exist, because in prehistoric times, there was no such thing as a system. Of course, the society accepted women’s point of view and women towered in the social hierarchy. Dixit, a scholar on Hindu theologies, has extensively written fictions and non-fictions on Vedic and post-Vedic literature and civilisation.
Propitiating the mother-goddess as the deity of procreation has been in practice since primeval time. Matriaka, or the mother goddess of HaugalBahal in Patan, is one of the oldest idols found in Nepal. Lain Singh Bangdel has assumed that the idol was carved two centuries before the Common Era. No other civilisation on earth has mentioned so many women as in the theologies of Aryan (Hindu) civilisation.
Venerating the occult power in the form of divine female power is an age-old custom. In the Rig Veda, we find prayers dedicated to Aditi, the mother of time and space. Likewise, the Rig Veda also mentions about the sky goddess and earth goddess. In the Yajur Veda, Rudra has a sister named Ambika, however, she is his spouse in the TeitryaAranyak. This feminine power has many names like Durga, Parvati, Uma and Kali.
The ferocious Uma – in another form, the undefeatable Durga and the terrible one Kali – is the world mother. Uma is the daughter of Himalaya. Hima, in its ancient meaning, is Kal. Uma, created out of Kal, the power behind annihilation and creation, is worshipped as Rudra’s consort.
Rudra also means the terrible one, or Kal to be precise. It is thus expected of Uma to be a daughter and wife at the same time, because females are daughter, wife and mother. This is what people philosophise when they venerate a girl as Kumari, the Vestal Virgin.
According to the Rig Veda, the sky represented as white and earth as black, cordially form Ardhanarishwor – half male and half female, an androgynous form of Shiva and Parvati, or sky earth. A story in the Purana tells how Rudra-Shiva, in order to destroy Drakshya’sYagya, created Virbhadra and Bhadrakali.
Many scholars on Hindu civilisation – Indians, Nepalis and Westerners included – believe the Vedas contain historical evidences. The verses in the Vedas hint at events of the early times of the Aryans, the wars they fought with the other races; the social, economic and political system they devised, and much more.
Though some Indian scholars persistently believe that Indus valley civilisation was Aryan civilisation, Madan Mani Dixit for a long time has been arguing that Aryans had actually destroyed the Indus civilisation. This point of logic is also proposed by the Western scholars.