Devi Mahatmya

From Free Encyclopedia of Thelema

Devi Mahatmya is to be pronounced as Devi Māhātmya. The word means 'The Glory and significance of Devi, the Mother Goddess'. Actually Devi Māhātmyam is the name of a Purāna, a Hindu scriptural work. This is the content of this article.

The Primeval Energy

One of the unique features of Hinduism is the fact that it conceives Divinity also as Mother Goddess. When Divinity has no name or form -- which is the most important declaration of the Upanishads, the next logical step is to recognize that the Supreme has no specifity in terms of gender. The Upanishads transcend the gender-specific connotation and invent the unique Sanskrit word tat, meaning 'that' for that Supreme Reality. And therefore they argue, whatever reason or rhyme we have in referring to God by a masculine pronoun, the same right there is for us to call God by a feminine pronoun. The energy of every Cosmic Divinity is taken to be feminine and thus arises the interesting concept of primordial power or the Parāshakti, which means 'Power Supreme'.

Without this Parāshakti's life-giving inspiration, the Creator Brahma, pronounced Brahmā, cannot discharge his creating function, the Protector Vishnu cannot perform his sustenance function nor can Rudra, the Destroyer, contribute to the Cosmic Ecology by performing His dissolution function at the time of pralaya, which must follow all creation, in due time!

Energy more fundamental than matter

The concept of Primeval (Cosmic) Energy or 'Prakriti' in Sanskrit, is most fundamental to the understanding of Indian Philosophy and also to the central core of teaching in the metaphysics of the Gita. The innocuous translation of Prakriti as 'Nature' is very often used but does not carry the full connotation of Prakriti. The difference is in the meaning of the word Energy, as understood by Science and as understood by Vedanta.

In Science, Matter is fundamental and self-existent; its motive power is Energy. In Vedanta, Energy is self-existent and Matter is the product or effect of this ever-present Energy.

Consequently in this article we shall use the technical word Prakriti itself instead of the English word Cosmic energy, lest the scientific connotation of the word Energy may limit the broader connotation of Prakriti. Another alternative Sanskrit word 'Shakti' (meaning Power) is also used for Prakriti in many contexts, as we have already used above in 'Parāshakti' for the Power Supreme.

Brahman to be known, Shakti to be worshipped

The primordial Parāshakti is therefore the ultimate dynamic energy of the transcendental Brahman, than which there is no other existence. In fact it is technically wrong to say that She (Parāshakti) is the Energy of Brahman, because the nature of Brahman does not allow any attributes or predicates.The moment we attribute anything to Brahman we have already delimited and circumscribed it. When we talk of the Energy of the Ultimate Reality we have already descended one step from the supreme pedestal of the Unmanifested Attributeless Ultimate.

But the beauty of the concept of Parāshakti is that She is transcendent beyond anything that is finite and immanent in everything there is. So while we predicate it and relate it to other things, it is still the Ultimate Supreme that can be talked about. While Brahman has only to be cognized, Parāshakti can be worshipped with a name and form. She is the Divine Will personified. She is the Conscious Power beyond everything. She is the Presence, invisible and constant, that sustains the world, linking form and name, holding them in interdependence. There is nothing impossible for Her. She is the Universal Goddess. She is all knowledge, all strength, all triumph and all victory. She is the Goddess Supreme (Maheshvari) who brings to us the total state of illumination.

She is Many-One

She is indeed the Mother of the universe. She creates. She preserves. She dissolves. She is the sat , therefore creates. She is the chit, therefore is Life. She is the Ānanda , therefore is Bliss. At the same time She must be the possessor and controller of the opposite qualities also, namely, Destruction, Death and Terror. It is in these ltter three facets that She manifests Herself as Mahā-kāli, the Goddess of Supreme Strength. All might and power that is anywhere has to bow down to Her prowess.

She is Mahā-lakshmi, the supreme Goddess of Love and Delight. As such She gives the Grace and Charm to everything that is divine or human or beautiful in Nature.

She is also Mahā-Saraswati, the Goddess of Divine skill and Knowledge.

She is the fire-fighter and trouble-shooter for the entire universe. She does not have to descend from Her heights of glory and majesty and limit Herself to a human birth as the other divinities like Vishnu and Shiva do. She manifests Herself just when She wills it and She demanifests also just like that.

The Book

The supreme examples of such manifestation and non-manifestation are narrated in the wonderful book Devi-Māhātmyam, also known by the names of Chandi or Durgā-saptashati. It is not just a narrative poem describing the exploits of Parāshakti in 700 verses. It is a book of mantras. Every verse therein has a mantra value and is capable of producing spiritual and occult vibrations that will result not only in the spiritual elevation of mankind but in their material benefit also. The Devi Māhātmyam is one of the four major pieces of Hindu religious literature that glorifies Parāshakti. The other three are: Lalitha sahasranama, Lalitha trishati, and Saundaryalahari.

Mine of Stotras

In the Devi-Māhātmyam three major manifestations of the Goddess are described and in each case there are very delightful stotras, poems of praise.

The first story therein is that of Mahākāli who made Herself manifest at the pitiful appeal and praise of Brahmā the Creator Himself. He implored Her as the Goddess of Cosmic Sleep -- Yoga-nidrā -- to wake up God Vishnu who was plunged in cosmic sleep during the cosmic nights between two kalpas of Brahmā. Two demons Madhu and Kaitabha were done away with as a consequence of the waking up of Vishnu. The second story narrates that Mahā-lakshmi with Her eighteen hands -- representing the eighteen Vidyas, facets of knowledge -- appeared from all the inner vitalities of all the gods and divinities and so in that sense represents the total might of everything divine. The object in this case was the demon Mahishāsura whose end had to be only at the hands of a feminine divinity.

After Mahishāsura is done with the Gods together praise Her as the Ādi Parāshakti who is at the root of all their strength, power, charm and grace.

Again, later when the demons Sumbha and Nishumbha were at the peak of their terror and terrorism the same Gods had to invoke Her again and recall Her promise that She would come to their help any time they wanted. There is a beautiful stotra here, pregnant with meaning, which is a favourite of ll devotees of Mother Goddess. This is the one where you get perortions like

Yā devī sarva bhuteshu buddhi rūpena samsthitā; namastasyai namastasyai namastasyai namo-namah.

Meaning, To that Goddess who manifests as the Intellect in every being, Prostrations to Her, Prostrations to Her, Prostrations to Her, Prostrations again and again.

Here Prostrations are offered to the Goddess, three times in every verse (the above is only one such verse) , each verse glorifying Her as the personification, in turn, of one of Vishnu Maya, Consciousness, Intellect, Sleep, Hunger, Shadow, Power, Thirst, Patience, Status, Shyness, Peace, Faith, Brilliance, Work, Wealth, Attitude, Memory, Compassion, Satisfaction, Mother, Delusion. The three-time prostration in each case is to indicate that we are surrendering to the Goddess by our body, by our speech and by our mind.

This time, the third time, the manifestation is that of Mahā-Saraswati, who came out of the very body of Parvati (the consort of Lord Shiva)and is the personification of all that is skillful and all that is knowledge. By just a grunt She was able to kill the demon Dumra-lochana and with the help of the manifestation of Kāli She was able to do away with three more -- all of which needed the greatest of divine machination and ingenuity, not to speak of the brutal might that had to match these once-blessed demons.

When Sumbha and Nishumbha are finally killed, again the gods heave a big sign of relief and recite a matchless stotra called Narayana-stuti.

The greatness of the book Devi-Māhātmyam is not a little due to these stotras embedded in these seven hundred verses.

References

• Wikipedia (2005) Devi Mahatmya. Retrieved July 28, 2005.