Devdutt Pattanaik - The Goddess in India: The Five Faces of the Eternal Feminine

Inner Traditions International
One Park Street
Rochester, Vermont 05767
www.InnerTraditions.com

Copyright 2000 Devdutt Pattanaik

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Pattanaik, Devdutt.

The goddess in India : the five faces of the eternal feminine / Devdutt Pattanaik.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-89281-807-5
ebook ISBN 978-1-59477-537-6

1. Goddesses, Hindu. 2. GoddessesIndia. 3. WomenReligious aspectsHinduism.

4. HinduismDoctrines. I. Title.

BL1216.P37 2000

294.52114dc21

00-024425

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Grateful acknowledgment to the following:

Archeological Survey of India, for Lajja-gauri, p. 5; Vishnu and Laxmi, p. 9; Women in amorous embrace, p. 12; Vishnu in the form of a boar, p. 16; Mother with child, p. 41; Princess in her toilet, p. 46; Tree nymph, p. 52; Vishnu with nymph and monk, p. 60; Courtesan and sage, p. 68; Laxmi and Vishnu, p. 104; Palmprints, p. 117; Nymph adorning herself, p. 124; Yogini holding skull-mace, p. 125; Matrikas, p. 132; Durga, p. 142; Three forms of the mother-goddess, p. 151

Kelkar Museum, Pune, for Laxmana and Surpanaka, p. 88; Sita and Laxmana, p. 90; Sitas chastity being tested, p. 113; Worship of the tulsi plant, p. 116

Private collections, for Ardhanari, p. 17; Man with three women, p. 35; Man and woman in amorous embrace, 45; Women dancing with Krishna, p. 84; Metal effigy of Renuka-Yellamma, p. 137; Kali, p. 149; Chinnamastika, p. 154

For Sabitri, Seema, and Shami, the three women in my life

INTRODUCTION
Why This Book?

CHAPTER ONE
Left Halves: Feminizing the Circle

CHAPTER TWO
Earth Mother: Rotating the Circle

CHAPTER THREE
Dancing Nymphs: Transcending the Circle

CHAPTER FOUR
Cult of Chastity: Squaring the Circle

CHAPTER FIVE
Goddesses with UnboundHair: Reclaiming the Circle

APPENDIX ONE
A Brief History of Hinduism

APPENDIX TWO
Dates of Hindu Scriptures

India has given the world the Hindu worldview, a way of looking at life that is quite different from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic scheme of things. Hindu scriptures make no mention of original sin. There is no talk of fall or redemption. No Eve is held responsible for the loss of paradise. No god decrees that man shall rule over woman. Instead, powerful and awe-inspiring goddesses are enshrined in Hindu temples. Why, then, is Hindu society patriarchal? Why are women described by Hindu lawmakers as temptations to be veiled and shrews to be tamed?

This book seeks the answer in stories held sacred by the Hindus. Like all sacred lores, sacred Hindu lore is a much-revered gift handed down by ancestors that gives an identity to a people, a worldview to a culture, and a frame of reference to a civilization. It forms the foundation of rituals, customs, and traditions. It gives the why of things. Just as tales of Lilith, Eve, Jael, Judith, Jezebel, Ruth, Salome, and Mary express the Abrahamic attitude toward women, so do tales of women from sacred Hindu lore capture Hindu views on womanhood.

Beyond the din of masculine sagas, the sacred literature of the Hindus is filled with plots palpating with feminine dreams and themes grating with female fury. There are tales of goddesses who strike children with fever, nymphs who seduce sages, celestial virgins who run free in forests, and chaste wives who fling themselves on funeral pyres to become guardians of feminine virtue. There are ballads smeared with menstrual blood and songs fragrant with forbidden love. Somewhere in these narratives beats the heart of the ageless Hindu womandreams of the inner courtyard, unshed burdens of her womb.

This book retells tales of the chastity, fertility, seduction, and sacrifice that have made Hindu women divine. It also brings together legends of princesses, queens, amazons, heroines, and harlotswomen not so divinewho lived, loved, and delivered life into Jambudvipa, the sacred rose-apple continent of India. From the recurring motifs and plots emerge five faces of the eternal feminine that give a better understanding of the traditional Hindu womanseated to the left of her husband, dressed in red, worshipped as goddess, feared as temptress.

Each tale in the book has germinated in Indian soil. All have festered in the heat, shivered in the rain. Over the centuries they have been baked with bricks in the cities of the Indus; hidden in caves by dark-skinned forest tribes; scented by floral offerings of the Dravidians; crushed under the chariots of the Aryans; singed in the sacred altars of Brahmins; challenged by the wisdom of the Buddha and the Tirthankara; cut by the blades of Greeks, Scythians, Parthians, Huns, and Gujars; smothered by the veils of Arabia and Turkistan; and, finally, shamed by the prudery of Victoria. Most of the stories have been taken from the Vedas, Tantras, Itihasas (Ramayana and Mahabharata), and Puranas, as well as from vernacular epics and folk literature held sacred by Hindus. Some have been taken from Hindu scriptures of Bali and Thailand, others from sacred lore of Indian tribes. A few belong to Buddhists and Jains, who share many beliefs with Hindus.

The five faces of the eternal feminine are explored in five chapters. The first chapter forms the foundation of the book as it explores the reaction of the male head to the female body. The next chapter narrates tales in which the woman, the earth, and the mother-goddess are seen as extensions of the same material reality, necessary for existence, hence worthy of reverence and awe. In the third chapter the mother transforms into a nymph, the seductress who offers worldly pleasures and binds man to the cycle of life. The fourth chapter retells the tales of the gradual domestication of women into chaste wives with miraculous powers. In the final chapter the submissive consort redefines herself as the wild and terrifying goddess who does battle, drinks blood, and demands appeasement.

Like all sacred lore, the tales of the Hindus can be seen at various levels. This book considers them primarily from sociological, anthropological, psychological, and philosophical viewpoints. In no way is this book an authoritative, or academic, enterprise. The stories put together are not translations or transliterations; they are summarized retellings. The focus is more on trends than on details.

Each narrative has been churned out of the many versions and variants that exist. The perspective is time-free; five thousand years of history telescope into each tale so that the past and present coalesce. It is almost impossible to organize the tales chronologically. Such is the Hindu waywhat was coexists with what is, and what is reflects what will be. Nothing is rejected. Everything is absorbed, sustained, transformed, and celebrated. Shaped by informed interpretation, ornamented with the living imagery of the land, spiced by the flavors of the people, this book delves into the spiral unconscious of the Hindu tradition, rich in ancient memory. It hopes to lift the veil of the Hindu woman a little higher, to reveal expressions rarely seen before.