Aju
Mukhopadhyay, IN
Mother Durga:
Mounted on a Lion
The deep blue of
the sky tells you through the cirro-cu mulas floating like
small white boats in it, the air whispers in your ear, the
tall white catkins of the Kash grass too, undulating in the
riverbanks, remind you that the days of the rain are over,
that we are floating deeper into the autumn and that the days
of the great Durga Puja festival have arrived.
In Vedic religion
male deities abound; male dominated, it is said, though the
names of some female deities like Prithvi, Ila, Sarama,
Sarasvati, Bharati are also mentioned in the Rig Veda, the
earliest of the four Vedas. Shakti cult was not clearly
established during Rig Vedic period. Durga or any of her
different forms like Kausiki, Chandi, Uma, Ambika, Kali or
Vindhyavasini found no place in Veda though they became
immensely popular during the Tantrik-Puranic period. In later
Vedic period Shakti cult found an access in Vedic pantheon; it
was slowly assimilated into its body and gradually adopted
characteristics of different Aryan deities. Besides the Aryans
there were various other peoples in India and their combined
force made Durga and such female deities, Mother figures,
immensely popular throughout the country. Worshipping Durga
has given birth to one of the greatest festivals of India.
In Kena Upanishad, one of the earlier Upanishads, Uma
Haimavati revealed the nature of Brahman or the supreme spirit
to Indra, the king of Gods, which Gods like Agni and Vayu
failed to comprehend. Scholars concluded, this indicated that
the nature of the ultimate truth may be realized only by the
grace of Shakti. They have further concluded that this nature
of the spirit, mentioned as Brahman, was actually Rudra-Siva,
to whom Uma was married.
There are two
Durga stotras in the Mahabharata, the great epic of India: one
in the Bhismaparva, uttered by Arjuna and the other by
Yudhisthira in the Viratparva. They speak about the greatness
of Devi Durga which found place in Tantrik texts. Daksha Yagna
episode in the Shantiparva of Mahabharata tells how Mahakali
and Bhadrakali were associated with Uma, the wife of Siva.
Durga is described as an earth-goddess or vegetable deity,
Sakhambhari. Harivamsha Puran states that she would be the
destroyer of Sumbha and Nisumbha, the asuras or anti divine
forces.
There is a body of
Upanishads, ten in number, which is specifically shakta in
character. And there are groups of Upa-Purans devoted to
Shakti cult. Devi or Shakti is the central idea of all these
books, named variously as Durga, Kali, Chandi and Sati.
From a very early
time both the followers of Veda and Shakti cult were
worshipping the shakti, the force aspect of the divine.
Savaras, Varvaras, Pulindas, Kiratas and other non-Aryan
tribes worshipped the same deities with Aryans. There was a
fusion of their realizations. Vedic mantras are in use in
Tantric rites and Vedic deities assume the role and character
of Tantrik Shakti. Shakti cult has been a great synthesizer.
The emergence of Durga as one of the main deities of India
speaks of the evolution of spiritual ideas and realizations,
evolution of newer cultures through continuous cultural
exchanges.
Devi Durga of the
antiquity was worshipped in spring but Lord Rama worshipped
her with 108 blue lotuses in autumn, under some emergency, as
related by the Bengali poet Krittibas, in Ramayana. Thence she
has been worshipped for ten days, 5 days in a big way, each
year. This untimely worship has been named Akal bodhan or a
late awakening.
After the story of
evolution of the mighty Durga we may try to locate her in
human form as her devotees in Bengal are fond or attributing
human form to a deity to make her close to our lives, to feel
the presence of God amongst us.
So goes the story
in Purana that Uma or Parvati, the daughter of Giri-raj
Himalaya, the king of mountains, comes once in a year to her
father’s house with her children and is worshipped by her
human children in the pan universe. But she is also Chandi or
Devi Durga, who kills the asuras, who are the destroyer of the
divine force and knowledge, and thus becomes victorious,
Vijaya.
The fierce god has
a tender heart for her children. She keeps and destroys, as
decided by time, Kala. Apart from the warrior or Mahakali
aspect, Mother Durga has other aspects too, like Maheshwari,
Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati, as Sri Aurobindo adored her in
his Durga Stotra or Hymn to Durga—
‘Mother Durga!
Giver of force and
love and knowledge, terrible art thou
in thy own self of might, Mother
beautiful and fierce….
Come, Revealer of the hero-path
We shall no longer cast thee away.
May our entire life become a ceaseless
worship of the Mother….’
Apart from
worshipping her shakti aspect, Bengalis worship her as
daughter also. She touches a very soft cord in their heart.
The origin may be found in another Purana. The story goes like
this—Sati,
the wife of Siva, gave up her life when she heard him abused
by her father Dakshya in his house. Siva made a tandava dance
with her dead body, parts of which fell in different regions
of India, making each a pilgrim spot. Sati in another birth
became Parvati or Uma, the daughter of mount Himalaya and
Maneka and was married to Siva again. Bengalis worship her
homecoming once in each year with her children and entourage.
They weep when she leaves on the tenth or concluding day of
the puja associated with her victory over the anti divine
forces like asura, called Vijaya Dashami day.
Though many other
aspects of the divine mother figure in other deities
worshipped, Durga occupies the central stage. Rajas, noble men
and zamindars patronized her worship which in due course
became a period of festival, observed by one and all. After
the feudal age worshipping Durga has fallen into the hands of
the public, a trend in democratic age as in other spheres of
life. In Bengal and adjoining provinces she is worshipped in
different corners of the towns and villages with pomp and
splendour, depending on public patronization. In other far
flung areas of the globe also she is worshipped, specially by
the Bengalis. But she being the mother of all her children
others too worship her in different forms.
Kolkata being the
cultural centre of Bengal, hundreds of decorated pandals
shelter her during the puja days and different cultural events
with lavishness in illumination, design, construction and
entertainment become the order of the days. All public
conveyance move throughout the day and night and there is no
end of people moving from pandal to pandal.
Somewhere it
becomes frenzied. We perhaps forget that the purpose of the
festival is puja offered by a calm and quite heart. In their
frenzy to create art, to offer the ever-new things, people
often surpass their limits. New experiments in giving form to
Durga with varieties of materials and artistic explorations
abound and competitions are held to declare the best amongst
them but sometimes such things including decoration and
festive paraphernalia exceeds the purpose of it.
A news item
appeared recently that dhakis decorate their drums with white
feathers which look beautiful while they play the drums in the
pandals at Kolkata. While a nostalgic musician like S. D.
Burman forgot everything but could not forget the drumming
sounds associated with the lap of mother Bengal, the news that
thousands of egrets are being killed for decorating drums,
forgetting the usual human empathy for the birds, shocked us.
This is sheer brutality and should be shunned. Alternative
methods must be invented for such decorations. It is nice that
such things are constantly in check as the media including TV,
displaying such festivals and pujas in different forms
throughout the puja days, get the feed backs too. It is nice
that bird feathers are no more part of the drums and
decoration. Similarly, it must be seen that nature should not
be cut, like felling of trees for decoration, etc. during the
festivals.
Clay images of the
Devi, mounted on a lion, with her children Ganesha, Lakshmi,
Kartika and Saraswati seated around her and killing
Mahishasura, is worshipped for thousands of years. Even a
thousand year old idol still exists in Vishnupur. Traditional
family puja has now been entrusted to the public. Thousands of
such clay images are worshipped, even sent to foreign
countries where Bengalis live. Clay idols are non-pollutant,
unlike plaster of paris or thermacal made idols, as of Ganesha.
