MODULE 7: 

INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS:

Goddess traditions in India are as old as recorded civilization and undoubtedly even older than that.  That is, they undoubtedly represent a primordial spirituality that goes back to prehistoric times.  There were probably numerous local goddess traditions in archaic and ancient  times throughout  the subcontinent, and the "village goddesses" (grama-devata) of present-day India which can be found in villages all over India are descendants of those ancient  traditions.
 
The goddess in India has many names: Devi, Lakshmi, Sarasvati, Parvati, Durga, Chamunda, Chandika, Kali, and so forth.  While originally it was probably the case that goddess traditions were quite separate from one another throughout  the subcontinent , from the early centuries of the Common Era there is evidence in the textual record of attempts to fashion a single, all-India notion of the Great Goddess.

There are two important textual traditions in this regard.  First of all, one of the oldest traditions of Indian philosophy which reaches back even to Upanishadic times, known as the Samkhya philosophy, speaks of a basic polarity in the manifest and unmanifest worldof a male principle of pure consciousness (purusha) and a female principle of pure materiality (prakriti).  Purusha or pure  male consciousness has no content.  It is pure translucent  light which illuminates the world like the sun.  Prakriti is the active female principle of materiality  and contains within herself all power and finite embodiment.  Prakriti is the "force" or "power" (shakti)  of all activity in the phenomenal, empirical world.  Prakriti, the female principle of materiality, IS the phenomenal, empirical world, illumined by the pure consciousness of Purusha.  Moreover, Prakriti (or Shakti) as the primordial and active power in all creation is made up of three "threads" or "strands", known as "guna-s": sattva-guna or pure thought (associated with the color white), rajas-guna or pure energy (associated with the color red), and tamas-guna or material stuff (associated with the color black or dark blue).  These strands or "guna-s" actually constitute the material basis of Prakriti (or Shakti), just as the various strands constitute the make-up of a rope.   Inasmuch as the phenomenal, empirical world is constituted by thought (sattva), energy (rajas) and stuff (tamas), and inasmuch as these components actually constitute the body or very being of the feminine principle of materiality (Prakriti), one can see how easily such a philosophical orientation would lend itself to the development of a Great Goddess theology.

This is exactly what happens in the second textual source for the development of the Great Goddess tradition, namely, a text known as the Devimahatmya (or "The Glorification of the  Goddess") found in a larger text called the Markendeya Purana, dating perhaps from the fifth and sixth century of the Common Era.   The Great Goddess  or Devi becomes the personification of Prakriti and Shakti, and just as the phenomenal world is made up of sattva, rajas and tamas, so the Great Goddess shows herself in three creative modalities, namely, Mahasarasvati (pure sattva, the goddess of learning and thought), Mahalakshmi (pure rajas, the goddess of energy, prosperity and productivity), and Mahakali (pure tamas, the goddess of finite manifestation, and thus, the goddess of endings, that is, the goddess of death but also the goddess of the destruction of evil).

To some extent, notions of the Great Goddess become assimilated into the two main theological traditions of Hindu spirituality: Vaishnavism and Shaivism.  Lakshmi
(often identified with the goddess, Shri), the goddess of prosperity and productivity, is taken to be the consort of Vishnu.   She becomes the Shakti or power inherent in Vishnu.
In much the same way, a sub-variety of Vaishnava tradition, the Krishna cult, which treats Krishna as an "avatara" or earthly manifestation of Vishnu, identifies Radha, his consort, as his divine Shakti.  Or again, the sub-variety of Vaishnava tradition, known as the Rama cult, likewise ascribes many qualities of the goddess to Rama’s consort, the beloved Sita.
Within Shaivite traditions, the consorts of the divine Shiva are variously identified as Shakti, Devi, Parvati, Durga, Kali, and so forth.

In addition to Vaishnavism and Shaivism, however, there is yet another tradition in the later centuries of the Common Era, known as the Shakta tradition or simply Saktism, in which the Great Goddess herself becomes the principal figure.  These Shakta traditions (or Shaktism) become closely linked with later Tantric cults of both Shaiva and Vaishnava varieties in which ritualization and erotic symbologies of the interaction of male and female become central in religious praxis or performance.

Of the many representations of the Great Goddess that one could discuss, the Great Goddess, Kali, the goddess deriving mainly from the region of Bengal (but found elsewhere as well in India), is particularly interesting, however, at least for introductory purposes, both for her dramatic iconography as well as for her reputation for dancing which nicely parallels that of Lord Shiva. 

NARRATIVE/THEMATIC EXPOSITION: KALI’S DANCE

There are two well-known representations of Kali dancing.  The first has to do with the "frantic dance" (the urdhva-tandava) or the competitive dance of Kali with "the ascetic of the banyan forest" in south India known as Alankatu Atikal (= Lord Shiva).  In this tradition Kali’s dance is threatening to control the entire creation, and the gods implore Shiva for help to overcome the goddess’s power.  Shiva then dances competitively with Kali, and for a time the dance competition is an even match, with perhaps Kali showing the most versatility.  Shiva, then, drops his earring to the dance floor, reaches down with his foot and picks up the earring with his toes and stretches his leg up to his ear to replace the earring.  This is a daring move which also completely exposes his private parts as he lifts his leg to replace the earring.  Kali is dazzled by Shiva’s performance and realizes that she cannot or will not expose herself in a similar fashion.  She then does obeisance to Shiva and admits defeat.

 Her other dance form is when Kali dances on the corpse of Shiva in the iconographical representations of the goddess in Bengal.  Here, of course, she is all-powerful, actually dancing on Shiva’s corpse.  Interestingly, however, the phallus of the"corpse" (shava) is erect, suggesting that the god is not really dead but, rather, being enlivened by the incredible power of the goddess dancing on his body.  Clearly in this representation, Kali is the "power" (shakti) of the male deity, or, putting it another way, Shiva without the "power" (shakti) of the goddess is impotent or dead.  Oftentimes in Shaiva and Shakta (or goddess traditions), the female consort of the male deity is the dynamic power of the deity within the deity’s own body.  In other words, the sacred or divine is both male and female, or perhaps better, androgyne, that is, transcending the polarity of gender, or encompassing and transcending the full force of the masculine and the feminine.

ICONOGRAPHY/CONTENT: KALI DANCING

Kali is usually represented with at least four arms.  In her raised upper left hand she holds a sword, ready to strike.  In her lower left hand she holds a severed head.  In her upper right hand, she makes the positive hand-gesture known as "have no fear" (abhaya-mudra), and with her lower right hand she exhibits the hand-gesture known as the "gift-giving" (varada-mudra).  Around her neck she wears a garland of skulls, and around her waist she wears a girdle of severed hands.   She dances on the corpse (shava) of Shiva.  Indeed, the close resemblance of the Sanskrit terms "shava" and "shiva" may explain how Shiva came to be associated with the "corpse" figure.  Also, as already indicated, the "corpse" is represented with an erect male organ, or alternatively, with a cobra arising from the body.  Finally, Kali is represented with her tongue hanging out, usually dripping with blood. 

INTERPRETATION:

Kali is primarily a Tantric figure, the term "tantra" referring, as mentioned briefly above,  to later traditions of Indic spirituality which focus on elaborate ritual performances and the use of sexual symbols to portray aspects of the spiritual life and to provide dramatic symbols for meditation.  Kali as the great goddess is dramatically ambivalent, her left side signifying her destructive powers along with the garland of heads and girdle of severed hands and the blood-dripping tongue, her right side signifying peace and life-giving nourishment.  The Devimahatmya ("The Glorification of the Goddess") offers three distinct interpretations of the meaing of Kali. The first interpretation suggests that Kali has been formed from the ear-wax of Vishnu in order to destroy demons who appear while Vishnu sleeps on the cosmic ocean.   A second interpretation suggests that Kali is generated from the corporate rage of the male gods when the great buffalo demon usurps the power of Indra.  Kali, in other words, is the personified anger of the male pantheon.  Finally, a third interpretation suggests that Kali is generated from the forehead of the great goddess Durga when she is struggling against the demons Chanda and Munda.  Every drop of blood that falls from the demons in their battle with Durga immediately forms into another demon, and so the demons are replicating themselves as Durga is struggling against them.  Kali then emerges from Durga’s forehead and proceeds to lick up each drop of blood before it touches the ground so that the demons (or the powers of evil) can no longer replicate themselves.

The various episodes and representations clearly show (a) the widespread ambivalence in South Asian spirituality regarding the role and function of the feminine (benign as well as often malignant), and (b) the uncertainty as to the source of the power of the feminine, whether from the corporate or individual substance of the male, or having an independent status quite apart from the male and, indeed, in clear competition with the male.  Finally also, of course, is the interplay, interaction or dialectic of male and female, the dance of competition and the dance of creation, signifying that the divine encompasses and transcends the categories of gender.