Spiritual Mantra
Das Mahavidyas - Ten Incarnations of Goddess Shakti
The Ten Mahavidyas are known as Wisdom Goddesses. The spectrum of these ten goddesses covers the whole range of feminine divinity, encompassing horrific goddess's at one end, to the ravishingly beautiful at the other. Mahavidya means (Maha - great; vidya - knowledge) Goddesses of great knowledge. These Goddesses are:
Kali the Eternal Night
Tara the Compassionate Goddess
Shodashi the Goddess who is Sixteen Years Old
Bhuvaneshvari the Creator of the World
Chinnamasta the Goddess who cuts off her Own Head
Bhairavi the Goddess of Decay
Dhumawati the Goddess who widows Herself
Bagalamukhi the Goddess who seizes the Tongue
Matangi the Goddess who Loves Pollution
Kamala the Last but Not the Least
Birth of Das Mahavidyas
Once during their numerous love
games, things got out of hand between Shiva and Parvati. What had started in
jest turned into a serious matter with an incensed Shiva threatening to walk
out on Parvati. No amount of coaxing or cajoling by Parvati could reverse
matters. Left with no choice, Parvati multiplied herself into ten different
forms for each of the ten directions. Thus however hard Shiva might try to
escape from his beloved Parvati, he would find her standing as a guardian,
guarding all escape routes.
Each of the Devi's manifested forms made Shiva realize essential truths,
made him aware of the eternal nature of their mutual love and most
significantly established for always in the cannons of Indian thought the
Goddess's superiority over her male counterpart. Not that Shiva in any way
felt belittled by this awareness, only spiritually awakened. This is true as
much for this Great Lord as for us ordinary mortals. Befittingly thus they
are referred to as the Great Goddess's of Wisdom, known in Sanskrit as the
Mahavidyas. Indeed in the process of spiritual learning the Goddess is the
muse who guides and inspires us. She is the high priestess who unfolds the
inner truths.
A Brief about the Das Mahavidyas
Kali
- the Eternal Night
Kali is mentioned as the first amongst the Mahavidyas. Black as the night (ratri)
she has a terrible and horrific appearance. The word 'ratri' means
"to give," and is taken to mean "the giver" of bliss, of peace of happiness.
Tara - the Compassionate Goddess
Literally the word 'tara' means a star. Thus Tara is said to be the star of
our aspiration, the muse who guides us along the creative path.
Shodashi - the Goddess who is Sixteen Years Old
The word 'Shodashi' literally means sixteen in Sanskrit. She is thus
visualized as sweet girl of sixteen. In human life sixteen years represent
the age of accomplished perfection after which decline sets in. This girl of
sixteen rules over all that is perfect, complete, beautiful.
Bhuvaneshvari - the Creator of the World
The beauty and attractiveness of Bhuvaneshwari may be understood as an
affirmation of the physical world, the rhythms of creation, maintenance and
destruction, even the hankerings and sufferings of the human condition is
nothing but Bhuvaneshvari's play, her exhilarating, joyous sport.
Chinnamasta - the Goddess who cuts off her Own
Head
The image of Chinnamasta is a composite one, conveying reality as an
amalgamation of sex, death, creation, destruction and regeneration. It is
stunning representation of the fact that life, sex, and death are an
intrinsic part of the grand unified scheme that makes up the manifested
universe.
Bhairavi - the Goddess of Decay
Bhairavi embodies the principle of destruction and arises or becomes present
when the body declines and decays. She is an ever-present goddess who
manifests herself in, and embodies, the destructive aspects of the world.
Destruction, however, is not always negative, creation cannot continue
without it.
Dhumawati - the Goddess who widows Herself
she is the embodiment of "unsatisfied desires." Her status as a widow itself
is curious. She makes herself one by swallowing Shiva, an act of
self-assertion, and perhaps independence.
Bagalamukhi - the Goddess who seizes the Tongue
The pulling of the demon's tongue by Bagalamukhi is both unique and
significant. Tongue, the organ of speech and taste, is often regarded as a
lying entity, concealing what is in the mind. The Bible frequently mentions
the tongue as an organ of mischief, vanity and deceitfulness. The wrenching
of the demon's tongue is therefore symbolic of the Goddess removing what is
in essentiality a perpetrator of evil.
Matangi - the Goddess who Loves Pollution
Texts describing her worship specify that devotees should offer her
uccishtha (leftover food) with their hands and mouths stained with leftover
food; that is, worshippers should be in a state of pollution, having eaten
and not washed. This is a dramatic reversal of the usual protocols.
Kamala - the Last but Not the Least
The name Kamala means "she of the lotus" and is a common epithet of Goddess
Lakshmi. Lakshmi is linked with three important and interrelated themes:
prosperity and wealth, fertility and crops, and good luck during the coming
year.
Worship of Das Mahavidyas
In their
strong associations with death, violence, pollution, and despised marginal
social roles, they call into question such normative social "goods" as
worldly comfort, security, respect, and honor. The worship of these
goddesses suggests that the devotee experiences a refreshing and liberating
spirituality in all that is forbidden by established social orders.
The central aim here is to stretch one's consciousness beyond the
conventional, to break away from approved social norms, roles, and
expectations. By subverting, mocking, or rejecting conventional social
norms, the adept seeks to liberate his or her consciousness from the
inherited, imposed, and probably inhibiting categories of proper and
improper, good and bad, polluted and pure. Living one's life according to
rules of purity and pollution and caste and class that dictate how, where,
and exactly in what manner every bodily function may be exercised, and which
people one may, or may not, interact with socially, can create a sense of
imprisonment from which one might long to escape. Perhaps the more marginal,
bizarre, "outsider" goddesses among the Mahavidyas facilitate this escape.
By identifying with the forbidden or the marginalized, an adept may acquire
a new and refreshing perspective on the cage of respectability and
predictability. Indeed a mystical adventure, without the experience of
which, any spiritual quest would remain incomplete.