The Mandalic^[*] Goddesses

In the previous chapter we introduced the eight goddesses who protect the boundaries of Bhaktapur while also each one having a special segment of the city under her protection—the city being divided for this purpose into eight peripheral octants and a central circle with its own, a ninth, protective goddess (see maps 1 and 2 above). These goddesses protect the city, in the words of one humble citizen, from "ghosts, evil

spirits and diseases like cholera." Others add earthquakes, invasions, destructive weather, and other disasters. As do all the dangerous gods, these goddesses protect the city against those external disorders that threaten the ongoing life of the city. That ongoing life has within itself its own protective resources, resources that may most generally be thought of as "moral." We have discussed these goddesses in relation to space, here we will, with some overlap, consider them as members of the pantheon.

The eight peripheral goddesses are often referred to in Bhaktapur as the Astamatrkas^[*] , the "Eight Mothers."^[21] In less elegant Newari they are sometimes called the pigandya: ,^[22] the group (gana^[*] ) of gods (dya: ) living in the pitha , a special sort of open shrine. The ninth goddess at the center of the city when it is conceived as a mandala^[*] , is included or not in the set, depending on whether the emphais is on the outer protective boundary or on the internal space that is being protected.

The eight goddesses at the periphery have each the same basic function in her proper space, although some have additional specialized functions. They are, to introduce an important classificatory principle for the dangerous gods, all at the same level. The goddess at the center has the same protective function as the peripheral goddesses for her central mandalic^[*] section, but in addition, as we have noted in chapter 7, she concentrates their individual powers in an eightfold increase at the center of the mandala^[*] . She is thus, in this way, something more than any of them separately, she is at a higher level. This contrast is reflected in the traditional characteristics of the particular goddesses chosen for placement at the center and at the periphery. The central goddess, Tripurasundari, is (in contrast to the peripheral goddesses) not one of those goddesses designated as "mothers," matrka^[*] s, in the Hindu Puranic^[*] tradition. As we will see (below here and chap. 15), the legends and scriptural accounts of the Matrkas that are significant in Bhaktapur (and elsewhere in South Asia) treat the Matrkas as components or limited or lesser aspects of some complete, full, maximal form of the goddess, often called "Devi." Tripurasundari is a version of that complete, omnipotential goddess, characterized in some of the Upanisads^[*] (the Tripura Upanisad^[*] and the Tripura Tapini Upanisad^[*] ) as the "primeval embodiment of Sakti that gives birth to the world" (P. K. Sharma 1974, 21).

We will introduce the Mandalic^[*] Goddesses in the order in which they are worshiped during the succeeding days of the autumn harvest festival of the Goddess, Mohani, an order that begins with the eastern goddess

(map 2), follows the boundary of the city in the auspicious clockwise processional direction, and proceeds on the ninth day to the central summating central shrine of Tripurasundari.^[23] The goddess to the east, the first in the sequence, is Brahmani (Newari, Brahmayani); to the southeast, Mahesvari (Newari, Mahesvari); to the south, Kumari;^[24] and to the southwest, Vaisnavi^[*] (Newari Vaisnavi^[*] , often written and pronounced "Baisnabi"). The goddess of this particular location is on one occasion during the year—the complex spring solar New Year festival, Biska:—taken to be a quite different goddess, Bhadrakali^[*] . To the west is Varahi (Newari, Barahi:), to the northwest is Indrani^[*] (Newari Indrayani:), to the north is Mahakali, and to the northeast is Mahalaksmi^[*] (Newari Mahalachimi).

These peripheral goddesses are, with one only apparent substitution, familiar representatives of the various Puranic^[*] sets of "mothers" (P. K. Sharma 1974, 234), but are for the most part connected in their membership and in the exact order in which they are arranged to a particular traditional Hindu text, which is the basis for much of Bhaktapur's imagery of the Goddess, the Devi Mahatmya . In the account of the Devi Mahatmya the Saktis, goddesses emitted from the various gods of the pantheon, either fight as assistants to the goddess Candika^[*] , considered a transformation of Parvati, or become absorbed into her to augment her power.

In one passage of the Devi Mahatmya (VIII, 12-20), which we will discuss at some length below, the Saktis of various gods who come to join the full goddess, Devi, are listed in sequence. The first five goddesses in the protective ring formed by Bhaktapur's Astamatrkas^[*] (starting with Brahmani to the east and proceeding in a clockwise direction), are arranged in the same sequence: Brahmani, Mahesvari, Kumari, Vaisnavi^[*] , and Varahi. Bhaktapur leaves out the Devi Mahatmya 's sixth goddess (Narasimhi^[*] ) and proceeds to its seventh, Indrani^[*] . The Devi Mahatmya , like many of the Hindu sources, lists only seven mothers. Bhaktapur uses six of them and adds at the end two more, Mahakali and Mahalaksmi^[*] , commonly listed members of the Matrkas as given in other Puranas^[*] . Mahakali is also known in Bhaktapur as Camunda^[*] , a form of the goddess in her most terrifying aspect who also appears in the Devi Mahatmya as an honorific title given to the goddess form Kali as the slayer of two powerful Asuras Chanda^[*] and Munda^[*] (Devi Mahatmya , VII, 25; Agrawala 1963, 101). Mahakali and Mahalaksmi^[*] , among the Mandalic^[*] Goddesses, are just two ordinary Matrka^[*] , although in other uses of the Goddesses in Bhaktapur, Mahakali's asso-

ciation with Kali-Camunda^[*] and some of the legendary attributes of Mahalaksmi^[*] are given some special significance.^[25]

Like several other divinities in Bhaktapur, the nine Mandalic^[*] Goddesses have "houses," literally, dya che(n) or "god-houses" situated within the city (map 2). Portable images of the goddess are kept at these buildings, and daily puja s are held there, conducted by a Tantric temple priest, an acaju . These dya che(n) images are carried in various processions during the year, particularly during the course of the solar New Year festival, Biska: (see chap. 14). Sometimes there is worship by a group of worshipers in the god-house rather than the pitha shrine, if the participants wish to keep the ceremonies secret, as is often the case in Tantric worship.

However, the proper and usual seats of the worship of the Mandalic^[*] Goddesses are their pitha s, open, roofless, imageless shrines, which are the mandalic^[*] markers. The nine mandalic^[*]pitha s are very vaguely associated with the idea of the Devi pitha s, the 108 places in South Asia where pieces of Siva's wife Sati fell to earth (cf. Banerjea 1956, 495n.; Mani 1975, 219). These places became sacred to the Goddess. While the mandalic^[*]pitha s are associated only by some metaphorical extension with the Devi pitha s, for the Newars the important "true" Devi pitha is that of Guhyesvari^[26] in the major Valley cult center Pasupatinatha, where in esoteric doctrine Sati's vagina fell to earth.^[27] There is no esoteric connection between the Guhyesvsari Devi pitha and the mandalic^[*]pitha s.

The mandalic^[*]pitha , as we have noted, are the required foci of attention and worship for families during important rites of passage, and for the city as a whole during the course of the Mohani festival sequence.