Dangerous Goddesses: Some Principles of Classification

After we have introduced the remaining classes of divinities, we will attempt to distinguish some of the important contrasts among the classes that are made use of in Bhaktapur to build a symbolic order. In this section we will introduce some of the "ordering potentialities" of the dangerous goddesses. They share most of these with the dangerous male divinities, but as the goddesses are a much more numerous and salient set and as they have some distinctive features of their own, they warrant discussion at this point.

Although Bhaktapur selects aspects of the goddesses as they are portrayed in South Asian tradition for its special purposes, it follows closely the ideas and specific forms (as we have seen in the placement of the Astamatrkas^[*] , for example) presented in the Devi Mahatmya .^[47] We can therefore begin with some passage from that text that convey these ideas. The Devi Mahatmya describes in various ways what we may call a maximal or full form of the goddess (see fig. 13) whose power is in the

Figure 13.
The Goddess in her supreme manifest aspect.

concentration of other divine principles, principles that are partial in relation to the full form. (Devi Mahatmya , II, 9-17; Agrawala 1963, 45f.):^[48]

From the face of Visnu^[*] filled with intense indignation as well as from that of Brahma and Siva sprang forth fierce heat. From the bodies of other Devas also headed by Indra issued forth a resplendent luster. All this light became unified into one. The Devas saw in front of them a Pile of Light blazing like a mountain whose flames filled the whole space. Then that matchless light born from the bodies of all gods gathered into a single corpus and turned into a Woman enveloping the three worlds by her luster. Her face was produced from the light of Siva, her hair from that of Yama, her arms from the luster of Visnu^[*] , her breasts from that of the Moon; her bust from that of Indra; her thighs and legs from that of Varuna.

The Devi Mahatmya goes on to list the derivation of other parts of her cosmically inclusive body. In this particular description she is being generated to fight a demon who has also, significantly, concentrated power of other more limited divinities into himself, and is thus beyond the control of any of the ordinary gods. Mahisha, the king of the Asuras, had "taken over the authority of Surya, Indra, Agni, Vayu, Chandra, Yama, and Varuna^[*] as well as other gods. The wicked Mahisha has turned out all the gods from heaven who are now stalking their life like mortals" (Devi Mahatmya , II, 5, 6; Agrawala 1963, 45).

For another battle against the Asuras, the Goddess absorbs into herself the other dangerous goddesses, themselves the emanations or Saktis of gods, who had fought together in an earlier battle. The Asura Sumbha taunts the Goddess for winning a battle with the help of these other goddesses (Devi Mahatmya , X, 2-5; Agrawala 1963, 123):

O Durga, you are puffed up with the pride of strength. Do not be haughty, you are exceedingly proud but fighting with the strength of others. The Devi said: "I am all alone in the world here. What other is there besides me, O you wild one. See that these goddesses are my own powers entering into myself." The Rishi said: "Then all those Matrka^[*] , Brahmani and others, became absorbed in the body of the Goddess. Thereupon Ambika alone remained." The Devi said: "Through my power I stood here in many forms; all that has been withdrawn by me [into myself] and now I stand alone."

In still another passage the full Goddess is represented as springing directly from the body of Siva's consort, the benign goddess Parvati (Devi Mahatmya , V, 38-40; Agrawala 1963, 85):

O Prince, while the gods were thus engaged in invoking the Goddess through praises and m other ways, Parvati came there to bathe in the waters of the

Ganga^[*] . She of the lovely brows said to the gods, "Who is being praised by you here?" Then sprang forth from her physical sheath Siva Kausiki [an appellation of the goddess] who replied, "This hymn is being addressed m me by the assembled gods vanquished by the Asura Sumbha and routed m battle by Nisumbha." Because that Goddess came out of Parvati's bodily sheath, she is sung as Kausiki amongst all men.

It is important to note here that the benign goddess Parvati seems, as Lynn Bennett puts it in a comment on this passage, "unaware of her powerful war-like ego"—and that after the Dangerous Goddess appears "Parvati withdraws and has no part in the ensuing battle scenes" (1983, 268). The Dangerous Goddess seems, however, to be aware of Parvati. The Goddess as portrayed here can absorb other subsidiary goddesses into herself, can emit subsidiary goddess forms, and is capable of taking different forms at her own full level.

The Devi Mahatmya also deals with the Goddess in another and very different way as the ultimate creative force. Here she is no longer produced by Siva or the other gods, or through a transformation of Siva's consort. The Goddess as creative force is the subject of some of the stotras , the hymns of praise, to the Goddess, which introduce and intersperse the accounts of the heroic cosmic battles of the Devi Mahatmya . Here she is called simply Devi, Goddess, or sometimes Mahamaya, the generator of the concrete and illusionary forms of what is taken to be reality, who "forcibly seizes the minds of even those who have knowledge and leads them to delusion. . . . This animate and inanimate world is created by her. . . . She is supreme eternal knowledge being the cause of moksa^[*] [escape from delusion]. . . . She is eternal having the universe as her form . . . the supreme knowledge, the supreme power, the supreme mind, the supreme memory and the great delusion . . . the giver of manifest form to the gods Brahma, Visnu^[*] and Siva . . . the supporter of the world, the cause of its maintenance and dissolution" (Devi Mahatmya , I passim; Agarawala 1963, 37-43). Devi in this aspect has various titles or equivalences besides Mahamaya, such as Sri, Isvari, and Prakrti^[*] . These titles and names are different than those given to the "manifest" goddesses, either full or partial. This cosmic creator Goddess is referred to in Bhaktapur; for example, she is represented in the central point of the city as a mandala^[*] under her name of Tripurasundari. But much more salient to Bhaktapur is what we have called the "full goddess," the manifest form of Goddess, who is different from the creator Devi of the stotras .

This form, the central protagonist in the drama of the Devi Mahat-

Figure 14.
The Dangerous Goddess in her horrible form.

mya , is manifest at a position in space and a moment in time, albeit mythic space and time. This is the goddess who combines the forces of all the other and separate divinities, who freely yield them to her for their defense. As she fights for the defense of the divine order, she is described as a warrior, "filling the three worlds with her splendor, bending low the earth with the force of her strides, scratching the sky with her pointed diadem, shaking the nether worlds with the twang of her bowstring and standing there filling the ten directions of space with her thousand arms" (Devi Mahatmya , II, 37-38; Agrawala 1963, 51). In the Devi Mahatmya this full form of Devi is most commonly called "Chandika." However, she is given various other names and titles, such as Ambika, Bhadrakali^[*] , Mahadevi, and Durga. She also shares some appellations with the creator Goddess such as Sri and Prakrti^[*] . The full form has as her vehicle a lion. In some battles Chandika fights as herself, but in others she emits another form, Kali, who has a terrifying aspect and who does the fighting. This special terrifying form has a description which is repeatedly represented in Bhaktapur's art, icons and masks, and which is of great ritual importance (Devi Mahatmya , VIII, 5-8; Agrawala 1963, 98):

Kali of terrible countenance [see fig. 14], armed with a sword and a noose, carrying a . . . skull-topped staff decorated with a garland of human heads, clad in a tiger's skin, looking terrible . . . [with] emaciated flesh, with a widely gaping mouth, . . . with lolling tongue, . . . deep sunk reddish eyes, and filling the quarters of space with roaring voice, she impetuously fell upon the great Asuras, killing them and devoured the army of those enemies of Devas.

In some passages Chandika fights alongside of Kali (e.g., VIII, 52-62). Yet, repeatedly in the Devi Mahatmya Chandika gives orders to Kali, and confers praise and titles on her. Kali in this account is not just an aspect of Chandika; she is a subordinate, a more limited, more specialized being.

A rank still lower than Kali, still more limited and discrete in their forms are the Matrkas, the gods' Saktis, who fight in one episode alongside the Goddess as Chandika. Kumari fights with her spear, Brahmani by throwing water that is given power through her mantras , Mahesvari with a trident, the boar-goddess Varahi with her tusks, and so on (Devi Mahatmya , IX). However, as the stotra that follows this account (which we have quoted above) insists, these various Matrkas are all aspects of the one Goddess, Devi.

These relations of whole to part allow for the two dimensions of

classification that we have suggested in relation to spatial units, and, following the approaches of others, in relation to social hierarchy. The whole includes the part, but may emit it in some way so that the part can be considered as a unit in itself. In this case the part and the whole are in a vertical relationship, share some of the same qualities, and are hierarchically arranged, with the whole superior to the part. Furthermore, the whole tends to be more abstract and less specified, whereas the parts is more concrete and more specialized in its function and meaning. This arrangement also allows for horizontal relations because entities at the same level of inclusiveness are equal to each other. We have noted a distinction in the Devi Mahatmya of the full goddess Chandika from a cosmic creative Goddess of a still higher order, the absolute divinity prior to all manifestation. The manifest form of the Goddess in her full power was differentiated from the cosmic form in name, and sometimes was described as a form created by the male gods in concert. Bhaktapur's city religion puts four goddesses in different contexts at the same highest level (and makes no use of a distinction between the rank of a cosmic and a full manifest goddess). Two are related in tradition to names of the creator Goddess, Tripurasundari and Mahalaksmi^[*] (who is a supreme goddess in her context as the Nine Durgas' own deity). One refers to the full manifest form of the Goddess—Bhagavati in Bhaktapur's usage. The fourth, Taleju, is both in her legend a god's god (and thus in a rank above "ordinary" gods) and also, through her participation in the symbolic dramas of the harvest festival, a version of the fully manifest warrior goddess.

Three of these goddesses, Tripurasundari, Mahalaksmi^[*] , and Bhagavati, show their equivalence by having as their identifying Vahana or "vehicle" the lion, as does the manifest Devi in the Devi Mahatmya . So do, significantly, the two goddesses within the Taleju temple who are thought to be royal or warrior deities absorbed by Taleju, namely, Dui Maju and Manesvari. Taleju is, however, popularly said to have a horse vehicle. This probably refers to the white stallion that is used during the procession of Taleju during the Mohani festival. Slusser suggests plausibly that this white horse derives from the "sanctified horse required in ancient Indian coronation ritual, as it was in ancient Nepal, and is in the coronation of the kings of Nepal today" (1982, vol. I, p. 317). Whether the horse is considered the vehicle of the goddess in her Yantra representation is dubious, but that vehicle is an esoteric secret.^[49] The other dangerous goddesses, like the other ordinary goddesses, have each their own particular vehicle. Vaisnavi^[*] has (like Visnu^[*] ) the half-bird Garuda^[*] ,

Varahi, a water buffalo; Indrani^[*] , an elephant; Brahmani, a goose; and Mahesvari, a tiger. The ordinary goddess Sarasvati, like Brahmani (because of her traditional associations with the god Brahma, whose vehicle it also is) has a goose vehicle.

There is one figure whom we encountered in the Devi Mahatmya as the special agent of the full manifest goddess Chandika. This goddess, Kali in the Devi Mahatmya , is in Bhaktapur called "Mahakali." She represents the most frightening form of the Goddess and is used as such in the powerful symbolic enactments of the Nine Durgas group. Here she is below the full Goddess (as the Nine Durgas' supreme goddess Mahalaksmi^[*] ), but in a superior position to the remainder of the goddesses in the group. This Mahakali is a flesh-devouring, blood-drinking, intoxicated, cadaverous form. She has a male equivalent, whose consort she is, the god Bhairava, whom we shall discuss below. Mahakali does not have the full goddess' lion vehicle. Her vehicle is an anthropomorphic male form, supine at or under her foot, which is locally identified as a Kali preta , a kind of dangerous spirit.

The lesser goddesses are thus distinguished from the full manifest form, the Devi, in several ways. They are sometimes literally described as a(n)sa (Sanskrit, a[n]sa ) Devi, as "partial Devis." "Partial," we must emphasize, has a particular meaning here. It does not mean imperfect, but more concrete and more specialized, and in being more specialized, therefore limited. The lesser goddesses as a group are generally of equal status, although in some domains, such as the Nine Durgas, some of them may have special salience. In a few contexts a form that is a full goddess in another context may be conceived of as a partial goddess. This is the case of Mahalaksmi^[*] as one of the peripheral Mandalic^[*] Goddesses, and of Tripurasundari when she is thought of as only the central mandalic^[*] area's protective local goddess, and not the concentrating center of the mandala^[*] . However, in these two particular contexts, while goddesses may be treated in more limited ways, the reverse, the treatment of a limited goddess as a full goddess, does not occur. Each of the full goddesses is located in a different context, within which are clustered her own dependant partial goddesses, in the cases where these exist. Relations and equivalences among the full goddesses in the various sets, horizontal relations, are signaled in various ritual actions. All of the relations between the full goddesses are enacted during Mohani, which is one of the reasons that the festival will be of special interest to us (chap. 15). Finally we have noted the barrier between Parvati and the forms of the Goddess we have been considering here. The same barrier

separates the other "ordinary" goddesses from the Goddess. They belong to a civic, although heroic, sunlit world, she to a peripheral world of shadows.

The dangerous goddesses are used in differentiated ways to create a structure to represent and create order in Bhaktapur. This must be emphasized in the face of a tendency within the Tantric segment of Newar religion to absorb and blend all divinities, particularly the goddesses, and such resulting claims as David Snellgrove's that "there is no need for us to follow the development of these different goddesses, for they all tended eventually to accord with one basic form, that of the Great Mother Goddess, in whom they all more or less lost their separate identities" (1957, 81).