The Nine Durgas—The Cast of Characters and Their Iconic Representation

We have followed the legends in referring to the group of the Nine Durgas without saying anything about the membership of that group. Whatever meanings that troupe as a whole draws from its legend, its membership and position in Bhaktapur's civic pantheon, and its position and activities in the annual cycle, the Nine Durgas give their local performances as a differentiated cast of characters. (We will discuss the local performances given by the troupe throughout the city during the nine months of each annual cycle, when the Nine Durgas are actively protecting the city, at length at the end of this chapter). Like the conventional characters in the European commedia dell'arte , the individual

members of the Nine Durgas troupe indicate their significance and relationship in large part by their appearance and their contrasts.

How many Durgas are there in the Nine Durgas group? This is a characteristic civic mystery. There are only seven goddesses or "Durgas" represented by the masks worn by the Gatha as the Nine Durgas. These goddesses are represented in the Puranic^[*] text, the Devi Mahatmya, which is one of the mythic bases for the Mohani sequence, among the benign male deities' Saktis who join the fully powerful cosmic deity Devi in her battles against the order threatening Asuras (chap. 8). These seven Durgas are also represented in Bhaktapur as seven of the eight boundary-guarding pitha goddesses of Bhaktapur's borders, the Astamatrkas^[*] . The eighth of Bhaktapur's boundary goddesses, Mahalaksmi^[*] , is, as we have noted, not derived from the Devi Mahatmya, although she has other Puranic^[*] representation as one of the "mothers." For the Nine Durgas she is present not as a member of the performing group, but as the Nine Durgas' "own god." She is represented at a shrine carried with the troupe where she is generally known because of her decoration with that plant, as the "oleander deity" or Siphadya:, and she is also represented by an image in the Nine Durgas' god-house. Mahalaksmi^[*] is generally understood to be the eighth of the Durgas. But who is the ninth? At the center of the city's eight bounding "mothers" or Matrkas is a ninth goddess (Tripurasundari) who is not a Matrka^[*] , nor a god's Sakti, but who represents the Tantric goddess in her full cosmic and creative form. The "nine" in reference to the Nine Durgas presumably refers to such a mandalic^[*] schema (which is reflected in the city's nine Mandalic^[*] Goddesses), but it is unclear as to just who the ninth Durga is. There are various proposals. Some Gatha believe that she is represented by their musical instruments, which they take to represent Tripurasundari. Others say that the ninth Durga is Bhairavi, the Sakti of Bhairava, but who is not represented in the masks or the drama.^[5] Like many Tantric secrets, it is probably not known definitely by anyone now, assuming that it was ever clearly known in the past. Everyone assumes that there must be someone who knows the real truth but, as is often the case, it is likely that no such person exists.

The goddesses represented by masks in the Nine Durgas troupe are Mahakali, Vaisnavi^[*] , Brahmani, Indrani^[*] , Mahesvari, Kumari, and Varahi. These masks are worn as part of the costume of the Gatha performers who will incarnate the deities. The troupe also includes five other masked dancers, Bhairava, Ganesa^[*] , Seto Bhairava, Sima, and Duma, and is further supplemented by a mask of Siva, which is carried, but not

worn. Thus we have now seven performing Durgas, and five other performing deities, all of whom will be incarnated in Gatha performers, a total of twelve perfomers in the troupe. These are supplemented by two other nonperforming representations, Siva and Mahalaksmi^[*] , and perhaps by some esoteric hidden deity, who is added to Mahalaksi^[*] as a Ninth Durga.

The masks are loaded with iconographic details that allow them to be grouped and contrasted in several different ways (see color plates). Many of these details and the possible categorizations deriving from them are peripheral to their performance meanings. An example is the rotated third eye, which is prominently displayed on the foreheads of Siva, Mahakali, Bhairava, Ganesa^[*] , Mahesvari (all thus marked as closely related to Siva) and also, curiously, the Vaisnavite deity Varahi. (On the other hand, the protagonist of the pyakha[n]s that are given in the city's neighborhoods, Seto Bhairava, who is conceptually related to Siva, and is in fact a copy of the mask of Siva with certain significant transformations, does not have such a third eye.)

The neighborhood dance-drama divides the twelve mask-wearing performers into principal performers and a remainder who act as a kind of chorus and who are restricted to formal geometric dances performed as a group. The masks of the major and individual performers all have jeweled bindus at the bases of their noses. The minor performers (Vaisnavi^[*] , Brahmani, Indrani^[*] , and Mahesvari) do not. Varahi, who does have a jeweled bindu at the base of her nose, is not a major performer in the dance-drama, but in contrast to the other members of the "chorus" she does perform an independent dance. Ganesa^[*] , who also has a bindu at the base of his nose, this one painted as part of his harness, like Varahi does independent dances.

Within the group of major performers two masks dominate by their larger size, by their intensely saturated dark colors, and by the presence of prominent fangs. One of these is the dark blue Bhairava, the main actor in the ceremonies that are the immediate context of the dance-drama, and the other is the dark clotted-blood-red Mahakali, who is represented with emaciated flesh, deep-set eyes, and facial bones protruding in a cadaverous way through her skin. Mahakali is the main antagonistic figure of the dance-drama itself.

Kumari is visually clearly a transitional figure, and this is consistent with the role she plays. She is the same size and shape as the benign goddesses of the "chorus" (Mahesvari, Indrani^[*] , Brahmani and Vaisnavi^[*] ), and she shares with them the rounded features of a young woman in

full sexual attractiveness. Although she is smaller than Mahakali and full-fleshed rather than emaciated, she is painted in the same deep clotted-blood-red as Mahakali and has fangs that the other benign goddesses do not have. While Mahakali is emaciated and skeletal, Kumari is not—but Kumari's mask has the same exaggerated frontal protuberances (in anatomical terminology, the "mental tubercles" of the mandible) as does Mahakali's jaw, which signify and call attention to the underlying skeleton. It is much easier to see at a glance than it is to put it into words that Kumari is in a marginal position between the maximally frightening representation of the Tantric goddess and her exaggeratedly beautiful manifestations.

Two other masks whose features are very closely related to each other are those of Siva and Seto Bhairava. Many of their features are identical and do not occur on any other mask. They are represented as young men, with firm full flesh, identical stylized eyebrows, mustaches, and tiny beards. They differ in that the Siva mask is of a pastel orange color resembling the purely decorative colors of the secondary goddesses of the chorus. Seto Bhairava, as his name implies (seto , "white"), is white, and the contrast of his white with the blue-black and clotted-blood-reds of the Bhairava and Mahakali and Kumari masks reflects the color contrasts (male versus female, minimal power versus maximal power) of Tantric symbolism. Seto Bhairava lacks Siva's third eye icon on his forehead. His other obvious differences from the troupe's representation of Siva in his mask (a representation of Siva that is locally sometimes said to represent Siva in his aspect as a "young bachelor") is that Seto Bhairava his small fangs that associate him (even, as we shall see, in a comparatively ineffective manner) with the dangerous aspect of the Tantric gods. The Siva mask, which is small in size compared to the other masks, has no eyeholes and is not worn. During processions it is carried attached to the costume of the dancer who incarnates Ganesa^[*] , and during the local performances the Siva mask is hung on the Oleander God's portable shrine. This peripheral reference to Siva is congruent with Siva's significant but peripheral relationship to the Tantric component of Bhaktapur's religion (chap. 9). Seto Bhairava, as a representation and transformation of the young Siva, is the protagonist of the neighborhood drama. He is the person who by his social awkwardness causes the drama to unfold as he stumbles into an encounter with Mahakali and the trouble he gets into and his efforts to get out of it all again provide the main thread of the plot around which the drama develops. Seto Bhairava is the focus for the audience's identification during that part of the drama concerning his conflict with Mahakali. The

things that happen to him also happen vicariously to the audience. The mask's general benignity encourages this identification in the way that, say, the mask of Bhairava strongly discourages it. But Seto Bhairava has another dramatic function in the drama. As Mahakali is to him, he is to the boys and young men in the audience during one phase of the proceedings. The fangs in his otherwise benign face serve to remind us of his danger to those who are even weaker than he is.

The remaining two divine actors are two masks that are identical except in the color of their faces (one white, the other a reddish-orange), respectively, in Newari, "Sima" and "Duma"—also known in popular speech as "Si(n)ba" and "Du(n)ba." These are said to be popular names for "Si(n)hini" and "Vyaghrini^[*] " (variously pronounced). People know that they represent a lion and a tiger, but it is generally not known which is which, nor which mask goes with which name. They are sometimes said to be two goddesses, but sometimes they are thought of as a couple, with the white-faced Sima as the male. Sometimes they are said to be messengers of Yama Raja, the ruler of the Kingdom of the Dead. Their headbands of skulls identifty them as dangerous Tantric figures, as do their open mouths and sharp teeth. However, their decorative colors and relatively smaller size suggest, as does their action in the dance drama, that they represent a much less serious danger than the maximally frightening masks.