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Chapter Fifteen The Devi Cycle
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The Performances of the Nine Durgas

We have been concerned in the earlier sections of this chapter with the legend and membership of the Nine Durgas and with the Devi cycle within which they are a major component as well as a thread binding the individual calendrical events of that cycle into a larger thematic unit. Now with Mohani the Nine Durgas have emerged again to carry Devi's power and significance out into the city throughout the succeeding nine months of their annual life cycle until their disappearance once again at the following Bhagasti. We may now turn to a consideration of their performances throughout the city.

The dance drama, or pyakha(n) , which the Nine Durgas troupe performs throughout the city, comes to each of the neighborhoods in which it is performed as a kind of invasion. The troupe appears in each neighborhood in an order determined by a traditional annual sequence (map 14, p. 223). Local people must prepare for a visit that is beyond their control. Before turning to those systematic, sequential pyakha(n) s, however, we must consider another setting and form in which individuals encounter the Nine Durgas.

During much of the period when the Nine Durgas are active they


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may be invited by a family, a group of extended-family members, or a larger neighborhood group, to come and dance for the "protection of the area," which is how the Nine Durgas" function is usually phrased. This invitation is often in fulfillment of some vow. In the case of these invited performances a messenger is sent from the Nine Durgas to the hosts to say that the Nine Durgas are ready to go to their quarter. Thereupon the men responsible for the invitation and the expenses of the performance go to the Nine Durgas" god-house to conduct the gods to the place where the ceremony will be held. This is in significant contrast with the formal systematic neighborhood sequence when the gods will come by themselves, uninvited and unconducted. In the course of their being worshiped in the local area, usually in the courtyard of a house, a domestic pig, called in this context amu vaha(n) , or "main offering," is given as an offering to the Nine Durgas. This pig represents the strategic pig of the Nine Durgas' legend.

The pig is killed by Bhairava, who is the only one of the Nine Durgas who performs blood sacrifice, with the important exception of the killing of a cock by Mahakali during the formal neighborhood dance-drama. He does this by splitting the skin of the young pig's foreleg with his fingernail (in a relatively thin area at the inner part of a joint) and separating the skin until he reaches the thoracic cage. He then forces his hand between two ribs and pulls out the heart and offers it to the Oleander shrine goddess, the Siphadya:. Now first Bhairava and then all the other gods (including demonic skeletal figures representing attendants of the Nine Durgas incarnated by Gatha children) take blood from the pig's open chest and drink it. The gods now begin to tremble. This is said to be in response to the "force" in the blood, and to be a sign of the Gathas" possession by the gods, but also to be a kind of intoxication. This image of the goddesses intoxicated with the blood of their Asura enemies, sometimes dancing as a result, is salient in the Devi Mahatmya . Now Bhairava gives a mixture of beaten rice and curds, dhaka baji , to each god to eat. He then offers dhaka baji as prasada to the onlookers, with a particular emphasis on the children, and among the children, especially the boys. It is thought that this offering will protect children from disease. Bhairava's hands are still contaminated with the blood of the pig, and the audience thus share in this sacrifice. (Brahman boys after initiation and adult Brahmans are not allowed to accept this prasada .) Following the sacrifice, the group of Durgas do formal dances. These dances describe certain geometric patterns and are said to be mystical diagrams or yantras that protect the locality through


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supernatural power. Then the Nine Durgas troupe, taking the body of the pig with them, returns to its god-house accompanied by the important people of the inviting group. At the god-house the Gatha¡ dancers are said to cook and eat the pig.[95] Occasionally for particularly important offerings the Nine Durgas are offered five kinds of male animals for a major sacrifice called a pa(n)ca bali .

In the course of their nine months of life the Nine Durgas troupe dances at twenty-one public squares (map 14) throughout Bhaktapur and in nineteen villages outside of the city (Gutschow and Basukala 1987). These villages are generally with a few exceptions within the boundaries of the old Malla kingdom of Bhaktapur.[95] The pattern traced by the sequence of dances both outside and within the city are considered to form protective yantras , in the same way as the detailed patterns of the dance performances within each local area mark out a local protected space. Aside from the Gatha performers themselves, only a few specialists in the city are aware of the places and sequences in the larger cycle. All that the vast majority of the spectators to the local performance know is that somehow this local performance weaves their locality into a larger pattern of temporal and spatial relationships reiterated during each annual cycle, a pattern whose center is Bhaktapur.

In presenting the local performance, we must make the same choices we have made throughout this study. We will select out of the complex traditional performances, whose detailed description and elucidation would justify a volume in itself, those aspects that are presumptively meaningful in the particular and limited sense of this study. Thus we are here concerned with the "message" delivered by the performance to the neighborhood people and the purposes the performance serve in the symbolic organization of the city.

The relative position in the annual sequence of the visit to each neighborhood and village is fixed, but the Gatha performers make use of various calculations known to themselves to determine the exact day in which they will come, so that the local people are never sure exactly when to expect them, although the performances always take place on either a Sunday or a Thursday. As we have noted, in contrast to the invited performances the Nine Durgas thus enter the area as a kind of invasion beyond the determination of the local people. These sequential local performances are often referred as the "Na[*] lakegu" pyakha(n) , the "going fishing" pyakha(n) , using a reference to one element in the performance to stand for the whole. On the afternoon before the


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pyakha(n) the group of Gatha—performers, musicians, and attendants—go to the twa : or neighborood area in which they will perform. Gutschow and Basukala (1987, 152ff.) have described this movement to the performance area in detail, and we will follow their description for the phases prior to the pyakha(n) itself. According to Gutschow and Basukala, on the occasion of one of the sequential visits the masks are brought from their hidden room in the Nine Durgas' god-house to the courtyard of that house, where the three frightening masks—Bhairava, Mahakali, and Varahi—are separated from the others, and hung facing west. These are the same three deities who preceded the other Nine Durgas in the Taleju procession of the tenth day of Mohani. Although the troupe itself may take several hours to reach their destination, the palanquin on which the Siphadya: will be placed is first brought directly to the square where the public performance of the following day is to be held. As Gutshow and Basukula write, "it [the arrival of the palanquin] is the first sign of the procession of the night . . . [as] the people are never sure when the gods [will] come" (1987, 152). The Gatha troupe leave the god-house at twilight. First comes a man carrying a human skullcap as a drinking cup[97] in his left hand and a small drum, a damaru[*] , in the right. Next comes the man who carries the Siphadya:, accompained by another carrying a ceremonial umbrella to protect and honor that god. Then come three boys who at this point represent the deities Sima, Duma, and Kumari. They are followed by the masked men who incarnate Bhairava, Mahakali and Varahi. The goddesses of the "chorus" follow next—Brahmani, Mahesvari, Vaisnavi[*] , and Indrani[*] . Finally comes Ganesa[*] , wearing at his waist the mask of Siva.

On each occasion the group begins its procession in the same way. It goes first to worship at a shrine of Ganesa[*] , Sala(n) Ganesa[*] , in the upper city. Mahakali does a formal dance there. Now the procession proceeds to the Wa(n)laeku Taleju shrine near Dattatreya Square. Mahakali bows to the shrine, and is lifted twice into the air by an attendant. The procession proceeds along a main road that "serves as a kind of backbone from which the individual places are reached," and makes five further stops at various shrines, temples, and god-houses, where the Nine Durgas perform brief formal dances.

When they reach the particular quarter that is the goal of the day's procession, some of their activities are differentially determined according to the particular quarter. On their way to its main square they make from three to nine stops. The naki(n) , the senior woman of the troupe,


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seats herself at each stop with some baskets and pots to receive offerings of food and drink. Often the troupe is invited into individual houses and given offerings.

In eleven of the twenty-one neighborhoods in which they perform there is an additional sequence, the chasing of a pig, as they had done in the legend to protect themselves from recapture by the Brahman Tantric practitioner. This is done, according to Gutschow, in areas peripheral to the various performance squares in the direction of the borders of the city. The pig that is intended for sacrifice to Mahalaksmi[*] by Bhairava is, instead, stolen by groups of young men and boys. "The youngsters run around carrying the squeaking pig under their jackets and passing it quickly from one to the other. The gods are obviously teased and asked to come and fight for the pig. . .. This kind of teasing may last for an hour or two" (Gutschow and Basukala 1987, 156). Finally the pig is released and Bhairava grabs it and carries it back to the main square where he tears its heart out and throws it to the Siphadya:, that is, to the goddess Mahalaksmi[*] . This teasing ending in a blood sacrifice anticipates the themes of the next day.

These preliminary activities take from two to six hours, when, finally, toward midnight, the troupe reaches the square where they will perform.[98] It is said that the Gathas do secret dances and rituals on the square. Non-Gathas do not know what these are—it would be very dangerous to see them—but it is believed that they increase the power and effectiveness of the goddesses in preparation for their next morning's performances.

The next day's sessions are a mixture of formal dances (conceived as yantras ) and worship, interspersed with dance-dramas or pyakha(n) s.[99] Following the first formal dances in the morning, there is a performance by the lion and tiger deities Sima and Duma (see fig. 27). Although generally conceived as goddesses, and derived from the goddesses Si(n)hini and Vyaghrini[*] , Duma is here considered as a woman and Sima as a man, her husband.[100] Duma has a cup out of which she will drink beer, but at some point Sima steals it. During this sequence the younger boys among the spectators laugh and make mocking noises directed to Sima and Duma. Sima now begins to chase the children, occasionally catching one and holding him for a short time. If he catches the child he may bring the child to the shrine of the Sipha: God. If a child is caught, people may say this is the result of adverse planetary influences and his family may worship the Nine Durgas to remove the bad effect. This chase occurs several times during the course of the morning. These


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Sima-Duma sequences are considered to be comic, more concerned with younger children, and less serious than the pyakha(n) that is to follow in the afternoon.

This afternoon pyakha(n) focuses and conveys much of the meaning of the Nine Durgas and of the Devi cycle, and systematically delivers the message of that cycle to localities and their people. It derives its force and significance from all that has preceded it, and also from certain background experiences and interpretations of its audience in relation to animal sacrifice (chap. 9).

The afternoon performance has as its principal characters Seto Bhairava, the small white-faced young man with a mustache and tiny fangs who is the protagonist; Mahakali, the largest and most frightening goddess, who is his antagonist; and Kumari who is, as we have noted, a transitional form between the benign-appearing goddesses of the chorus and Mahakali, acting as a mediator. These characters are augmented by Sima and Duma as comic figures.

The pyakha(n) begins with Mahakali doing a formal dance. Seto Bhairava seats himself on a woven straw mat, which he will later use to "go fishing." While Mahakali is dancing, Seto Bhairava smears himself with a white pigment (a mixture of oil and white powder that is used otherwise in marriage ceremonies as a cosmetic for the bride). He has been given this as well as ghya : (clarified butter), brown sugar, and a white shawl by one of the members of the local area who is responsible for local supplies and arrangements. Seto Bhairava puts the white pigment on his face and hands and puts on his mask. He then puts the shawl over his head, approaches the place where Mahakali is dancing and, seating himself with head still covered, slowly moves his head about in a fashion that is interpreted as a kind of mocking or making fun of the dancing Mahakali. Keeping one's head covered in this fashion in front of a deity (or in this case a superior deity) is to show disrespect. Mahakali becomes enraged and shakes her head in a quivering motion, indicating her great anger. She suddenly seizes the shawl from Seto Bhairava's head and holds it in her hand. Seto Bhairava wants to get his shawl back and the next part of the sequence has to do with his attempt to recover it. First he makes a gesture of respect to Mahakali, but she ignores it and turns her head away. This attempt having failed, Seto Bhairava turns to the onlookers and begs for small coins. Some people in the crowd give coins to him. Seto Bhairava now offers the money to Mahakali, asking her to take the coins as an offering. (His words now


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and in later parts of the pyakha[n] are spoken for him by one of the musicians.) Mahakali takes the money from him, but does not return the shawl. All this ineffectiveness is amusing to the spectators. Now this part of the drama comes to a climax. Seto Bhairava takes a cock, which one of the onlookers hands to him, and offers it to Mahakali. At first she is angry; she keeps her head turned away and will not take it. Then suddenly she grabs the cock, and with an angry gesture throws the shawl back into Seto Bhairava's face. Now Mahakali bites the head off the living cock and drinks its gushing blood.

The pyakha(n) comes to an intermission. Now the twa : representatives do pujas to Kumari, Bhairava, Mahakali, Varahi, Seto Bhairava, Sima, and Duma and to the Oleander Goddess, the Sipha: god. The background deities of the chorus are not worshiped at this time. Thus the gods that are worshiped are all frightening forms, with fangs, tusks, or sharp teeth. Now the masks are placed in a specially designated place and only Seto Bhairava remains masked. He takes his mat, which is now to serve as a fishing net. This mat is a rectangle about two or three feet long, with seven or eight tiny dried fish placed in openings of the net. He will use this net to "go fishing," as his chasing of older boys and young men which is about to occur is called. The chase by Sima in the morning is also called "going fishing," although he does not use a symbolic fishing net. As we have noted, the performances of the day with their various scenes and elements are, in fact, often named as a unit in reference to these episodes, and referred to as the "fishing," or "Na[*] lakegu pyakha(n) ," suggesting the central significance of this element. Seto Bhairava now does a formal dance (see frontispiece), as Mahakali had been doing when Seto Bhairava showed disrespect to her. As he performs, the young men and older boys in the crowd begin to mock and taunt him by clapping their hands together and making sounds, rhythmically covering and uncovering their mouths with their hands to make a wavering noise. These young men are usually youths between fourteen and twenty, and include members of the clean thars , even Brahmans. This is considered to be a brave and daring thing to do, and people are said to admire them for it. Now Seto Bhairava "goes fishing," angrily chasing the offending boys and young men. Sometimes during the course of his chase he will stop and be invited into a nearby house, where he is given an offering of food, including meat and alcoholic spirits. The young men will wait outside and continue their mocking when he comes out. If he manages to catch one of them, Seto Bhairava will drag him toward the Oleander God's shrine, but if he is far away


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from the shrine, he may let him go after dragging him for a while. This is considered bad luck for the boys and young men, and sometimes the younger ones cry with fear when they are caught. Seto Bhairava then returns to the shrine, and resumes his formal dance, only to be interrupted once more by the taunts and mockery of the boys and young men. The sequence of dancing and chasing occurs three times.

Now a new phase of the pyakha(n) begins, a comic phase. Seto Bhairava's stomach begins to hurt him. He is said to have an upset stomach from "eating fish," the boys and young men whom he has been chasing being those fish. He lies down on the mat and begins to rub his stomach. Sima and Duma, now danced by boys instead of men, come to feel his abdomen "to see where the pain is." Seto Bhairava wriggles around because this tickles him. He is still in pain, however, and he calls for Kumari (with one of the musicians again speaking for him). Kumari, now also danced by a boy, comes with a handful of parched beaten rice and holding it first to Seto Bhairava's head, chest, and stomach, throws it to the right and to the left.[101] During these scenes in the dance-drama, Kumari (as she is danced in this scene by a child, she is now sometimes called Balakumari, the "child Kumari") is considered to be the wife of Seto Bhairava. As Kumari throws the parched beaten rice to the right and to the left, she throws it into the faces of Sima and Duma, who have been standing and looking on at either side of Seto Bhairava, and they react with gestures of discomfort. Now Seto Bhairava is cured of his affliction. He gets up and embraces the reluctant Kumari, which usually provokes much laughter. Now Seto Bhairava gives his shawl to Duma, asking her (through the Gatha musician who speaks for him) to wash it for him saying, "It is a little dirty, please wash it." Duma throws it down on the ground. Seto Bhairava says, "I should hit you," and makes a fighting gesture. He then picks up the shawl and goes through the same sequence, with the other member of the pair—Sima—and with the same results. Finally he picks up the shawl, which Sima has thrown down, and washes it himself in pantomime. He then walks away. The dance-drama segment is now finished. All the gods, except Sima and Duma and Seto Bhairava, perform a set of formal dances. This is the only time that the benign and beautiful forms of the goddesses also dance, and now Ganesa[*] also dances with the group for the first time during this day's proceedings.

Now the true Bhairava, as Bhairava is usually conceived in Bhaktapur, the large blue-black dangerous-looking male figure, comes to the fore.[102] As in the informal invited ceremonies described above, Bhai-


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rava is offered a pig to be sacrificed and returns beaten rice with his blood-stained hands as prasada to be eaten by the onlookers, who thus become participants in the sacrifice.

Now the dance-drama is over and the gods making music return to their god-house, now accompanied in their return procession by people from the locality. The locality has been protected.


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Chapter Fifteen The Devi Cycle
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