The Ordinary Female Divinities: Laksmi, Sarasvati, And Parvati
In a later section we will be concerned with a cluster of ideas about "the goddess," a form sometimes conceived of as an emanation of Siva, as his "Sakti," and sometimes as an independent divinity having many names and forms. The word "Sakti" is often also used in Bhaktapur to refer to the consort, the female companion, of a male god. In this sense it means little more than wife, constant companion, or lover. There is a sharp distinction in cultural definition, personal meaning, and associated religious action between those ordinary goddesses who are the consorts of ordinary gods and important foci of ordinary religion, and those other goddesses, emanations of Siva or aspects of some form of
the Tantric goddess, the Saktis par excellence , the objects of Tantric worship.
The three ordinary goddesses are Laksmi, Sarasvati, and Parvati. Of these, only Sarasvati has her own temples. Laksmi and Parvati are respectively represented m the temples of Visnu[*] and his avatar s (with the consort of the particular avatar being sometimes considered an incarnation of Laksmi) and of Siva in his anthropomorphic forms. In contradistinction to Sarasvati and to the Tantric goddesses, they are secondary figures in the external city religion. Their abode and realm is in the household.
Sarasvati (Sasu Dya: Sasu God, in Newari) has four major shrines in Bhaktapur. These shrines may be worshiped as a personal act of devotion by local people and passersby, but her main special meaning is as the goddess of learning, to whom all people who are engaged in studies of one kind or another (in recent times particularly modern school studies) come to pray. Sarasvati can grant them effectiveness or siddhi in learning, as Ganesa[*] does to children for walking or talking. Her main temple is just to the south of the city across the river. All school children go to this shrine, the Nila (Blue) Sarasvati on the same day, or Sri Pa(n)cami, once a year (chap. 14). Sarasvati is usually represented in an ordinary, if idealized, human form, like the other ordinary goddesses (identifiable by her swan vehicle and her "lute," the vina[*] ). She was formerly embodied in all books, and now still in those that are not specifically modern and secular. In a major Puranic[*] tradition Sarasvati is considered as the daughter and sometimes the consort of the god Brahma. In Bhaktapur she is conceived of as an independent goddess.[17]
Laksmi (Newari, Lachimi) is a major household divinity, but she has no public shrine or temple, although she is understood to be present in Visnu's[*] temples as his consort, or as incarnated as Radha or Sita, the consorts of his major avatar s. She is understood to be nevertheless a goddess in herself, although she has in Tantrism some theoretical and cultic connections with goddesses such as Vaisnavi[*] and Varahi through shared associations with Visnu[*] . As everywhere in South Asia, as a household goddess, Laksmi is the promoter of the proper ends of the household—fertility, success in the household's economic activities, accumulation of food and wealth. She is the object of daily prayer and must never be neglected. She, like Visnu[*] , is a protector of ordinary life. She has one annual festival in Bhaktapur, which is during one day in the course of the five-day lunar New Year festival (chap. 13).
With Parvati (Newari, Parvati or Parbati) we approach the complex
web of ideas joining Siva, Sakti, and Newar Tantrism. Although Parvati is, as we shall see, one bridge to these ideas, she is for the most part an independent Goddess in her own right, one who belongs firmly to the ordinary realm. Parvati as a household figure is Siva's loving bride—the ideal wife—and the daughter of Himalaya, the personified mountain range. As Himalaya's daughter, the Kathmandu Valley, that is, the traditional Nepal of the Newars, is her paternal homeland, and she has special concerns with it, particularly with its Newar women. Like Laksmi, Parvati has no independent external representation in her own shrine, nor any external ritual significance for the public city.[18] She is a focus of some romantic fantasy (as is Krsna's[*] consort Radha in other parts of South Asia), represents married romantic love for the household, and is prayed to by women for the welfare of the household (with perhaps a less material emphasis than Laksmi) and for the birth of sons. Although she may change into dangerous forms in the legends of the Goddess she, like Siva when he emits his Sakti, is lost in the form, and (as we shall see below, as the Devi Mahatmya , one of the main sources of Bhaktapur's ideas and imagery about the Goddess suggests) is unaware that she has an alternate wild and demonic state.