The Nine Durgas

Historically in South Asia, various groups of dangerous goddesses have been grouped together as the Navadurga, the Nine Durgas (Banerjea 1974, 500n.; P. K. Sharma 1974, 231-233). Slusser has written that, "in practice . . . the Nepalese Naudurga [Navadurga] are synonymous with the Astamatrkas^[*] , to which a variable ninth manifestation is joined to complete the set. Thus, when the Nepalese speak of the Naudurga, they in fact refer to the Astamatrkas^[*] " (Slusser 1982, vol. 1, p. 322). This is not true for Bhaktapur, where the distinction is essential. There the Nine Durgas refer to a group of divinities, represented primarily as masks (see color illustrations) who possess the bodies of a group of

dancers during an annual sequence that each year begins at the harvest festival of Mohani and lasts for the following nine months. We will be concerned with this sequence at length in chapter 15. The Nine Durgas have close relations with the Mandalic^[*] Goddesses, as they do with the other major forms of the goddess in Bhaktapur, but they have, as we will see, their own legends, meanings, membership, and iconography. Although they share some of the same names with the Astamatrkas^[*] and some of their reference to the Devi Mahatmya they differ in the meanings of the deities common to both sets, in other of their members, in their legends, and in their uses.

The Nine Durgas group share seven members with the Astamatrkas^[*] : Mahakali, Kumari, Varahi, Brahmani, Vaisnavi^[*] , Indrani^[*] , and Mahesvari.^[28] Of these the last five have very subsidiary roles, and are peripheral to the main actions of the cycle. The group also includes the male divinities Ganesa^[*] , Bhairava, and Seto Bhairava and the goddesses (often thought of, however, as a male and a female) Sima and Duma.^[29]

These twelve deities are represented as masks, and are worn by the dancers who through possession become the gods they represent. There are also two other gods associated with the group of the Nine Durgas. One is Siva, who is represented as a small mask without eyeholes that is carried by one of the dancers. He is not present as a possessed dancer nor as a performing god. Finally the entire group of gods have their own god, whose portable image they worship. She is generally known as the Sipha goddess, after the red leaves of oleander (sipha ) placed as a garland around her metal image. She is known to religious specialists as Mahalaksmi^[*] . Mahalaksmi^[*] is one of the equally ranked peripheral goddesses of the Asttamatrkas^[*] —although, as we have noted, she is not one of the Devi Mahatmya s "seven mothers"—and is placed in the eighth and last peripheral position. As the Nine Durgas' own goddess she is in a superior position to them, as Tripurasundari is to the Astamatrkas^[*] represents the "full goddess"; the other performing members of the group are special manifestations. There is another important hierarchical distinction within the Nine Durgas. As we will see when we discuss them in detail, the predominant form In the group of mask-gods is Mahakali, the "Goddess" in her most frightening form. We will return to these hierarchical relations later.

The Nine Durgas, in contrast to the Mandalic^[*] Goddesses, are characterized by movement (map 14 [below, chap. 15]). Their original home (chap. 15) was, in legend, a forest outside Bhaktapur. They have now, however, an elaborate temple-like god-house in the city. During

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Map 14.
The sites for the sequential Nine Durgas dances dramas or pyakha(n)s within Bhaktapur throughout the year. The numbers
show the sequence in which the dances take place. Map courtesy of Niels Gutschow.

the nine months of their annual existence, the masks of the dancers and other ritual equipment are kept there when not in use in their sequential visits to the city's neighborhoods.