Book review: Studies on Tantra in Bengal and Eastern India – II
Continuing my review of Professor Madhu Khanna’s new edited volume of essays, Studies on Tantra in Bengal and Eastern India (Springer 2022). The first part of the review is here.
So on to section two of the book, entitled The Śākta Pīṭhas: Great and Small, Ancient and Modern.
The first of the essays is Brenda Dobia’s Power and Desire in the Worship of the Goddess Kāmākhyā, which examines the presence of these important tantric themes at the temple of Kāmākhyā in Assam. In doing so, she draws heavily on the Kālikā Purāṇa, the most authoritative text on the temple and its goddess. As Dobia explains, blood sacrifice is a dominant – and sometimes controversial aspect of the worship of the Goddess. Goats, chickens, and pigeons are regularly sacrificed at Kāmākhyā, and the Kālikā Purāṇa contains detailed instructions for undertaking animal sacrifice and the benefits gained. The temple also has a history of human sacrifice – again, detailed in the Kālikā Purāṇa and enacted in the sixteenth century when the temple was rebuilt and consecrated. Dobia explores the significance of the yoni as a symbol of creation – sṛṣṭi; pointing out that blood is significant for its role in both cosmic and human fertility, and that the annual week-long Ambuvācī-melā commemorates not only the goddess’ menstruation but that of the earth. Kāmākhyā is the yonimaṇḍala, where the primal power of the goddess propagates the world through the cycle of birth, death, and regeneration.
Dobia then turns to the role of kāma. Kāmākhyā is not only the goddess of the yoni, but she is also the goddess of desire. The term kāma has, Dobia explains, a wide range of meanings. Although the Dharmasāstra texts recognize kāma as one of the four aims of life (puruṣārthas); it is often characterized as an obstacle to be overcome. The tantric traditions however embraced kāma as a means of liberation. According to the Kālikā Purāṇa, the region around Kāmākhyā temple is known as Kāmarūpa, as it was there that Kāma was restored to his form, after being burnt to ash by Śiva’s fiery glance. Of particular interest is the presence of the Mahāvidyās at the site. Dobia notes that although the Mahāvidyās strengthened links with goddess traditions across the subcontinent, they represented a greater move towards integration with brāhmanic norms, supplanting the earlier worship of the yoginīs. 1 Finally, Dobia turns to a key issue – whether the woman-oriented religious traditions at the temple have any tangible benefits for women’s lives. It is often assumed by followers of goddess traditions beyond India that female-focused religious traditions (such as Śākta practice) goes hand-in-hand with respect for women in everyday life. Whilst, as she discusses, women’s subordinate position within the patriarchal social structure normalizes gender violence and abuse, Śākta tantric philosophy and practice necessitates respecting and reverencing women as creators and holders of power. Dobia suggests that the principles of Śākta tantra could be drawn on in order to counter hypermasculine aggression.
The second essay in this section is Kamal K. Mishra’s The Metamorphosis of the “Gāchh Tar Vālī” and the Making of a Śakti-Pīṭha in Mithila. This paper examines and explores the relationship of the Daśamahāvidyā goddess Tārā to the region of Mithila, focusing on the Ugratārā temple at Mahishi village. Although this site is not mentioned in conventional listings of Śakti-Pīṭhas, it nevertheless has been a popular pilgrimage site over the last two centuries by both lay devotees and tantric practitioners. The village itself is renown as the dwelling of the eighth-century Mīmāṃsā philosopher Miśra, and a famous philosophical duel between Miśra, his wife Bhāratī Devī, and Śaṅkarācārya. Drawing on a wide number of sources, including literature, legends, and folk narratives, Mishra uncovers the tangled history of Tārā’s passage from her Buddhist origins to fully-fledged tantric goddess, examining in detail the legend of the sage Vaśiṣṭha from the Śrī Ugratārā Māhātmya Darśana. Tārā appears to have been considered an independent goddess until she was adopted into the Mahāvidyā group in the late medieval period. The institutional worship of Ugratārā from the late eighteenth century onwards, Mishra says, was only made possible due to the stature of an existing folk deity.
Section three of Studies on Tantra in Bengal and Eastern India consists of two essays focusing on Śākta theology. The first of these is Arghya Dipta Kar’s Gynocentric Cosmonogy in the Devībhāgavata Purāṇa. This paper examines the cosmogenic creation myths in the Devībhāgavata Purāṇa, with particular focus on the goddess Bhuvaneśvarī. The Devībhāgavata Purāṇa, a Śākta Upapurāṇa, has been dated to between the eleventh-twelfth centuries C.E. Kar explores how this text operates to elevate the goddess as the transcendent and immanent Absolute, whilst relegating deities of rival traditions to a lesser status. Summarizing the genesis myth in the Purāṇa, Kar shows how both Brahmā and Viṣṇu are subordinate to the goddess, and how both they and Śiva are transformed into female attendants of the goddess when they behold her ultimate form on the Island of Gems (where only women dwell). The text also functions on an ontological level, attempting to resolve the differences between the dualism of Brahminism with the monism of Śākta theology. However, there is a problem with the apparent gynocentricity of the Devībhāgavata. At the close of the narrative that takes place in the Island of Gems, the goddess emanates the trinity of Mahāsarasvatī, Mahālakṣmī, and Mahākālī, and gives them to Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva as their spouses, returning the gods to their male forms. Kar points out that this acts to subsume the identities of these goddesses into their male overlords. Overall though, the Devībhāgavata Purāṇa marks a shift from a Brahmanical, Viṣṇu-centred worldview to a gynocentric, tantric one, in which the goddess emerges as a supreme divinity who surpasses all dualities.
The final essay in this section (and the book) is Sthaneshwar Timalsina’s Revisiting Śākta Advaita: The Monistic Śākta Philosophy in the Guhyopaniṣad. This paper explores the fusion of Śākta theology with mainstream Hinduism, making the kind of practices once restricted to counter-cultural movements such as the Kaulas acceptable to married householders. Timalsina does this through the examination of the Guhyopaniṣad and the goddess Guhyakālī. Although the Guhyopaniṣad is a minor work, itself a section of the larger Mahākālasaṃhitā, Timalsina astutely points out that it demonstrates the Vedicization of a tantric worldview; the integration of Kālī into a Vedic paradigm, and the lived vitality of Śākta monism against the Vedanta of Śaṅkara. The Guhyopaniṣad presents Guhyakālī in her cosmic form – all-pervading; the sun and moon are her eyes, her mouth, the sky; the entirety of the cosmos rests in her heart and her feet are the earth. With a close reading of key passages, Timalsina shows how the Guhyopaniṣad, whilst borrowing from classical Upaniṣads, abandons Sāṅkhya dualism (whereby prakṛti is of a lower ontological status than puruṣa) with Śākta monism – there is no mediation or veiling (i.e. due to avidyā) between the goddess and her devotees. Kālī does not just create the world – she is the world and she also is the source of the Vedas. As Timalsina eloquently puts it “she still is the primary agent of all actions, abiding in the heart of all sentient beings.”
All in all, Tantra in Bengal and Eastern India is a fine collection of essays that sheds much light on the development of Śākta tantra in Bengal. If you are interested in the post-classical phase of the tantric traditions, for example, how they adapted to new forms of religious practice, and how Śāktas accommodated to processes of Vedicization without losing vitality, there is much of interest in the contributions here. I did, admittedly, find some of the essays hard going at times, but that is only to be expected given the complexities of the subject matter at hand.
Notes:
- See Jae-Eun Shin, Change, continuity and complexity: the Mahavidyas in East Indian Sakta traditions. Routledge, 2018 for further discussion. ↩
