Some notes on Durgā
A brief account of Durgā’s battle with Mahiṣa, followed by a meditation on Durgā and some notes on the Navadurgās. These were all originally entries in the London Tantra Group wiki.
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Posts tagged ‘goddesses’
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On Bagalamukhi
A few notes on the goddess Bagalāmukhī, expanded from an entry in the London Tantra Discussion Group wiki.
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“I meditate on Bagalamukhi, who with her hammer has killed my adversary, his unsteady rolling tongue having been pegged; the all pervading paralyser of speech and mind; who is seated on the corpses and skulls of one’s fallen enemies,(their remains forming the base) for her lion throne in the pavilion in the centre of a beautiful blossoming red lotus in the midst of the nectar-milk ocean.”
Hymn to Bagalāmukhī, translated by Mike Magee. -
Hail to the Mother of Contentment!
I first came across a reference to the goddess Santoshi Ma as a colour postcard in a back issue of Azoth magazine, and was inspired to ‘work’ with her as part of a sadhana using the Empress Tarot card that I later used as the basis of a freeform pathworking at public workshops in the mid-90s. At the time, I assumed that Santoshi was one of the many Hindu devis I had not come across before, and it was only later that I discovered that she was considered by some to be a ‘new’ addition to the company of devis and devas. This essay was originally written in 2005 and is from the defunct London Tantra Discussion Group.
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Kali: the Furious
“Will the Bengalee worshipper of Shakti shrink from the shedding of blood? … The worship of the goddess will not be consummated if you sacrifice your lives at the shrine of Independence without shedding blood.”
Jugantar“Mother, incomparably arrayed, Hair flying, stripped down, You battle-dance on Siva's heart, A garland of heads that bounce off Your heavy hips, chopped-off hands For a belt, the bodies of infants For earrings, and the lips, The teeth like jasmine, the face A lotus blossomed, the laugh, And the dark body billowing up and out Like a storm cloud, and those feet Whose beauty is only deepened by blood. So Prasād cries: My mind is dancing! Can I take much more? Can I bear An impossible beauty?” Ramprasād Sen
As Mike Magee’s new book – Kālī Magic – for my Twisted Trunk imprint nears completion, I thought I’d do a brief essay on the goddess Kali and her key characteristics – the most enduring of which is her fury.
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Book Review: A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses
Indian goddess traditions are of enduring and fascinated attention to scholars and esoteric practitioners alike, yet many of them are virtually unknown beyond the boundaries of regional traditions or have been ignored. An attempt to redress this lacuna is this new anthology, edited by Michael Slouber – A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses: Tales of the Feminine Divine from India and Beyond (University of California Press 2020, 374 pages, Illustrated). Featuring primary translations of the narratives pertaining to twelve relatively unstudied Hindu goddesses. In what sense are these goddesses “forgotten” though? It is certainly not that they are insignificant, but that they are rarely given space in surveys of Hindu goddesses, or that their local, regional character has been lost as the goddess has become identified with more popular forms. Moreover, the scriptural sources which are the basis of these goddesses’ stories have, for the most part, received little attention. These range from some of the less well-known Purāṇas, the early Tantras, and contemporary oral lore and performance.
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Heart Practice II: the goddess dwelling in the heart
The Heart is the subtle vibration of the triangle which consists of the incessant expansion and contraction of the three powers, and it is the place of repose, the place of supreme bliss. This very Heart is the Self of Bhairava, of that which is the essence of Bhairava, and of the blessed supreme Goddess who is inseperable and nondifferent from him.
Abhinavagupta, commentary on Paratrisika-laghuvritti, transl. Paul Muller-OrtegaSo, Mind, call out “Kali! Kali”;
meditate on the Mother’s form.
In this way, that cloud-coloured Syama
will dance, always
dance, in your heart.
Kalyankumar Mukhopadhyay (transl. Rachel Fell McDermott)Placing one’s chosen deity in the heart is a core element of tantra practice (see, for example Reading the Saundarya Lahari – III-2 for some related discussion and an example from the Todala Tantra.) I have been doing this now (as the beginning phase of formal puja, as formal meditation, and, increasingly, as a day-to-day, moment-by-moment rememberance) for nigh on twenty-five years, so it’s probably high time for me to make some reflections on this particular aspect of sadhana. Continue reading »
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Group Book review: Indian Goddesses
As a follow-up to the group review of books related to Kali in August, I’m going to present short reviews of three books focusing on Indian Goddesses that I’ve found to be very useful – The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India edited by John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulf; David Kinsley’s Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition and Lynn Foulston and Stuart Abbott’s Hindu Goddesses: Beliefs and Practices. Continue reading »