What is one to make of a group of goddesses that includes a goddess who cuts her own head off, another who prefers to be offered polluted items by devotees who themselves are in a state of pollution, one who sits on a corpse while pulling the tongue of a demon, another who has sex astride a male consort who is lying on a cremation pyre, another whose couch has as its legs four great male gods of the Hindu pantheon, another who prefers to be worshiped in a cremation ground with offerings of semen, and yet another who is a haglike widow?
Are these goddesses, who are known as the ten Mahavidyas, bizarre creations of radical groups within the Hindu tradition, obscure beings whose significance is peripheral to the basic themes of Hindu spirituality? Should we dismiss them as tangential, perhaps even irrelevant, to Hindu religion? After years of studying and musing on them, it seems to me that there is a logic to the group as a whole and that even its most outrageous members, if understood within their proper context, reveal important spiritual truths.
We know the Mahavidyas from a variety of sources. Many goddess temples across North India contain paintings and images of them. Contemporary lithographs portray them both as a group and individually. *Dhyana *mantras describe them for liturgical and meditative purposes, and they are the subject of several tantric digests.
The Mahavidyas have been known as a group since the early medieval period (after the tenth century Ce.).1 Some of them predated this development and continue to be very well known in their own right, such as the fierce black goddess Kali. She is also usually the primary, or *aid, * Mahavidya. Kamala, who is the same as the very popular goddess SriLaksmi, is also a member of the group. Tara and Tripura-sundari, lesser known but still far from obscure, are other examples of Hindu goddesses who are popular on their own and as part of the group. On the other hand, Bagalamukhi, Chinnamasta, Dhumavati, and Matarigl are rarely mentioned apart from the Mahavidyas.
The aim of this study is to reflect on the meaning of the Mahavidyas, both as a group and as individual deities. As a group, the Mahavidyas present a curious collection. It is not at all apparent why these particular ten goddesses have become associated with one another. As for the individual goddesses, several are obscure and have received no scholarly attention. In some cases the sources available on individual Mahavidyas are so limited that it is difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct their histories or gain a clear impression of their worship. In many respects this study is not definitive or conclusive. I seek here to bring a preliminary ordering to the Mahavidya tradition in the hope that it will encourage other scholars to undertake more detailed studies of the group and of its individual members.
Throughout my study of the Mahavidyas, I was told many times by a number of people—priests, scholars, painters, and practitioners—that the Mahavidyas are “all one.” Sometimes they were responding to a question concerning the significance of the group as a whole and sometimes to one concerning the peculiarities of an individual goddess. I often took this reply to indicate that the person did not have an appropriate answer to the question and that the main point, in any case, was to understand the group as so many manifestations of one (or the) great goddess. Such questions as, “Why does Bagalamukhi like yellow?” “What does the name Bagalamukhi mean, and what is its significance?” “Why does Kali stand on Siva?” “What is the significance of the name Matarigl?” often elicited a look of incomprehension (why would I want to know this anyway?), followed by the comment that all of the Mahavidyas are the same: they are all different expressions of the same goddess, who enjoys taking many forms for her own pleasure and the needs of her devotees. I usually took this as a formulaic reply, the kind that Hindus often make to non-Hindus who stand bewildered before the fantastic array of divinity expressed in the immense Hindu pantheon. After a careful study of the individual Mahavidyas, however, it became apparent to me that in many ways this comment, “They are all one,” is important in understanding the significance of the individual manifestations and their worship.
Texts that dwell in detail on the Mahavidyas—the *Tantrasdra, Sdktapramoda, **Saktisamgama-tantra, *and many others—discuss each Mahavidya according to a clear structure. That is, the description and worship of each goddess is outlined in very similar terms, no matter how different she may appear from the others. She is made to conform to an accepted structure that has at least two central components: (1) a ritualistic approach to the deity that is individual and tantric in nature and (2) a philosophical/mythological paradigm of the Mahadevi (great goddess) to which the individual Mahavidya is compared or equated.
Whether the *sadhaka *(practitioner) worships Kali or Kamala, whether one seeks worldly boons or spiritual awareness, set patterns of worship determine how one approaches the deity. The adept must know, “perfect,” and repeatedly recite the goddess’s mantra *(japa **sadhand) *throughout the worship rituals; carefully select and “protect” a place of worship with the appropriate mantras and *mudrds *(hand gestures); correctly imagine and interiorize the goddess; draw or carefully imagine and worship her yantra; invoke the goddess’s hymns, including her hundred- and thousand-name hymns; offer her standard sixteen-part puja (worship), or an abbreviated form of it; and make his or her wish or wishes known to the chosen deity. The overall intent of the worship also has normative aspects. In general, the *sddhaka *seeks to identify with the goddess in question, to have a vision of her, and to gain a boon that is understood to be part of her “store” of grace. In the logic of the worship, if one is able to become the goddess, one can obtain that which she possesses, be it redemptive knowledge or the power to annihilate one’s enemies.
This type of worship, generally known as tantric (as opposed to Vedic or*purdnic), *is strongly individualistic. Tantric texts emphasize its secrecy. The mantras of the goddesses, which are the basic building blocks of tantric worship and represent the essential power of the goddesses, are always disguised and must be decoded by those with special knowledge before their exact components can be understood. A guru, a spiritual master who is expert and accomplished in the worship of a particular goddess, transmits the mantra of that goddess, and other details of worship, to the initiated individual. The guru gives this information only after determining the capability of the adept. Furthermore, the guru chooses the goddess whose peculiarities match the predilections of the initiate. An ideal match is supposedly made according to the guru’s superior spiritual intuition and knowledge of both the initiate and the goddess. She becomes the initiate’s special goddess, to whom he or she will devote intense energy over a lifetime.
It is uncommon for a person to be initiated into more than one goddess.
It is more typical for someone to focus on one particular goddess and to find in her the satisfaction of all his or her worldly and spiritual needs. For the adept, this goddess becomes the Great Goddess. This relationship between the goddess and the practitioner is individual and personal and in this sense is secret. That is, only the devotee and the goddess (and perhaps the adept’s guru) know its nature and peculiar features. It is not shared with the public, not even with family members.
The philosophical/mythological model to which most of the individual Mahavidyas conform is exemplified in the *Lalita-sahasranama, *an early thousand-name hymn in praise of Tripura-sundari in her form as Lalita. This text attributes several dominant characteristics to Lalita. It identifies her in a number of ways and in many epithets as the highest reality in the cosmos, identical with certain philosophical absolutes such as *brah**man. *As the highest reality, she oversees the three principal cosmic functions: creation, maintenance, and destruction. Related to this role as cosmic queen is her role as slayer of demons. She protects the world and the position of the gods by defeating demons that they have found too formidable. In this respect she is said to transcend or empower the great male gods Brahma, Visnu, and Siva, who are often said to be helpless in the face of the demons she defeats. She is identified with the physical creation itself. She is *prakili, *the inherent or vital principle of creation. She is also usually identified with *sakti *(the inherent power of creation), *dtman *(the spiritual essence of reality), and *purusa *(another term denoting the spiritual aspect of creation). She is often described as the consort of Siva and in this role is a model wife. She has many benign qualities and grants boons to her devotees, including spiritual attainments and enlightenment. She is also said to have fierce, terrible, frightening aspects, and sometimes she is said to like meat, liquor, and blood (all considered polluting in the Hindu tradition). She is also lovely to behold and erotically powerful.2
The ways and extent to which an individual Mahavidya conforms to this model vary, to be sure. As one might expect, hymns to goddesses such as Kali and Chinnamasta paint them in rather fierce tones, while Kamala and Bhuvanesvari are fairly benign in their hymns. But each goddess in her own way approximates the paradigm. From descriptions of Kali in her *dhyana *mantras, one might expect her to lack any pacific or nurturing qualities, but her thousand-name hymns describe her as having both. From Dhumavati’s *dhyana *mantras, one would expect that she would lack all positive, beneficent features, but her thousand-name hymn says that she has many such qualities. Conversely, one is surprised to find fierce or terrible aspects to Kamala, given her strong associations with good fortune, fertility, and royal authority, but such qualities are mentioned. It is also surprising, given the descriptions of most of the Mahavidyas in their *dhyana *mantras and the stories about their origins, that every one of them is strongly associated with Durga in her role as demon slayer.
Each goddess, no matter how remote she may seem from the Great Goddess in other ways, in her thousand-name hymn is associated with protecting cosmic order by slaying demons. This is striking, given how different some of the Mahavidyas appear to be from each other.
These texts seem to make the point that, indeed, in the case of the Mahavidyas, “all are one.” The origin myths of the group as a whole also make this point, saying that all ten forms arose from one goddess (Satl, Kali, or Durga) and all are different facets, aspects, or *avataras *of that goddess. The hymns to the individual goddesses also seem to make the point by suggesting that an adept who delves deeply enough into any one of the Mahavidyas will find them all in her. They inhere in each other and represent different facets of a single, multifaceted being. The adept or devotee need not worship all ten Mahavidyas to gain their assortment of blessings or *siddhis. *He or she need only cultivate an intense and sustained rapport with one goddess to discover the blessings of all.
But why would one want to receive the blessings of such goddesses in the first place? Why would a Hindu practitioner go out of the way to establish rapport with a goddess who is outrageous or bizarre? What are the blessings to be had from these unusual goddesses? An important key to understanding, or appreciating, the Mahavidyas, I think, lies precisely in their radical or outrageous aspects. It is true that some of the Mahavidyas are benign deities, associated with such worldly boons as wealth, fecundity, and security. However, most of the Mahavidyas are associated with marginality, inauspicious qualities, pollution, and death; they might be termed *antimodels, *especially for women. By antimodels I mean that their roles violate approved social values, customs, norms, or paradigms. For example, the most powerful approved model for Hindu women for centuries has been the goddess Sita, who is the ideal *pati **vratd *(a wife devoted to her husband). Hindu women for generations have been socialized to view Sita as an ideal to imitate in their own lives. Sita’s husband is the be-all and end-all of her existence. Her thoughts and actions, wishes and dreams, all focus on him; her life only has meaning in relation to him. Most of the Mahavidyas, however, either are independent from males or dominate (sometimes humiliate) them in one way or another. Many of the Mahavidyas seem to mock the *pati **vratd *ideal and to present an alternative social role that is almost its exact opposite. These goddesses, if they allow males in their presence at all, demand to be served by them.
Several of the Mahavidyas also subvert the strong emphasis in the Hindu tradition on avoiding pollution. Death, which is highly polluting in Hindu culture, is a dominant theme in Mahavidya iconography and worship. Several Mahavidya goddesses dwell in cremation grounds and sit on corpses. Several wear garlands of severed heads (always male) or hold severed heads. Several receive blood sacrifice, always of male victims. Several like blood (which is itself polluting), perhaps need it, and sometimes are said to be smeared with it. Several of the Mahavidya goddesses are also sexually aggressive. Sexual fluids are polluting in Hindu culture, and the sexually powerful nature of the Mahavidyas suggests that they are in a polluted state. They are often shown having sex, always in the so-called dominant or reverse position, that is, on top of their consorts. In the case of Matarigi, we have a goddess who prefers pollution and who requires her devotees to be in a state of pollution when they offer her polluted substances, such as menstrual blood.
In many ways the goddess Kali, who is almost always named as the first of the Mahavidyas, is the prototype of the group in terms of being what I have termed an antimodel. She haunts cremation grounds. She wears a garland of severed human heads, which are often gushing blood that smears her body. She holds a freshly severed head in one of her hands. She receives blood sacrifice at her temples. She rides a ghost or a corpse as her vehicle. She is almost always naked. She is aggressive and is often standing on her male consort. She is sexually powerful and is shown having sex astride her consort (who sometimes lies on a funeral pyre). Her companions are ghosts, jackals, and female furies. Her hair is wild and unbound. Her tongue lolls out grotesquely, rudely, suggesting an insatiable, indiscriminate hunger and thirst. Kali insults, subverts, and mocks the social status quo, particularly as it defines proper behavior for women.
Appreciating the liberating potential of antimodels, it seems to me, is one way of appreciating the Mahavidyas. It is a theme I take up at several points in the book. I argue that it is a feature of certain aspects of tantric spirituality in particular, but I also think that it is a muted theme in much of the nontantric Hindu tradition as well. There is an insistence in Hinduism that the world as it appears to us is a show, that there remains hidden from our normal view an aspect of reality that is different, perhaps shockingly different, from our ego-centered way of apprehending it. The world is not the way we like to think it is, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will make progress in acquiring spiritual maturity. The Mahavidyas, as antimodels, are awakeners, visions of the divine that challenge comfortable and comforting fantasies about the way things are in the world.