Durga

Published on 18th October, 2020, in Mid-day. The concept of Nava-durga is extremely popular during Navratri. Navratri refers to the nine nights that lead to the celebration of Vijayadashmi. The Goddess is worshipped in nine forms. The nine forms are Shailaputri, Brahmacharini, Chandraghanta, Kushmanda, SkandaMata, Kaatyayani, Kalaratri, Mahagauri and Siddharaatri. These are not nine separate goddesses. They represent the nine phases of the goddess' life. The nine nights of Navratri are a celebration of the Goddess in her entirety. The Goddess is shakti, who brings meaning to Shiva, who disembodied pure consciousness. The first stage is Shailaputri, where Shakti is the goddess of the mountains. ..

Published on 10th February, 2019, in Mid-day. In Hinduism, the Markandeya Purana is one of the oldest puranas, roughly 1,700 years old. It is special because it contains the earliest reference to the Devi Bhagavata story in which Durga defeats the buffalo-demon Mahishasura. This reference though is only 1,300 years old, so it must be a later addition. Markandeya is a rishi of great repute because the characteristic most associated with him is his immortality. It is said that being immortal, he witnessed events in all the four yugas, as well as the Pralaya; therefore, he narrates the story that becomes the purana. In the ..

Published on 3rd February, 2019, in Mumbai Mirror. In traditional Hindu belief, a king exists to overturn the law of the jungle or Matsya Naya. In the absence of a king (raja), there is chaos and anarchy (arajakta). The king brings order. But how does one establish himself as a ruler? When we go through various scriptures such as the Vedas, the Puranas, and other historical documents, studying the rise of kings across India, we notice a pattern. We find four ways in which a king is made. The earliest method was through Vedic rituals such as Rajsuya and Ashwamedha. In Rajsuya, Brahmins poured water ..

Published on 25th November, 2018, in Mid-day. Typically, in storytelling, the main characters, the hero and the villain, are male, and the victim is female: a damsel in distress who needs to be rescued by the hero, from the machinations of the villain. But, from time to time, one does see gender shifts in the nature of hero and villain. While traditionally, we find the male Indra defeating the male Vritra, or the male Shiva defeating the male Andhaka, or the male Vishnu defeating the males Madhu and Kaitabha, we do come across in medieval literature, Durga and Kali, who defeat male villains, such as ..

Published on 14th October, 2018, in Mumbai Mirror. The story of Durga comes to us from the story of Devi Mahatmya, which is around 1,200 years old. Also known as Chandipath, it tells the story of how the devas were troubled by a buffalo-demon called Mahishasur, and as was their wont, they went to their father, Brahma, for help. Brahma, took them to Vishnu, who, in turn, took them to Shiva. But even Shiva said that he could not defeat the demon. The only way the demon could be defeated was if all the gods released their inner powers and merged them to create a ..

Published on 16th September, 2018, in Mumbai Mirror Krishna steals women’s clothes. Ram abandoned his wife. Shiva smokes narcotics. Durga kills a buffalo. Hindus worship weird gods! These are the comments I hear from people who have moved on from Hinduism, embracing other faiths. But often, also from well-read Hindus. Hinduism embarrasses these intellectual Hindus as it doesn’t comply with their preconceived notions of what god and religion should be. And where did these preconceptions come from? From education – the assumption that god is good and all-powerful, and that religion is supposed to create a just and fair society based on ethical and moral ..

Published on 27th July, 2018, on theprint.in. To anyone who appreciates art, it is clear that the image of ‘Rudra Hanuman’, now popular as car stickers in Bengaluru and other cities of India, was strongly influenced by the poster of the Hollywood film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Such reinterpretations have been rather common in the past few decades – Rama now needs to have a six pack now, so does Shiva, even Durga, and brooding expressions, as they prepare to kill the bad guys, like a DC comic book hero such as Batman, or even the new Superman. Even Amar Chitra Katha’s ..

Published on 17th June, 2017, in Mid-day. The image of the buffalo-slaying lion-riding Durga starts appearing in Hindu mythology only in the post-Gupta period, around 1,500 years ago. Amongst the earliest images we know today are one from Ajanta and Ellora caves in Maharashtra, and from Mammalapuram dated before 7th century. Earlier icons have been traced to the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. After this, the goddess becomes a popular icon in Hindu temples, so much so, that it is hard to believe that there was once a Hinduism without the story of Mahishasuramardini, the buffalo-slaying goddess. The Goddess has been worshipped from Vedic times. ..

Published on 27th February, 2016, in Mid-Day. The story of Durga comes to us from the Sanskrit Devi Mahatmaya or Chandi Patha that is part of the Markandeya Purana and is around 1,500 years old. Her icons are also traced to the same period. Some scholars are of the opinion that the idea of a lion-riding goddess probably came with the Kushana kings as the Goddess Nanna, a variant of the Mesopotamian Ishtar, or the Persian Anahita. Others believe she is indigenous, part of an older, earlier matriarchal pre-Vedic substratum, as suggested by Indus valley tiger-woman seals. Broadly, we find three schools of interpretive narratives: ..