Maa Durga represent Dasha Mahavidyas of Tantra.

Maa  Durga  and  Dasha  Mahavidyas

by KK Debnath,  Bangalore.

Dated: 2017-09-22.

Power of Weapons

The gods then gifted the goddess with their weapons and other divine objects to help her in her battle with the demon, Mahishasura.
1)  Lord Shiva gave her a trident while
2) Lord Vishnu gave her a disc.
3) Varuna, gave her a conch and noose, and
4) Agni gave her a spear. From Vayu, she received arrows.
5) Indra, gave her a thunderbolt, and the gift of his white-skinned elephant Airavata was a bell.
6) From Yama, she received a sword and shield and
7) from Vishwakarma (god of Architecture), an axe and armor.
8) The god of mountains, Himavat gifted her with jewels and a lion to ride on.

Durga was also given many other precious and magical gifts, new clothing, and a garland of immortal lotuses for her head and breasts.

Goddess Durga has been glorified by 10 different aspects of the manifestation her "Shakti" or “KULA” or 'Power', called "Dasha-Mahavidya" as also Her 9 different forms called "Nava-Durga", without knowing which, trying to know the real power and divinity of Durga will be in vain.

In Tantra, worship of Kula-Devi is referred to as a Vidya. Of the hundreds of tantrik practices, the worship of the ten major Devis is called the Dasa Mahavidya. These major forms of the goddess are described in the Todala Tantra. They are Kali, Tara, Maha Tripura Sundari (or Shodasi-Sri Vidya), Bhuvaneshvari, Chinnamasta, Bhairavi, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, Matangi, and Kamala. These ten aspects of Shakti are the epitome of the entire creation. Chapter 10 also outlines their consorts, although Dhumavati, the widow form, is not allocated a consort. There are several "levels" at which these Devis can be worshiped with the prescribed Mantra and Yantra. Like a simple worship of the yantra with the mantra recitation, as a remedial astrological measure, elaborate worship with all tantrak rituals for attaining various siddhis associated with these tantras and for spiritual salvation. Successful sadhana of these Vidyas gives several boons to the practitioner. The Tantrik-Yogi who has control over his senses and positively inclined uses the boons to guide people towards the benefit of mankind. The ones, whose head starts spinning with success use them for the gratification of the senses, gather a bunch of disciples around them and become fake gurus.

Shri Devi said: Lord of Gods, Guru of the universe, tell me of the ten avatars. Now I want to hear of this, tell me of their true nature. Paramesvara, reveal to me which avatar goes with which Devi.

Lord Shiva replied: Tara Devi is the blue form, Bagala is the tortoise incarnation, Dhumavati is the boar, Chhinnamasta is Nrisimha, Bhuvaneshvari is Vamana, Matangi is the Rama form, Tripura is Parashurama, Bhairavi is Balabhadra, Mahalakshmi is Buddha, and Durga is the Kalki form. Bhagavat‘ Kali is the Krishna murti" (Todalatantra, chapter 10).

The Dasha-Mahavidyas:
1) Kali (the Eternal Night) : The first Mahavidya is Kali. Seated on a corpse, greatly terrifying, laughing loudly, with fearful fangs, four arms holding a cleaver, a skull, and giving the mudras bestowing boons and dispelling fear, wearing a garland of skulls, her tongue rolling wildly, completely naked, with just a garland of demon-hands round her waist, with heaped locks of a black cascade of hair. Thus one should meditate on Kali, dwelling in the centre of the cremation ground.
2) Tara (the Compassionate Goddess): Tara is the second of the mahavidyas. She is described as seated in the pratyaaleerrha asana, on the heart of a corpse, supreme, laughing horribly, holding cleaver, blue lotus, dagger and bowl, uttering the mantra Hum, coloured blue, her hair braided with serpents, the Ugratara. She is bestows all supernatural powers. She is the tantric form of the Goddess Saraswati of Buddhism.

3) Shorashi (the Goddess who is Sixteen Years Old lass): The third Mahavidya is also known as Tripura-Sundari and Lalita, among a string of other names. She is the zenith of the creative cycle when the entire universe, like a flower, is in full bloom. She is the chief deity of the Sri Vidya form of worship, and is contacted either in the central circuit of the Sri Yantra, or in her own yantra, the Nava-Yoni Chakra. Her anthropomorphic qualities are brilliancy, manifestation, sweetness, depth, fixity, energy, grace, and generosity. She is seated on the lotus, that has bloomed out from the navel of Lord Shiva. She is a beautiful young girl of 16 years with four arms. Her complexion is like molten gold and Her beauty is continuously being viewed by Lord Shiva. She is, at one point, being made one with Goddess Lakshmi, the consort of Lord Vishnu.

4) Bhuvaneshwari (the Creator of the World): She is the Queen of the Universe, Maya, power of love, peace within, as void. She is like the red rays of the rising sun, with the moon as her diadem, and with three eyes, a smiling face, bestowing boons, holding a goad, a noose and dispelling fears. On the right side of Bhuvaneshvari, who in the heavens, on earth, and in the underworlds is known as the Adya, worship Tryambaka. She is the fourth Mahavidya.

5) Chhinnamastaa (the Goddess who cuts off her Own Head) : The fifth Mahavidya Chhinnamastaa looks like fully bloomed red hibiscus. Her left foot forward in battle, she holds her severed head and a scimitar. Naked, she drinks voluptuously the stream of the blood nectar flowing from her beheaded body, along with her two female celestial companions. The jewel on her forehead is tied with a serpent. She has three eyes. Her breasts are adorned with lotuses. Inclined towards lust, she sits erect above the god of love - Madana, who shows signs of lustfulness, engaged in the act of love with his consort Rati. The image of Chinnamasta is a composite one, conveying reality as an amalgamation of sex, death, creation, destruction and regeneration. It is stunning representation of the fact that life, sex, and death are an intrinsic part of the grand unified scheme that makes up the manifested universe.

6) Bhairavi (the Goddess of Decay): Tripura Bhairavi is Supreme Energy, Supreme Goddess of speech, as Tapas, as woman warrior. Her head garlanded with flowers, she resembling the red rays of 1,000 rising suns, smeared with red, holding milk, book, dispelling fears and giving boons with her four hands, large three eyes, beautiful face with a slow smile, wearing white gems. Bhairavi embodies the principle of destruction and arises or becomes present when the body declines and decays. She is an ever-present goddess who manifests herself in, and embodies, the destructive aspects of the world. Destruction, however, is not always negative, creation cannot continue without it.

7) Dhoomavati (the Goddess who widows Herself): The colour of smoke ("dhoom"), wearing smoky clothes, holding a winnowing basket, disheveled clothes, deceitful, always trembling, with slant eyes, inspiring fear, terrifying, sitting in a chariot, with the symbol of a raven on her chariot-flag. Symbolically, she has devoured her own husband Lord Shiva in hunger, and hence, in the form of a lusterless widow. This symbolizes the supremacy of the Devi (Nature) over all other forces (even Shiva, who himself is the cosmic force of destruction). She is the great death of the death himself. She is the embodiment of "unsatisfied desires". Her status as a widow itself is curious. She makes herself one by swallowing Shiva, an act of self-assertion, and perhaps independence.

8) Bagala (the Goddess who seizes the Tongue): Bagala or Bagalamukhi is the eighth Mahavidya in the famous series of the 10 Mahavidyas.She is identified with the second night of courage and is the power or Shakti of cruelty. She is described as the Devi with three eyes, wearing yellow clothes and gems, moon as her diadem, wearing champaka blossoms, with one hand holding the tongue of an enemy and with the left hand spiking him, thus should you meditate on the paralyser of the three worlds. Bagalamukhi means "The Crane-Headed One". This bird is thought of as the essence of deceit. She rules magic for the suppression of an enemy's gossip. These enemies also have an inner meaning, and the peg she puts through the tongue may be construed as a peg or paralysis of our own prattling talk. She rules deceit which is at the heart of most speech. She can in this sense be considered as a terrible or Bhairavi form of Matrika Devi, the mother of all speech. According to Todala Tantra, her male consort is Maharudra. Seated on the right of Bagala is the Maharudra, with one face, who dissolves the universe. The pulling of the demon's tongue by Bagalamukhi is both unique and significant. Tongue, the organ of speech and taste, is often regarded as a lying entity, concealing what is in the mind. The Bible frequently mentions the tongue as an organ of mischief, vanity and deceitfulness. The wrenching of the demon's tongue is therefore symbolic of the Goddess removing what is in essentiality a perpetrator of evil.

9) Matangi (the Goddess who Loves Pollution): Dusky, beautiful browed, her three eyes like lotuses, seated on a jeweled lion-throne, surrounded by gods and others serving her, holding in her four lotus-like hands a noose and a sword, a shield and a goad, thus I remember Matangi, the giver of results, the Modini. Texts describing her worship specify that devotees should offer her uccishtha (leftover food) with their hands and mouths stained with leftover food; that is, worshippers should be in a state of pollution, having eaten and not washed. This is a dramatic reversal of the usual protocols. She is the ninth Mahavidya.

10) Kamala (the Goddess of creation, sustenance and prosperity): Kamala, the tenth, or the last of the Mahavidyas, is with a smiling face. Her beautiful lily-white hands hold two lotuses, and show the mudras of giving and dispelling fear. She is bathed in ambrosia by four white elephants and stands upon a beautiful lotus. She is the real embodiment of Goddess Lakshmi ("Kamalekamini"), the consort of Lord Vishnu. The name Kamala means "she of the lotus" and is a common epithet of Goddess Lakshmi. Lakshmi is linked with three important and interrelated themes: prosperity and wealth, fertility and crops, and good luck during the years to come.

At the end: In their strong associations with death, violence, pollution, and despised marginal social roles, they call into question such normative social "goods" as worldly comfort, security, respect, and honor. The worship of these goddesses suggests that the devotee experiences a refreshing and liberating spirituality in all that is forbidden by established social orders. The central aim here is to stretch one's consciousness beyond the conventional, to break away from approved social norms, roles, and expectations. By subverting, mocking, or rejecting conventional social norms, the adept seeks to liberate his or her consciousness from the inherited, imposed, and probably inhibiting categories of proper and improper, good and bad, polluted and pure. Living one's life according to rules of purity and pollution and caste and class that dictate how, where, and exactly in what manner every bodily function may be exercised, and which people one may, or may not, interact with socially, can create a sense of imprisonment from which one might long to escape. Perhaps the more marginal, bizarre, "outsider" goddesses among the Mahavidyas facilitate this escape. By identifying with the forbidden or the marginalized, an adept may acquire a new and refreshing perspective on the cage of respectability and predictability. Indeed a mystical adventure, without the experience of which, any spiritual quest would remain incomplete.

Joyo Joyo Durge Durgotonashini.

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