Durga's Secret: Everyone Lives on the Edge in Fear

by Devdutt Pattanaik

Only invoking the mind without domesticating nature is the trait of Shiva, the withdrawn hermit. Only domesticating nature without invoking the mind is the trait of Brahma, who manifests as Daksha, the controlling priest. This tension between mind and nature is a key theme of the Puranas.

She is Brahma’s defiant daughter, Vishnu’s protected and protective sister, and Shiva’s affectionate wife. Her affection cannot be taken for granted. She will not be exploited. Domestication of the Goddess (nature) must be mirrored with the awakening of God (mind).

Typically cultures use rules and laws (niti) and traditional codes of conduct (riti) to stifle freedom for the larger good. But this can destroy creativity and innovation and even introspection. It can amplify our sense of entrapment. So it is important to retain the wildness of nature, which offers the promise of freedom.

This rejection of complete domestication is symbolically communicated through the unbound hair of Durga.

Traditionally, well-combed and bound hair indicates domestication. But Durga, dressed in bridal finery, sports unbound hair. She thus stands on the edge, between nature and culture, acknowledging our fear of lawless freedom as well as lawful entrapment.

Nothing lasts forever. Nothing ends forever. Everything comes back. Everything goes back. It grants solace and hope to the villagers who are facing sorrow. It also warns those who are enjoying fortune not to take things for granted.

Durga thus is the jigsaw puzzle whose parts come from the different devas. They are ‘parts’ and she is the ‘whole’. She is not the daughter of one deva, she is the daughter of all devas; she is ayonija, born without a womb, with no mother of her own. This establishes her as Mahadevi, the goddess of the gods, just as Shiva is Mahadeva, god of the gods. Thus the Puranas acknowledge her sovereignty. She is, like Shiva and Vishnu, swayambhu or self-created.

The problem with this reading is that here the warrior is a woman and it is hard for scholars to reconcile Vedic patriarchy with the obvious female power embedded in the Durga image.

Mahisha-asura’s defeat is not viewed as submission but as realisation: he breaks free from his limited self-indulgent view of the world and internalises the bigger picture. This is called uddhar, or upliftment.

In some parts of the Deccan, in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, the priest who serves the Goddess is called Pothraj, and he typically belongs to non-brahmin communities. At times, the priests dress as women and carry the sacred pot on their head.

Ultimately, for culture to happen, domestication has to be voluntary, born of love, not the desire to control.

At the heart of the ambiguous relationship of the grama-devi with her male attendants is humanity’s relationship with nature. Humans establish culture by domesticating nature. The process of domestication is a violent one: rivers are blocked, forests are burned, and mountains are razed. In mythological terms, the mother is violated to create the daughter.

It is the ability to empathise with the world around, with nature and with fellow humans, that keeps human cupidity and stupidity in check.

Both the body and the head of Renuka are objects of worship, especially in the Deccan region of India. Known variously as Yellamma or Huligamma,

devadasi cult, women who were not bound by limitations of marriage. While this was meant to give these women freedom to choose lovers without losing social standing, it often ended up making them prostitutes as they were denied all sources of wealth.

there is the story of Shilavati, who is able to stop even the sun from rising using the power of chastity. Chastity even makes a wife more powerful than the gods, as we learn from the story of Anasuya.

Anasuya, the chaste wife of Atri.

When Vrinda’s husband, an asura called Jalandhar, was killed by devas, everyone accused her of infidelity.

Vishnu was cursed into the shaligrama stone for his overzealous determination to save the devas,

So in south India, Draupadi is worshipped just like other grama-devis as Amman, the mother, who is terrifying and needs appeasement.

Shiva is meditating and so get pregnant because of Shiva’s power that percolates into the water. Their husbands accuse them of infidelity and cast them out of the house. They abort the foetuses in their bodies and go into the forest. The aborted foetuses set the forest afire. When the flames die out, the six foetuses merge into a single child — the warlord Skanda also known as Murugan.

They will have the power to cause miscarriages and kill children with measles, pox and cholera.

Thus, outside the village, often associated with the gramadevi herself, are shrines of goddesses associated with disease and death. They are called Jari-Mari, she who makes the body hot and feverish, or Shitala,

The worship of Shitala is an interesting facet of Hinduism. In most cultures, the undesirable is wiped out. But in Hinduism, the undesirable is also considered valid and given due dignity.