Dhumavati
The tantric goddess Dhumavati ( Sanskrit धूमावती Dhūmāvatī "the smoker ") is one of the ten Mahavidyas (one of the ten "great knowledges" who personify the Shakti Shivas and have certain Siddhis ) as well as the district goddess ( mohalla devi ) of Benares . She can be thought of as an avatar of Parvati . Dhumavati is the goddess of widows and the socially outcast. Within the tantric Mahavidya group, in which she is always named seventh, she occupies an extraordinary, special position and embodies the terrifying aspect of the feminine-divine. Outside the fixed circle of the Mahavidyas, Dhumavati has developed little life of its own. It is only mentioned in Tantric scriptures. Since the Mahavidyas were occasionally equated with the Avatars of Vishnu , Dhumavati appears partly as the divine mother at the time of the flood and is related to Matsya . Dhumavati is the only Mahavidya without a husband, she is Shakti without Shiva. She is the eternally thirsty and hungry sufferer and thus embodies unsatisfied needs. It is particularly closely related to misery, poverty, deprivation, hopelessness, despair, impurity, humiliation, defeat, loss, disappointment, frustration, misery, illness and suffering. Dhumavati stands for the superiority of the power of nature over all other forces and thus for the invincibility of death. It has considerable ugra (violent) potential. In medieval tantric sources it is associated with the destruction, domination, damage, banishment, paralysis and rendering harmless of enemies ( uccatana ). There it is viewed exclusively and uniformly as dangerous, threatening, warlike, destructive, ominous and frightening. Your siddhi is death. Dhumavati personifies the destruction of the world by fire when only the smoke from the ashes remains. Despite its predominantly ominous character, it is also given positive names and characteristics in its 1000-name hymn . In it she appears in the morning as a young girl, during the day as married and in the evening as a widow. There it is also linked to the granting of offspring. Hard on the outside, she is described as compassionate and soft-hearted on the inside.
The Goddess is lonely, sad, harmful, insecure, rough, inaccessible, sullen, dissatisfied, indifferent, tormented, brittle, inconsistent, envious, malicious, tense, greedy and easily angry and, according to some sources, has an enormous sexual appetite. She likes to start arguments and cause misunderstandings. Dhumavati exists in the form of smoke and like this it can move anywhere. It represents the adhesion to everything earthly and thus embodies the guna of the Tamas ("ignorance, indolence, darkness, negative forces") and represents the dissatisfaction resulting from it. Dhumavati refers to the nullity of worldly needs and comprehensive knowledge and thus becomes the goddess of illusion ( Maya ). It should be able to defeat its enemies with stinging smoke, and it can also hide its adepts in it. Dhumavati's nicknames are: Alakshmi ("misfortune"), Daridra ("poverty"), Vidhiva ("widow"), Nirrti ("misery") and Jyestha ("the oldest").
History of origin / Dhumavati's birth
The Puranas provide various clues to the origin of Dhumavati, which explain their character, the meaning of their name, their widow status and their characteristics.
According to tradition, Dhumavati is said to have originated from the (unclean) smoke of the goddess Sati , Shiva's first wife, throwing herself into the sacrificial fire , hence her name. As a result, Satis negative emotions that she felt at the moment of the burn passed on to Dhumavati.
Another popular myth relates the following: Sati once asked her husband Shiva for something to eat because she was terribly hungry. Shiva refused to do this several times, ignoring her needs. Sati became angry, smoke rose from her body, whereupon Sati simply devoured him in an act of self-assertion and independence, thus making himself a widow. But the god was able to convince her to spit it out again. He then cursed her and condemned her to live in the form of the goddess Dhumavati, the eternal widow. From then on, their existence should be permanently marked by calamity, suffering and even torment.
One day Daksha Shiva refused to participate in the sacrifice, probably because of his unconventional ascetic lifestyle. When Sati found out about this, she wanted to go there without him. But because of feared confrontations, he refused her permission to go to her father's Daksha Festival of Sacrifice without him . All her efforts to persuade her husband were in vain. She even took the form of a terrifying goddess. Shiva tries to end the ongoing discussion abruptly and therefore wants to leave the room. Then Sati fell into anger and rage, multiplied himself and divided himself into the ten Mahavidyas in order to block the exit for Shiva and thus encircle him. It was distributed in all ten "cardinal points" (the eight geographic main and secondary directions as well as zenith and nadir ). Shiva was put in fear and humility and finally gave in, so that Parvati still achieved her intended goal. Dhumavati is located in the southeast.
Iconography and symbolism
Dhumavati is always portrayed as an old, plain, pale, dirty, sick, careworn, neglected, emaciated, unadorned, terrible, terrifying and ugly widow with drooping, dry, long breasts and trembling hands. Your nose is big, long and crooked. The ears are long. Your face is full of wrinkles. Her hair is gray, wild, open and tousled. Dhumavati has no teeth or gaps in its mouth. She has a hard, sinister, first expression on her face. She is gray in body color due to her association with smoke. Sometimes it is said to have a penetrating smell. Your body is covered in sweat. The goddess is half blind. She wears a white, worn robe that she is said to have removed from a corpse at the cremation site. She is said to chew bones in her mouth, the noise is said to be terrible. She makes the noises of drums and bells, which are frightening and warlike. She is sitting on a wagon, but no draft animals are harnessed to it. This can be interpreted as the hopelessness of the social position of widows and parias in society. Dhumavati is on the margins or outside of society. She cannot move and is to a certain extent trapped in her social situation. Your car literally leads into nowhere, into the void. This also means that she is free from the restrictions and obligations that are placed on married women. She is free to pursue spiritual pursuits such as pilgrimages, which she was unable to do in her young married days. She is also to be interpreted as the liberating figure of the widows, who in Hinduism are assigned exclusively negative characteristics, are considered ominous and dangerous, are supposed to cause anger and are feared and avoided due to their uncontrolled sexuality, among other things.
She has her home on cremation sites, abandoned houses and ruins and places such as deserts, forests, wilderness or mountains, in the wounds of the world, in smoke, misery, hunger and thirst, disease, women and especially widows, in grieving children or in quarrels . Her symbolic animal is the vulture or the crow, which also sits on her wagon or can be seen there as a banner, as a scavenger represents a symbol of death and is associated with dark, negative forces, evil and black magic. In her hands she often holds a begging bowl ( kalasa ), sometimes rice cubes or a sword, and a basket with which she separates the wheat from the chaff (symbolically the true from the untrue). The almost only friendly traits that she shows in pictures are the gesture of granting a wish ( varada mudra ) indicated by her right hand or the mudra of the destruction of fear ( abhayamudra ).
Ritual and worship
Dhumavati enjoys particular reverence among unpaired unmarried members of society such as bachelors, prostitutes, widows, ascetics and tantrics. For their veneration it is prescribed that it must be done naked and at night, in silence with wild hair in cremation sites, forests, mountains, in the wilderness and in deserted, lonely, wild, uncivilized, remote, dangerous areas and is associated with fasting. It is to be celebrated on the 14th day of the dark half of the month on moonless nights. The goddess has a particular fondness for blood, meat and alcohol. She prefers offerings that are burned in smoky fire. Her adepts hope to be saved from worldly problems through their worship, the bestowal of blessings, the fulfillment of every wish, salvation ( moksha ) and their enemies to be defeated. Their worship should evoke a feeling of loneliness and lead to the renunciation of all worldly, material needs, as well as arouse sudden anger. To venerate her, the eternal widow, the embodiment of impurity and the ominous, allows the believer to recognize the unity behind the supposed division of the world and the true nature of life, in which there is no distinction between purity, impurity, salvation and evil, good and evil gives and that is without name and form. Dhumavati's ugly figure and its social exclusion should teach the believer to look inward through the superficial gaze, to recognize the inner truth and free him from all fear. The Goddess is said to bring immortality and redemption to those who overcome the fear of death. Dhumavati's mantra is "Dhum Dhum, Dhumavati, svaha" . This mantra, written with poison on a shroud, is said to lead to the destruction of enemies. According to other texts, a crow is to be burned in cremation places and, while the mantra of the goddess is repeated over and over, the ashes are then distributed in the enemy's house, which is said to lead to its immediate destruction. Widows who are under their special protection are said to be the only ones who can withstand their power. According to Tantric texts, Dhumavati surrounds her followers with smoke to protect them from enemies, death and negativity.
Development in the history of religion / The temple of Dhupcandi
In modern Hinduism , Dhumavati's gentle and kind traits predominate. She has risen from an originally elitist tantric goddess to the goddess of a district ( mohala ) in contemporary Benares ( Varanasi ). In her temple there in Dhupcandi , however, she is by no means venerated in her terrible form, but as a benevolent, caring, peaceful, mild, accessible, protective and sometimes even maternal goddess. There she is responsible for the protection and general welfare of her devotees, mainly for that of the family. In the Murtis dedicated to her there, she is not depicted as a widow, but as a beautiful, happy, married woman adorned with flowers and jewelry. Her pujaris in the temple include tantric worshipers as well as married couples who beg for offspring (usually male children) and the fulfillment of worldly desires. In addition to typical tantric offerings such as cigarettes, hashish, alcohol, blood and meat, flowers, fruits, incense and other common offerings are also offered to her there. Its original tantric meaning is hardly recognizable there. Instead, as for many Hindu deities, some of which are dangerous, the goddess is becoming increasingly “sweetened”. She appears to be integrated into the Panhindu, Puran pantheon and adapted to the great goddess Mahadevi .
The temple also has a local Dhumavati origin myth which explains its importance precisely in this place. According to myth, satis charred body parts (pitha) were distributed across the country after they self- immolated . Each part of the body - 10 in total - is associated with the emergence of a particular Mahavidya. Dhumavati's head is said to have fallen where the famous temple of Dhupcandi now stands. Their emergence is said to have preceded that of all other Mahavidyas.
literature
- Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From the Tantric Origin to the Godhead of a district of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, pages 1–189
- Kinsley, David R. (1997). Tantric visions of the divine feminine: the ten mahāvidyās. University of California Press. Dhumavati ISBN 978-0-520-20499-7 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From Tantric Origin to the Godhead of a District of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, pp. 39, 40
- ↑ Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From Tantric Origin to the Godhead of a District of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, pp. 39, 40
- ↑ Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From Tantric Origin to Godhead of a District of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, page 189
- ↑ Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From Tantric Origin to the Godhead of a District of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, page 35
- ↑ Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From the Tantric Origin to the Godhead of a District of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, pages 189–192
- ↑ Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From Tantric Origin to the Godhead of a District of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, pp. 39, 40
- ↑ Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From Tantric Origin to the Godhead of a District of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, pp. 39, 40
- ↑ Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From Tantric Origin to the Godhead of a District of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, pp. 39, 40
- ↑ Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From the Tantric Origin to the Godhead of a District of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, pages 181–188
- ↑ Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From the Tantric Origin to the Godhead of a District of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, pages 181–188
- ↑ Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From the Tantric Origin to the Godhead of a District of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, page 48
- ↑ Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From the Tantric Origin to the Godhead of a District of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, pages 181–188
- ↑ Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From Tantric Origin to Godhead of a District of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, page 5
- ↑ Xenia Zeiler, The Goddess Dhumavati: From Tantric Origin to the Godhead of a District of Benares, Saarbrücken: Verlag deutscher Hochschulschriften 2011, page 136