The Goddess in Indian Religion

One of the unique features of Hindu religion is the existence of goddesses. Someone (I forget who) once said that, "India thinks in images". If this is true then the tradition of the divine female must surely be the highest form of art.

The Goddess sits upon a mountain, demure, terrible in her beauty: for she is both sensual and loving and yet as sharp and deadly as a blade. Demons woo her, men run mad in love of her, yet she is as immutable and unmoveable as the very rock upon which She sits. A light in the darkness, She can forgive or slay at the stroke of Her hand: She offers security and protection with Her smiles, in Her anger none can stand before Her, the armies of demons are as nothing. She demands blood as a sacrifice. She finds pleasure in battle. She is the loving creator. She is mother, wife and lover. To lie between Her thighs would be to die in the heat of Her fierce passion. Her love, like fever, is too hot, yet I would die without it.

This web site is devoted to Her, the history and development of Her worship in India, and an analysis of some of Her more important forms.

The History of Goddess Worship

The Pre-Vedic Period

Little is known about the religions of the earliest Indian civilisations of the Indus valley (characterised by the city-states of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro). Archaeological finds are scarce, but suggest that various unnamed goddess figures existed. These were associated with fertility, nature and rivers, much in the same way as the European mother goddess of a similar period, Danu (whose name is found in the root of many European rivers: the Danube, the Don etc.). It is mere speculation, but convincing nonetheless, that this Indus religion is reflected in the traditions that continued under the Dravidian societies of South India and amongst the 'tribal' peoples; and which as we shall see had a great influence in later Hindu religious culture revivals.

The Aryan Migration and the Vedic Period

From about the second millennium BCE onwards a peoples called the Aryans migrated from Persia into Northern India, displacing and overriding any indigenous cultures. The numbers of Aryans were small, but they rapidly occupied the top elements of society creating the caste (from 'varna'- colour) system which assured Aryan overlordship. The religion that they brought with them was enshrined in the sacred Vedas (initially hymns to the gods or devas), and shared many common features with the religions of other migrating Indo-Europeans of the period. These Indo-Iranians and Indo-European peoples shared a religion which was sky centred and male dominated (parallels can be drawn with the Norse Odin, Greek Zeus, Persian Mithra and Aryan Indra, male sky-god figures). The Vedas themselves are noticeable for their silence on the subject of goddesses. Those that exist (such as Vac, goddess of speech and Ursas, goddess of the dawn) are peripheral and take no part in the all important sacrifice rituals of the Brahmins (priests) who ruled society.

The End of the Vedic Period

By the beginning of the first century CE the action-centred religion of the Brahmins had given way to a richer, more speculative religious philosophy contained in texts called Upanisads. The Brahmins appeared to have lost some of their authority (though they were still in overall control of society) to the warrior (Kshatriya) caste. These warriors more readily mixed with peripheral Pre-Aryan Indian societies, and the Hindu notions of Brahman (a supreme reality or truth beyond the material world), Samsara (the eternal cycle of rebirth), and Moksa (release from this cycle by attaining knowledge of the truth) may well have developed as a result. The resultant religion, Brahmanism, may well have been an attempt to fit these foreign ideas into the Vedic tradition and keep the Brahmins in control of religion.

The Puranic Period and Medieval India

The rise of separate kingdoms among the Aryan rulers, the spread of foreign (to them) ideas and the failure of the Aryans to dominate the Dravidian kingdoms of South India led to a revival of older traditions. At the same time, there was a flowering of a style of epic, courtly storytelling (similar to European stories of chivalry). From Southern India there swept northwards a wave of popular religious revivalism called bhakti, which emphasised religious devotion to a loving god, over jnana, the realisation of god through philosophical study. This combined with the epic style to produce the puranas, religious stories of myths about the gods. The gods who dominated had distinctly pre-Aryan overtones, such as Visnu and Siva, and contained strong elements of monotheism (belief in only one god) amongst their adherents. Around 500 CE a new figure exploded onto the religious scene, the Goddess. In a Purana called the Devi-Mahatmya (the glorification of the Goddess), she received a platform of respectability and appeal in formal religious society which hitherto local goddesses had been unable to enjoy. In the Devi-Mahatmya, the goddess was represented as an independent figure and the supreme deity. Around her local and regional goddesses were either subsumed into her tradition, or else married off (literally) to the greater male gods. The triad of major male gods (the trimurti) now had consorts; Visnu's wife was Laksmi, goddess of fortune and wealth, Brahma's consort was Sarasvati, goddess of knowledge and music (and a river; see pre-Vedic period) and Siva's partner was Parvati, herself part of a complex of goddesses leading back to the Devi herself. Krsna took a lover in the form of Radha, and the goddess Ganga (another river!) married both Visnu and Siva!

Continuing trends

The figure of the goddess enjoys an ability to synthesise traditions far above those of the male deities around her. The independent, fierce goddesses can combine with their married sisters to form larger groups, such as that of the Parvati-Durga-Kali complex. She can thus be the subordinate socially acceptable wife; the independent less orthodox warrior goddess; and the focus of esoteric cults of possession and blood sacrifice. All the goddesses, regional and national can be drawn together by tradition to form aspects of one single deity, the supreme Mahadevi, the Great Goddess. She has not only a religious tradition of her own, but also shares in the religious movements of the male gods to whom she is married. At a philosophical level her many forms can represent the power, skate, of both the individual gods, and the mother of the universe as a whole: Brahman, the ultimate source of everything.