Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John S. Hawley is Professor of Religion at Barnard College and Director of the the National Resource Center for South Asia at Columbia University. Donna M. Wulff is Professor of Religion at Brown University. Together they edited The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India (1986).

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Devi

University of California Press

There are multiple dimensions to posing the apparently straightforward question of who is the Great Goddess of India, the Devi, and how she is related to other Hindu deities. Depending on who is asking the question, and who is answering it, very different features of divinity, both male and female, come to the fore. At least two reasons exist for the easy, but multifaceted, coexistence of oneness and manyhess that we observe in Hindu conceptions of Devi. One is the richness of vision that the classic text of Hindu Goddess worship, the Devi Mahatmya , offers; the other is the variety of significances that have been ascribed to this text in the Indian context. It is the purpose of this essay to explore the former of thesethe vision of the Devi Mahatmya in some detail and then to indicate some of the larger interpretive issues.

It has long been recognized, by both devotees and academics, that the Devi Mahatmya is a text of unique significance to the Hindu religious tradition. The text, which forms a portion of one of the early Sanskrit Puranas, the Markandeya , was probably composed in or somewhat north of the Narmada river valley sometime in the fifth or sixth century C.E .1 Yet it is no mere antiquarian curiosity. The Devi Mahatmya has, through the centuries, been copied by the faithful with such regularity that it now exists in virtually innumerable manuscripts. Its recitation forms part of the daily liturgy in temples dedicated to Durga, as well as occupying a central place in the great autumnal festival of Durga Puja.2 In a lecture delivered in 1840, H. H. Wilson ranked it "amongst the most popular works in the Sanskrit language," and to this day its hymns, in particular, are familiar to vast numbers of Hindus.3 In 1823 it became the second Puranic text ever translated into a European language (English).4 By the turn of the century excerpts had appeared in

French, and another full English translation had been produced, along with one in Latin and one in Greek.5

Of the various features of the Devi  Mahatmya , one stands preeminent. The ultimate reality in the universe is here understood to be feminine: Devi, the Goddess.6 Moreover, the Devi  Mahatmya appears to be the first Sanskrit text to provide a comprehensiveindeed, well-nigh relentlessarticulation of such a vision. From the time of the Rig Veda onward, of course, various goddesses had figured in Sanskrit tradition. But never before had ultimate reality itself been understood as Goddess.

Since the Goddess's varied and often highly nuanced relationship to male deities is particularly revealing of her nature, we shall first explore three "moments"one from each of the three episodes in the Devi  Mahatmya that present this relationship in a particularly vivid fashion. As we shall see, although Devi is understood to bear a special relation to each particular deity, this is never a mere consort relation. She is beyond being a consort to anyone. Then, in an effort to situate the Devi  Mahatmya in the broader realm of Indian religious history, we will consider how certain of its myths and symbols had previously been employed in Sanskrit. As it turns out, certain affinities exist between the worship of Devi, as ex-pounded in the Devi  Mahatmya , and other, quite various theological currents involving Agni and Skanda, Siva, Visnu, and Krishna Gopala. Finally, against the backdrop of this inquiry into the text's content and historical context, we shall take brief note of the ongoing hermeneutics of the Devi Mahatmya , exploring how later Hindus and others have engaged with the text and its vision.

Three Moments in Devi's Identity

The structure of the Devi Mahatmya is both simple and beautifully symmetrical, consisting of a frame story and three myths that tell of Devi's various salvific activities. The first half of the frame story recounts how a king and a merchant, beset by mundane adversity, seek refuge from the turmoils of the world by retiring to the forest. There they encounter a sage, who informs them that their woes are due to the power of mahamaya , a term that can mean either "she who possesses great deceptiveness" or "she who is the great deception." Pressed for further details, the sage then recounts the three myths. The first, that of Madhu and Kaitabha, offers a succinct delineation of the cosmic status of Devi. The second, a more extensive account of her origins on earth and her initial martial activities, culminates in her conquest of the dread buffalo-demon Mahisa. The third and longest myth is an exuberant celebration of her various forms and their role in her victory over the minions of the demons Sumbha and Nisumbha. Finally, in the second half of the frame story, we learn how the king and the merchant then worship

Devi. Their devotion merits her appearance, and she proceeds to answer their prayers.

The feature of the first episode that commands our attention here is its characterization of Devi as mahamaya , a designation that should probably be understood as a proper name. A preliminary indication of its significance can be found in the words with which the sage describes the goddess to the woebegone king and merchant:

O best of men, human beings have a craving for offspring, out of greed expecting those [loved ones] to reciprocate; do you not see this? Just in this fashion do they fall into the pit of delusion, the maelstrom of egotism, giving [apparent] solidity to life in this world (samsara ) through the power of Mahamaya.....This blessed Devi Mahamaya, having forcibly seized the minds, even of men of knowledge, leads them to delusion.... She is [also] the supreme eternal knowledge (vidya ) that becomes the cause of release (mukti ) from bondage to mundane life. (1.39-40, 42, 44)7

The Devi  Mahatmya seems here to reflect the view of the early Upanisads that it is mystical knowledge of ultimate truth that extricates one from the process of rebirth. But something else is clearly afoot as well, for Devi is not simply the knowledge that sets one free. She is also the great illusion (mahamaya ) that keeps one bound. The Devi  Mahatmya is not given to systematic philosophical exposition, so it does not endeavor to resolve this paradox. Rather, it rejoices in it, for paradox is close to the heart of the Devi  Mahatmya's view of Devi. In this regard, two features of earlier Sanskrit usage of the word maya help clarify what the Devi  Mahatmya means when it calls Devi "Mahamaya."

First, the word maya is as old as the Rig Veda , where it means "wile" or "magic power," a power that is frequently associated with the asuras , beings who, in all but the earliest strata of Sanskrit literature, are understood as enemies of the gods (deva s). If maya is thus associated with the demons, we might expect the Devi  Mahatmya to affirm that she who is Mahamaya is also the great demoness. This turns out to be precisely the manner in which Devi is praised later in this same episode: "You are the great knowledge, the great illusion, the great insight, the great memory, and [also] the great delusion, the great Goddess (mahadevi ), the great Demoness (mahasuri )" (1.58). To say that Devi is Mahamaya is thus to affirm that she is indeed Goddess, but it is also to affirm that she transcends the conventional distinction between devas and asuras .8

The second conceptual...