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DEVI UPANISHAD

Translated by Dr. A. G. Krishna Warrier

Om ! Gods ! With ears let us hear what is good;

Adorable ones ! With eyes let us see what is good.

With steady limbs, with bodies, praising,

Let us enjoy the life allotted by the gods.

May Indra, of wide renown, grant us well-being;

May Pusan, and all-gods, grant us well-being.

May Tarksya, of unhampered movement, grant us well-being.

May Brihaspati grant us well-being.

Om ! Peace ! Peace ! Peace !

1. All the gods waited upon the Goddess (and asked): ‘Great Goddess, who art Thou ?’

2. She replied: I am essentially Brahman. From Me (has proceeded) the world comprising Prakriti and Purusha, the void and the Plenum. I am (all forms of) bliss and non-bliss. Knowledge and ignorance are Myself. Brahman and non-Brahman are to be known – says the scripture of the Atharvans.

3. I am the five elements as also what is different from them. I am the entire world. I am the Veda as well as what is different from it. I am the unborn; I am the born. Below and above and around am I.

4. I move with Rudras and Vasus, with Adityas and Visvedevas. Mitra and Varuna, Indra and Agni, I support, and the two Asvins.

5. I uphold Soma, Tvastir, Pusan and Bhaga,

The wide-stepping Vishnu, Brahma, Prajapati.

6. To the zealous sacrificer offering oblation

And pressing the Soma-juice do I grant wealth;

I am the state, the Bringer of Wealth;

Above it all, place I its protector.

7. Whoso knows my essence in the water of the inner sea, Attains he the Goddess’s abode.

8. Those gods said:

Salutation to the Goddess, the great Goddess !

To Siva, the auspicious, salutation, for ever more.

To blessed Prakriti, salutation !

Ever to Her we bow.

9. Refuge I seek in Her who is the colour of fire,

Burning with ascetic ardour, Goddess resplendent,

Delighting in actions’ fruits; O Thou, hard to reach,

Dispel Thy gloom.

10. The gods engendered divine Speech;

Her, beasts of all forms speak;

The cow that yields sweet fruits and vigour –

To us may lauded Speech appear.

11. To holy Siva, to Daksha’s daughter,

To Aditi and Sarasvati,

To Skanda’s Mother, Vishnu’s Power,

To Night of death by Brahma lauded,

We render obeisance.

12. Know we Great Lakshmi,

Goddess of good Fortune;

On all fulfilment do we meditate.

May the Goddess inspire us !

13. Through You, Dakshayani, was Aditi born;

She is your daughter; after her were born

The gods auspicious,

Friends of deathlessness.

14. Love, womb, love’s part, the bearer of the thunderbolt

The cave, ha-sa, the wind, the cloud, Indra;

Again the cave, sa-ka-la with Maya –

So runs the full primeval science begetting all.

15. This is the power of Self, enchanting all, armed with the noose, the hook, the bow and the arrow. This is the great and holy Science.

16. Who knows thus tides over grief.

17. Divine Mother ! Salutation to you; protect us in all possible ways.

18. She, here, is the eight Vasus, the eleven Rudras, the twelve Adityas, She is the all-gods, (those) who drink Soma and (those) who do not; she is the goblins, the demons, the evil beings, the ghosts; she also, beings super-human, the semi-divine. She is Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. She is Prajapati, Indra and Manu. She is the planets, stars and luminous spheres. She is the divisions of time, and the form of primeval Time. I salute Her ever:

19. Goddess who banishes distress

Grants pleasure and deliverance alike,

Infinite, victorious, pure,

Siva, Refuge, the Giver of good.

20. Seed all-powerful of the Goddess’ mantra,

Is sky, conjoined with ‘i’ and fire,

With crescent moon adorned.

21. On the single-syllabled mantra

Meditate the pure-hearted sages,

Supremely blissful;

Of wisdom the veriest oceans.

22. Fashioned by speech; born of Brahman; the sixth With face equipped; the sun; the left ear where The point is; the eighth and the third conjoint.

23. The air, with Narayana united,

And with the lip; vicce, the nine-lettered;

The letter, shall delight the lofty ones.

24. Seated in the lotus-heart,

Resplendent as the morning sun,

Goddess, bearing noose and hook,

With gesture granting boons, dissolving fears;

Tender, three-eyed, red-robed, granting devotees

Their hearts’ desires,

Thee I adore.

25. I bow to Thee, Goddess,

Thou dispeller of gravest fears,

Vanquisher of obstacles;

Thou wearer of great Mercy’s form.

26. Brahma and others know not Her essence; so is she called the Unknowable. She has no end; so is she called the Endless. She is not grasped and so is she called the Incomprehensible. Her birth is not known and so is she called the Unborn. She alone is present everywhere, and so is she called the One. She alone wears all forms, and so is she called the Many. For these reasons is she called the Unknowable, the Endless, the Incomprehensible, the Unknown, the One and the Many.

27. The Goddess is the source of all mantras:

Of all the words the knowledge is Her form.

Her conscious Form transcends all cognitions;

She is the witness of all emptiness.

28. Beyond Her is nothing; renowned is She

As unapproachable; afeared of life,

I bow to the inaccessible One,

Bulwark against all sins; the Pilot who

Steers me across the sea of worldly life.

29. He who studies this Atharva Upanishad gains the fruit of repeating five (other) Atharva Upanishads; he who, having mastered this Atharva Upanishad, persists in worship.

30. Of this vidya ten million chants

Are less than the worship’s fruit.

Eight and hundred recitations thereof

Make but this rite’s inauguration.

31. Who reads it but ten times,

Is released at once from sins;

Through the grace of the Goddess great,

Tides he over obstacles great.

32. Reading it in the morning one destroys the sins of the night; reading it in the evening one destroys the sins committed by day. Thus, reading both in the evening and morning, the sinner becomes sinless. Reading it midnight, too, the fourth ‘junction’, there results perfection of speech. Its recitation before a new image brings to it the presence of the deity. Its recitation at the time of consecration (of an image) makes it a centre of energy. Reciting it on Tuesday under the asterism Ashvini, in the presence of the great Goddess, one overcomes fell death – one who knows thus. This is the secret.

Om ! Gods ! With ears let us hear what is good;

Adorable ones ! With eyes let us see what is good.

With steady limbs, with bodies, praising,

Let us enjoy the life allotted by the gods.

May Indra, of wide renown, grant us well-being;

May Pusan, and all-gods, grant us well-being.

May Tarksya, of unhampered movement, grant us well-being.

May Brihaspati grant us well-being.

Om !(Shanti-Shanti-Shanti) Peace ! Peace ! Peace !

Here ends the Devi Upanishad, included in the Atharva-Veda.

Who is Kali anyway? (Mahavidya Series Pt. I)

Posted by jbertetta on September 9, 2014

Posted in: Archetypes, Hinduism, Mythology, Psychology, Religion and Spirituality. Tagged: America, Comparative Religion, Compassion, Evil, God, Hinduism, Joseph Campbell, Mythology, Peace, Society, Spirituality. 2 Comments

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Her name is synonymous with death, and time.

She wears a necklace of severed heads, holds one in her hand, and with her long, extended tongue she thirsts for blood.

Headless corpses piled on the ground behind her, she, her mighty blade raised aloft, (often) stands atop Siva and Parvati engaged in copulation.

This, my friends, is Kali.

When I introduce my Introduction to World Religions class to Kali, I ask for their first impressions. The most common responses I receive are “evil” and “bad.”

A natural response if you come from a Western tradition and immediately associate death with evil. But when it comes to Kali, nothing is further from the truth.

So as part of my “Who are the Gods anyway?” series of posts, today I write about Kali.

Now in no way do I presume this to be an exhaustive account of this amazing goddess (for an excellent treatment of Kali, see David Kinsely’s Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminineand his Tantric Visions of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahavidyas). After a brief introduction to Kali, I will discuss her place in the wider Mahavidya tradition, followed by a brief discussion of her symbolism, and wrap things up with a discussion of how the compassionate Kali is the goddess of ultimate peace and is an embodiment of supreme reality.

Introduction

The earliest references to Kali in the Hindu textual tradition go as far back to the early 7th century. Typically relegated to the battlefield or the fringes of society, she is primarily invoked in war for success against one’s enemies. Perhaps most famously, she is said to appear from the goddess Durga’s forehead in a battle against the demons Sumbha and Nisumbha. As such she represents Durga’s embodied fury. She is also said to spring forth from Parvati, Siva’s normally benign wife, when angered.

Kali is also featured in Tantrism, particularly “left-handed Tantrism” (Kinsley 122). While the Western world may be most familiar with the sexual aspects of Tantric practice, such is only the tip of the iceberg as intercourse is the physical embodiment of Tantric ideology which focuses on the “symbiotic interaction of male and female…polar opposites that in interaction produce a creative tension” (122). In many Tantric texts, Kali is “praised as the greatest of all deities or the highest reality” (122) and it is from this perspective that this treatment of Kali proceeds.

Mahavidya Tradition

That Kali is the supreme reality finds expression in the Mahavidya tradition and thus Kali is a natural place to begin a new series of posts on this group of ten goddesses who are collectively called the Mahavidyas, or transcendental wisdoms. These ten goddesses are related to time and, being related to time, can be understood as time in relation to the passing day as well as the greater time cycle in Hindu thought. Unlike the Western conception of linear time, Hindu time is cyclical: the cosmos is created, it is maintained, it is destroyed. Then there is a period of nothingness which is then followed by a new creation…So on and so on forever (which actually corresponds closely to what many physicists and cosmologists are suggesting today).

In essence, “the whole cycle of existence, like that of the day and night, can be divided into ten main parts” (Danielou 268). The ten Mahavidyas correspond to these ten main parts and Kali, she who represents time, death, and destruction, is synonymous with the eternal night: “Absolute time is the measure of an eternal night. The concentrations of energy which give rise to light, to divisible time, are only temporary phenomenon implying a location and some form of relative time” (269). Our days, our time on earth–that is our lives–are temporary, relative. Kali, as eternal night, is absolute and being absolute, then, is how is understood as supreme reality.

As eternal night, Kali is also known as Maha-Kali, the transcendent power of time. Since time (kala) is that “which dissociates all things,” she “represents the ‘energy’ or ‘power’ of time” (270-1).

Kali Symbolism

If a Westerner has had any exposure to the Hindu tradition, he or she has probably seen an image of Kali. No doubt, she can give rise to fear and may be considered disgusting if not down right evil. But Kali gives credence to the old adage “you can’t judge a book by its cover,” for while a “terrible goddess,” she is nothing short of limitless supreme bliss.

So how the hell can a goddess as ugly and scary as Kali embody supreme bliss, supreme reality, or, in Western terms, God?

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Corpses

As the transcendent power of time, Kali often stand upon a corpse or amid a pile of corpses. In other words, as she who “swallows all that exists,” she “stands upon ‘nonexistence'”  and the “lifeless body is indeed the symbol of whatever is left of the manifested universe when it reverts to the sole control of eternal time” while at the time of universal destruction (the death of the cosmos), “the Power of Time, the power of destruction, is all that remains” (Danielou 271). In other words, all that remains is Kali.

Four Arms

Almost all Hindu divinities in one image or another are depicted with four arms. In the case of Kali (and this could be extended to others), the four arms are the “directions of space identified with the complete cycle of time” (271). Four is a near universal symbol for totality and with her four arms Kali “stands as the symbol of fulfillment of all and of the absoluteness of her dominion over all that exists” (272).

Sword and Severed Head

Naturally, the sword is a symbol of destruction and it with her mighty weapon that Kali severs heads, reminding “all living beings that there is no escape” from time, Kali (272).

Kali’s Mudra

Despite her awesomeness and her terrible appearance, Kali does not want you to fear her. Hence the empty hand offering the removal of fear. “So long as there is existence, there is fear of destruction. Fear is inherent in all forms of existence,” but Kali, the “embodiment of that fear, while she herself is beyond fear…can protect from fear those who invoke her” (272).

The Giving Hand

Kali gives with her second empty hand. Since those things from which we derive pleasure in this world are transient, meaning they cannot give true, everlasting joy and happiness, “true happiness can only exist in that which is permanent” (272). Since Kali is that which is permanent, she “alone can grant happiness. Thus Kali is the giver of bliss” (272).

Black Color

Last but not least, we look at Kali’s blackness. Considering how Kali is understood as the Absolute, her blackness may be startling to a Western conception which associates black with evil and white with good, with God. Kali is dark “because she is the ultimate energy, in which all distinctions disappear…All shapes return to shapelessness in the all-pervading darkness of the eternal night” (273). In this vein of thinking then, white, which would be associated with light, corresponds to shape, form–the things of this world, material creation. But since material phenomenon are inherently transient, they are not eternal.

Kali as Compassion and Peace

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Now that Kali’s symbolism has been explored in brief, I end with this discussion by addressing how Kali is a goddess of compassion and peace. Taking the premise that Kali, as described, is Ultimate Reality, or God, I shall put the little pieces of the puzzle together and address the question “how can a goddess so terrible looking express compassion, peace, and bliss?”

So we have come to see that Kali embodies eternal night–the time of dissolution of all phenomenon–of death.

Let us begin with life. In life we form attachments to things, material things: phenomenon. We form attachments to things that bring us joy, happiness. The more happiness we experience with some thing, the more we grow attached to it. But, as discussed, these material things are not permanent. Thus the joys they bring us are not permanent.  But Kali is beyond attachments, she is beyond “things.”

We form attachments, in part, because we are, thanks to the force known as “maya” (commonly translated as “illusion”) deluded about their true nature. Why? Well this is where the heads come back in. Symbolically, the head is the seat of the I. In Western terms, we might call it “ego.” The Hindu tradition posits the existence of what is called “atman,” or the true self, true soul, which is itself an individual fragment of the universal soul, often called Brahman, or true reality. In the current context, Brahman is virtually synonymous with Kali. This universal soul “is the unity that links all individual beings” (Danielou 17). But of course we do not necessarily perceive the underlying unity of all phenomenon.

Why?

Maya, for one, as maya is the cosmic force that tricks us into perceiving the world in terms of individual forms and taking that for reality. Maya is what makes us see the world in terms of dualism: “For where there is a duality, one sees another, one smells another…one things of another,” so on and so forth (17). This breaking up of the world into its little bits is reinforced by the I, or ego, which is symbolized by the head. With reality  broken up into its little bits of material existence, this “I” forms attachments to things as well as the “I” itself. We become attached to the “I” and think that is who we truly are.

Thus while the universal soul (Brahman, Kali) “is a continuum which exists within and without all things,” the “‘I’ or individuality…is a ‘temporary know’, a ‘tying together'” (18-19). The “I,” then is not who or what we truly are either. This can be quite a startling thought to a Westerner, particularly in America where we often pride ourselves on our individuality.

So Kali is beyond attachments. We form attachments not just to things, but to the “I,” symbolized by the head. The joys that the I experiences through things, as mentioned, are impermanent and thus cannot truly satisfy. So in cutting off the head, Kali is destroying, killing the “I,” the false sense of individuality and thus destroying the attachments to the “I.” This theme can be found in Buddhism (doctrine of anatta) as well as in Sufism’s fana, meaning self-annihilation, the state in which one’s “I” is destroyed and one is absorbed into the one true reality: God. Such ideas can also be found in Christian and Jewish mystical traditions as well.

So the bliss that is Kali, the true bliss of the divine, and the true peace that is Kali is experienced with the lopping off of the head. To flip it around: as long as one remains attached to his or her “I” and unique sense of being “individual,” he or she will not experience true bliss, true happiness, or true peace.

But where does the compassion come in?

Here’s a hint: Look at Kali’s sword and put your answer in the comment section below…

Works Cited

Kinsely, David. Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition. Berkeley: U of CA P, 1986.

Who is Tara anyway? (Mahavidya Series Pt. II)

http://joshbertetta.wordpress.com/2014/09/09/who-is-kali-anyway-mahavidya-series-pt-i/

Posted by jbertetta on September 13, 2014

Posted in: Hinduism, Uncategorized. Tagged: Buddhism, Comparative Religion, God, Hinduism, Inspiration, Joseph Campbell, Mysticism, Mythology, Religion and Spirituality, Spirituality, Sufism. 3 Comments

If Kali, as described in my previous post, is the eternal night, Tara is the first light.

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Though she “does not figure prominently in the Hindu tradition,” she figures prominently in Tibetan Buddhism and Tara’s “appearance in the

list of the Mahavidyas can probably be explained, at least in part, by the religious communication that existed for centuries between Tibet and Bengal” (Kinsley 165). Even Hindu texts, such as the Lalita-upakkhyana state she should be worshipped in the Buddhist way (Danielou 277). Perhaps most popularly Tara is known in her beautiful form like that depicted to the right.

But in the Mahavidya tradition, the form she takes is, in many depictions, almost identical to Kali and thus is considered in her terrible form.

“Standing firmly with her left foot forward resting on a corpse,” begins the Tara Tantra, “she laughs loudly…Her hands hold a sword, a blue lotus, a dagger, and a begging blow…Her matted tawny hair is bound with poisonous blue snakes” (qtd. in Danielou 277).

As the first light, Tara, whose name means “star,” “is the power of the Golden Embryo…the first cosmic location from which the world develops” (Danielou 274, emphasis added). The appearance of this light signals, then, the opening process of creation and “as soon as the germ of life appears, hunger is born” and the “embryo wants only food” (ibid.). Tara is this hunger and it is through this hunger, through “devouring some fuel, some food, can the universe survive and develop” (ibid.). Moreover, this ceaseless hunger is the source of material existence and this hunger is named “The Star,” that is, Tara (Danielou 275).

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While the name Tara means “star,” Tantric etymology takes it to mean “that which leads to the other shore” and thus “she who brings us to the other shore is Tara” (275), the latter of which brings us to a place in which to engage in a little religious dialogue (see below).

As this embryo, Tara has a dual aspect. As the all-devouring embryo, she is terrible; yet, in finding satisfaction she is pacified and thus luminous.

So who is Tara anyway?

The hunger that is Tara need not be confined to the literal hunger for food. Hunger for anything can be considered as such:

“The search for knowledge, the desire for strength, are also forms of hunger. All that leads man toward his goal comes therefore under the form of a desire, a hunger, and is part of the kingdom of Tara” (275).

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According to the Taratyanaya sa tara, Tara is “she who brings us to the other shore” (qtd in. Danielou 275). Such understanding situates Tara within the Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya, of the The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom, commonly known as the  Sutra, one of the most important Mahayana Buddhist texts, the mantra of which is gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā, translated as “gone gone, gone beyond, gone beyond the other shore.” 

The authors of Physicians of the Heart, my primary source for my posts on the 99 Names of Allah, suggest Mutakabbir, the 10th Divine Name, which is the “path to vastness, an ever expanding cosmic wave removing all boundaries…corresponds to the mantra for the Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra” (Meyer et al. 41-2). With Mutakabbir there is “the continual action of going beyond” (42).

Thus much like Tara’s hunger is endless, she always seeks more, and her consuming is always expanding. She finds (temporary) satisfaction, only to need more and thus we have a dynamic interplay of desire-satisfaction-more (or expanding) desire.  To achieve satisfaction implies a fullness; to desire suggests an absence that in turn needs to be fulfilled through more consumption.

Much the same with Mutakabbir: “infinite absence is also al-Mutakabbir, because if we assert presence, then we must also assert absence” (Meyer et al. 157). However, “not to get stuck in dualism, the unity of being at this state requires that there must be something that combines presence and absence” (ibid.). In this context Meyer et al. cite the Buddhist concept of shunyata, often translated as emptiness. In Mahayana Buddhism, “sunyata is equated with the absolute as an infinite absence of void. At the same time, they say the clear light of illumination, bodhi or Buddha nature, is one and the same as this void. Here we have another way of describing both infinite presence and infinite absence” (157).

Infinite absence, infinite presence.

Mutakabbir, Tara.

Mutakkabir is the “path to vastness. It is going beyond, constantly going beyond limitation, just as…mantra says: gate, gate, paragate,

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parasmagate bodhi svaha” (Meyer et al. 157).

It we are to understand Mutakkabir in relation to the Heart Sutra’s mantra and with the Heart Sutra mantra we also find Tara, whose name, again, is taken to mean “she who brings to the other shore,” then we have a clear case of similarity between the Hindu-Buddhist traditions and the Islamic as approached from the Sufi perspective.

Mutakkabir is “an activity that leads to vastness and transcendence” (Meyer 158), a continual process of becoming along the path toward the Absolute, that is God, much as Tara “is the Great Void, the Star from which all gradually evolved and which leads toward liberation from the endless” (Danielou 276). The Great Void may sound bad, but it is not:

“The formless Immensity that appears to be the innermost nature of things can be grasped as the void, the silence, the absolute darkness, which lies beyond mind, beyond intellect, and can be realized as the substratum of man’s own nature, as his own Self, his own Soul (atman)” (Danielou 16-17).

Since atman, the soul, is brahman, the universal soul, absolute and true reality and atman is described here as the Great Void, the Great Void, too, is Brahman, or what in the monotheistic traditions calls God.

“All deities are aspects of the Void” (Hiranda Sastri Gaud qtd. in Danielou 276). All 99 Names, of which Mutakkabir is just one, are all names for Allah. We might say that Tara is just one of the names of the Void, much as Mutakkabir is an aspect of Allah.

Both embody the principle of going beyond what we know, what we think we know. Going beyond who we are and who and what we think we are, always going beyond and beyond toward the source of all that is, toward the ultimate, true reality. Toward the Void. Toward Brahman. Toward God.

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