Hymns to the Goddess and Hymn to Kali (eBook)

Introduction

Sanātana Brahman is called sakala when with Prakṛti, as It is niṣkala when thought of as without Prakṛti (prakṛteranya), for kalā is Prakṛti.1 To say, however, that Śakti exists in or with, the Brahman is an accommodation to human thought and speech, for the Brahman and Śakti are in fact one. Śakti is eternal (anādirūpā) and brahmarūpā, and both nirguṇā and saguṇā.2 She, the Goddess (Devī), is the caitanyarūpiṇī devī who manifests all bhūta; the ānandarūpiṇī devī by whom the Brahman, who She is, manifests Itself,3 and who, to use the words of Śāradātilaka, pervades the universe as does oil the sesamum seed. Sa aikṣata, of which Śruti speaks, was itself a manifestation of Śakti, the paramāpūrvanirvāṇaśakti, or Brahman, as Śakti.

From the paraśaktimaya issued nāda, and from nāda, bindu.4 The state of subtle body known as kāmakalā is the mūla of mantra, and is meant when the Devī is spoken of as mūlamantrātmikā.5 The parama-bindu is represented as a circle the centre of which is the brahmapada, wherein are Prakṛti and Puruṣa; the circumference of which is encircling māyā. It is in the crescent of nirvāṇakalā the seventeenth, which is again in that of amākalā the sixteenth digit of the moon-circle (candramaṇḍala), situate above the sun-circle (sūryamaṇḍala), the guru and the haṁsaḥ in the pericarp of the 1,000-petalled lotus (sahasrārapadma). The bindu is symbolically described as being like a grain of gram (canaka), which under its encircling sheath contains a divided seed — Prakṛti–Puruṣa or Śakti–Śiva.6

It is known as the Śabda-Brahman.7 A polarization then takes place in paraśaktimaya. The Devī becomes unmukhī. Her face is turned to Śiva. There is an unfolding which bursts the encircling shell.8 The devatāparaśaktimaya exists in the threefold aspect of bindu, bīja, and nāda, the last being in relation to the two former. An indistinct sound then arises9 (avyaktātmāravobhavat). Nāda, as Rāghava Bhaṭṭa10 says, exists in three states, for in it are the three guṇas. The Śabda-Brahman manifests Itself in the threefold energies — jñāna, ichhā, and kriyā śakti.11 For, as Vāmakeśvara Tantra says, the Devī Tripurā is threefold as Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Īśa. Paraśiva exists as a septenary under the forms of Śambhu, Sadāśiva, Īśāna, Rudra, Viṣṇu, and Brahmā. The last five are the mahāpreta, four of whom form the support, and the fifth the seat, of the bed on which the Devī is united with Paramaśiva in the room of cintāmaṇi stone on the jewelled island clad with clumps of kadamba, and heavenly trees set in the ocean of ambrosia.12

Śakti is both māyā and mūlaprakṛti, whose substance is the three guṇas, representing nature as the revelation of spirit (sattva); nature as the passage of descent from spirit to matter, or of ascent from matter to spirit (rajas), and nature as the dense veil of spirit (tamas). The Devī is thus the treasure house of guṇas (guṇanidhiḥ).13 Mūlaprakṛti is the womb into which the Brahman casts the seed from which all things are born.14 The womb thrills to the movement of the essentially active rajoguṇa, and the now unstable guṇas in varied combinations under the illumination of Śiva (cit) evolve the universe which is ruled by Maheśvara and Māheśvarī. The dual principles of Śiva–Śakti, which are the product of the polarity manifested in paraśaktimaya, pervade the whole universe, and are present in man in the svayambhūliṅga of the mūlādhāra and the Devī Kuṇḍalinī, who in serpent form encircles it. The Śabda-Brahman assumes the form of the Devī Kuṇḍalinī, and as such is in the form of all breathing creatures (prāṇī), and in the form of letters appears in prose and verse. She is the luminous vital energy (jīvaśakti), which manifests as prāṇa. Through the various prakṛta and vaikṛta creations, issued the devas, men, animals, and the whole universe, which is the work and manifested form of the Devī. For, as Kubjikā Tantra says: “Not Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Rudra create, maintain, and destroy, but Brāhmī, Vaiṣṇavī, Rudrāṇī. Their husbands are but as dead bodies.”

The Goddess (Devī) is the great śakti. She is māyā, for of Her the māyā, which produces the saṁsāra is. As the Lord of māyā, She is Mahāmāyā.15 Devī is avidyā (nescience), because She binds; and vidyā (knowledge), because She liberates and destroys the saṁsāra.16 She is Prakṛti,17 and, as existing before creation, She is the ādya (primordial) śakti. She is the vācaka-śakti, the manifestation of cit in Prakṛti; and the vācya-śakti or cit itself. The ātmā should be contemplated as Devī.18

Śakti or Devī is thus the Brahman revealed in its Mother aspect (śrīmātā)19 as creatrix and nourisher of the worlds. Kālī says of Herself in Yoginī Tantra:20 saccidānandarūpāham brahmaivāham sphuratprabham. So the Devī is described with attributes both of the qualified21 Brahman, and (since that Brahman is but the manifestation of the Absolute), She is also addressed with epithets which denote the unconditioned Brahman.22 She is the great Mother (ambikā) sprung from the sacrificial hearth of the fire of the Grand Consciousness (cit) decked with the sun and moon; Lalitā — “She who plays” — whose play is world-play; whose eyes, playing like fish in the beauteous waters of Her Divine face, open and shut with the appearance and disappearance of countless worlds, now illuminated by Her light, now wrapped in her terrible darkness.23 For Devī, who issues from the great Abyss, is terrible also in Her Kālī, Tārā, Chinnamastā, and other forms. Śāktas hold that a sweet and complete resignation of the self to such forms of the Divine Power denotes a higher stage of spiritual development.24 Such dualistic worship also speedily bears the fruit of knowledge of the universal unity, the realization of which dispels all fear. For the Mother is only terrible to those who, living in the illusion of separateness (which is the cause of all fear), have not yet realized their unity with Her, and known that all Her forms are those of beauty.

The Devī as Para-Brahman is beyond all forms and guṇas. The forms of the Mother of the universe are threefold. There is first the Supreme (para) form, of which, as Viṣṇu Yāmala25 says, “none knows”. There is next Her subtle (sūkṣma) form, which consists of mantra. But, as the mind cannot easily settle itself upon that which is formless,26 She appears as the subject of contemplation in Her third or gross (sthūla) or physical form, with hands and feet and the like, as celebrated in Devīstotra of the Purāṇas and Tantras. Devī, who as Prakṛti is the source of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Maheśvara,27 has both male and female forms.28 But it is in Her female forms that she is chiefly contemplated. For, though existing in all things, in a peculiar sense female beings are parts of Her.29 The Great Mother, who exists in the form of all Tantras...