Durga literally means the Remote and Inaccessible Goddess. As with all things Hindu, there is more than a shade of irony in such a description of a goddess who is probably the most popular and most worshipped form of the Mother ever in human history. She is no milksop goddess however. This is the Ultimate Warrior Goddess, "great and terrible as an army with banners." She is usually depicted with multiple arms, wielding a rather dazzling selection of arms from the ancient world and mounted upon a very fearsome lion. Sometimes this animal becomes a tiger, and she is called Amba then. The number of arms and weapons she carries varies too. There are six armed forms, eight armed forms, ten armed forms and twenty armed forms.
These are variations upon a single theme depending upon the artistic and cultural proclivities of the painter or sculptor.
Durga is not formidable; she is stupendous - in the old sense of the word, being a co-mingling of 'tremendous' as well as 'stupefying'.
Her basic function in the popular mythology is to beat up the Cosmic bad guys, especially when the other gods have failed. She is therefore, a weapon of last resort and final appeal, an instinctive feminine answer to the problems of the world, when masculine logic fails.
Vedic India had no demon-slayers in their goddesses, though Saraswati is once described as a great warrior. In fact the traditional Hindu framework had no place for the Great Mother religions. Durga is an amalgamation of many local area fertility goddesses as well as Indian's most significant religious import. For the Indian mind had no such concept to be frank, battle queen goddesses riding animal mounts were just not the part of the zeitgeist. Once this concept had entered the country however - about 2000 years ago, it was quickly assimilated into the collective unconscious and filled up a gap in the emotional life of the people that the too-masculine nature of Godhead could not.
Durga is almost certainly Ishtar, of Mesopotamia, now the Middle East ,worshipped by the Sumerians, Assyrians Babylonians, and even Romans and Egyptians on the sly. She has been around since 2000 BC at least, when an already old tale was set down as the epic, The Descent of Ishtar. This worthy was a very independent and headstrong goddess who roamed the wilds of forest and deserts at will and had many lovers, constantly seeking battle and generally being given a very respectful and extremely wide berth by everybody. Ishtar and Isis were the two opposite polarities of the ancient mother cults, but Isis never came to India, though the Mahadevi is a good enough substitute. Ishtar however, proved the words of the song, "Good girls go to heaven, but bad girls go everywhere," and she became the most popular goddess of the ancient world even if not quite as intellectually respected as Isis.The common man however preferred this wild energy that was no respecter of pretensions and pomposity and cared not a fig for show and class division - Ishtar's lovers being an extremely eclectic assortment of professions and social classes.
India embraced this wilderness haunting, battle loving, multiple armed, lion riding goddess with great enthusiasm, but they could not countenance the promiscuity, and quietly dropped those parts out. Durga was the result of this strange deity being introduced, an Ishtar that has got her act cleaned up and is also, "chaste as the icicle on the temple of Diana."
Durga is, of course, very similar in most ways to the Mahadevi (which we have covered already) and the fundamental myths are the same. She is Mahishasuramardhani, - the slayer of the demon Mahisha, just as the Mahadevi is, but she is not the abstract supreme power that the Mahadevi became. Durga is not transcendent of the divine social order; she stands outside of it, which is the fundamental difference between her and the Mahadevi. Durga is a-social, preferring to haunt mountains and forests and deserts, surrounded by wild beats and wilder attendants, a sort of feminine Shiva. This kind of behavior is extremely offbeat in the Hindu social context, and as such, like all rebels she has become a symbol of freedom for all those who are resigned to their narrow grinds and call it their duty. Durga does what is good and duty is for lesser beings.
Naturally there was great embarrassment about such an independent feminine energy running around (one of Mahisha's arguments, poor fellow, was that a woman should not be left unprotected like this, it was not decent) and spreading subversive thoughts amongst her devotees, and the mythologizers got busy and married her off to Shiva. Then they wrote many stories which show her to be the manifestation of Parvati, Shiva's wife. Durga is Parvati's divine wrath which has taken physical shape. Even as they were making up the myth, they could not avoid her essentially independent nature. In parts of the country she is supposed to be the mother of a divine family with Skanda, Ganesha, Laxmi and Sarasvati being her children. This is an amazing example of popular feeling as to what is right and proper, triumphing over the texts itself. None of these deities are in any way connected to Durga actually, from the evidence of the texts, be they mythology or scripture. However, a goddess could not be childless so she had better have the best children possible.
The old Durga, even with her Ishtar lineage, seems to have been a fertility goddess, closely connected with the harvests and wild vegetation. There are religious ceremonies even today practiced, which ask her to hasten the growth of crops and the sprouting of the seeds. She was obviously accepted first by the tribal and semi nomadic peoples. Hence her depicted love for forests, she is known as Vanapriya, she who loves forests. She also receives blood offerings, in the typical renewal and nourishment ritual so well known to all ancient cultures. That, however, has become a problem today, as the faith has become very uncomfortable with such beliefs. It does not help that the great battle queen inflames herself for combat by drinking wine till her eyes are red, and sometimes when that is not enough, she quaffs blood as being the more intoxicating beverage. Ancient India was used to both sexes being very sociable drinkers indeed, as all the old texts and epics show again and again. It is only nowadays that this kind of behavior seems inexplicable. Durga actually has a very long hymn addressed to her where she is termed as mamasam ishta, raktha priya - she who likes meat and loves blood!
This is as far removed from the Mahadevi as is humanly possible. The Mahadevi is Durga, with all her wildness removed. However, it is not to be supposed that Durga is a chaotic, undisciplined force of nature. She is so terrifying precisely because she is always in control; there is something cool and deliberate about her that freezes the blood. Even her attahasam, the cosmic bellow of laughter that shakes the earth, seems to be derisive mockery of the pretensions of evil, rather than the outburst of rage it would have been in Kali's case. In fact there is something singularly chilling, a Himalayan coldness, in the descriptions of the manner she wipes the floor with demons. Wave after wave of asuras and rakshasas are annihilated by her and then she waits with this menacing calm for the next lot to rush up on her and meet their doom. Kali would have been chasing them round the four corners of the earth as soon as she had killed a few. The battle fury is always ready to break out in her, but she never loses control, it never becomes the blood lust that motivates Kali's dance of destruction. It is impossible for Durga to get carried away, and it is this superhuman control of hers that has rendered her 'The Inaccessible'.
In some myths Durga is the skin of Parvati, which slips off and fights the demons Shumbha and Nishumbha, a pair of brothers who did not know the old saying about united they stand and divided, by desiring the same woman, they fall. Sometimes she is supposed to create helpers to fight for her, Kali being the most famous. As Kali is an old tantrik deity, the assimilative trend here is only too visible. In other versions she is supposed to have created the Saptamatrikas, the Seven Mothers, who are originally Yaksha gods! However it is worth noting that Durga never needs male help, like Ishtar. She is independent of all direct male influence, and she fights only male demons. In the myth of her origin, what is most interesting and crucial is not that she is presented as the Shakti, the power behind the male god, but that she takes their powers upon herself so that she can save the universe.
This subsuming and in a sense takeover of the formal powers of all creation is what has led the famous hymn to Durga to extol her as the composite of all the elements. Ya Devi sarva bhuteshu, Shakti rupena samsthitha, "Oh Devi who is the amalgam of all the elements, whose form is that of strength." This indicates her essential independence of all that is, as she is made of the very stuff of the universe.
However, amongst her powers and attributes are listed not just positive ones like wisdom, and peace but also she whose form is hunger, sleep and thirst. Durga therefore is only too familiar with the Shadow of the Universe. Durga is thus an impossible reconciliation of opposites, the aspect of divinity that will always remain out of reach of the comprehension of man. She is the divine life force that may not be understood but only accepted.
These are variations upon a single theme depending upon the artistic and cultural proclivities of the painter or sculptor.
Durga is not formidable; she is stupendous - in the old sense of the word, being a co-mingling of 'tremendous' as well as 'stupefying'.
Her basic function in the popular mythology is to beat up the Cosmic bad guys, especially when the other gods have failed. She is therefore, a weapon of last resort and final appeal, an instinctive feminine answer to the problems of the world, when masculine logic fails.
Vedic India had no demon-slayers in their goddesses, though Saraswati is once described as a great warrior. In fact the traditional Hindu framework had no place for the Great Mother religions. Durga is an amalgamation of many local area fertility goddesses as well as Indian's most significant religious import. For the Indian mind had no such concept to be frank, battle queen goddesses riding animal mounts were just not the part of the zeitgeist. Once this concept had entered the country however - about 2000 years ago, it was quickly assimilated into the collective unconscious and filled up a gap in the emotional life of the people that the too-masculine nature of Godhead could not.
Durga is almost certainly Ishtar, of Mesopotamia, now the Middle East ,worshipped by the Sumerians, Assyrians Babylonians, and even Romans and Egyptians on the sly. She has been around since 2000 BC at least, when an already old tale was set down as the epic, The Descent of Ishtar. This worthy was a very independent and headstrong goddess who roamed the wilds of forest and deserts at will and had many lovers, constantly seeking battle and generally being given a very respectful and extremely wide berth by everybody. Ishtar and Isis were the two opposite polarities of the ancient mother cults, but Isis never came to India, though the Mahadevi is a good enough substitute. Ishtar however, proved the words of the song, "Good girls go to heaven, but bad girls go everywhere," and she became the most popular goddess of the ancient world even if not quite as intellectually respected as Isis.The common man however preferred this wild energy that was no respecter of pretensions and pomposity and cared not a fig for show and class division - Ishtar's lovers being an extremely eclectic assortment of professions and social classes.India embraced this wilderness haunting, battle loving, multiple armed, lion riding goddess with great enthusiasm, but they could not countenance the promiscuity, and quietly dropped those parts out. Durga was the result of this strange deity being introduced, an Ishtar that has got her act cleaned up and is also, "chaste as the icicle on the temple of Diana."
Durga is, of course, very similar in most ways to the Mahadevi (which we have covered already) and the fundamental myths are the same. She is Mahishasuramardhani, - the slayer of the demon Mahisha, just as the Mahadevi is, but she is not the abstract supreme power that the Mahadevi became. Durga is not transcendent of the divine social order; she stands outside of it, which is the fundamental difference between her and the Mahadevi. Durga is a-social, preferring to haunt mountains and forests and deserts, surrounded by wild beats and wilder attendants, a sort of feminine Shiva. This kind of behavior is extremely offbeat in the Hindu social context, and as such, like all rebels she has become a symbol of freedom for all those who are resigned to their narrow grinds and call it their duty. Durga does what is good and duty is for lesser beings.Naturally there was great embarrassment about such an independent feminine energy running around (one of Mahisha's arguments, poor fellow, was that a woman should not be left unprotected like this, it was not decent) and spreading subversive thoughts amongst her devotees, and the mythologizers got busy and married her off to Shiva. Then they wrote many stories which show her to be the manifestation of Parvati, Shiva's wife. Durga is Parvati's divine wrath which has taken physical shape. Even as they were making up the myth, they could not avoid her essentially independent nature. In parts of the country she is supposed to be the mother of a divine family with Skanda, Ganesha, Laxmi and Sarasvati being her children. This is an amazing example of popular feeling as to what is right and proper, triumphing over the texts itself. None of these deities are in any way connected to Durga actually, from the evidence of the texts, be they mythology or scripture. However, a goddess could not be childless so she had better have the best children possible.
The old Durga, even with her Ishtar lineage, seems to have been a fertility goddess, closely connected with the harvests and wild vegetation. There are religious ceremonies even today practiced, which ask her to hasten the growth of crops and the sprouting of the seeds. She was obviously accepted first by the tribal and semi nomadic peoples. Hence her depicted love for forests, she is known as Vanapriya, she who loves forests. She also receives blood offerings, in the typical renewal and nourishment ritual so well known to all ancient cultures. That, however, has become a problem today, as the faith has become very uncomfortable with such beliefs. It does not help that the great battle queen inflames herself for combat by drinking wine till her eyes are red, and sometimes when that is not enough, she quaffs blood as being the more intoxicating beverage. Ancient India was used to both sexes being very sociable drinkers indeed, as all the old texts and epics show again and again. It is only nowadays that this kind of behavior seems inexplicable. Durga actually has a very long hymn addressed to her where she is termed as mamasam ishta, raktha priya - she who likes meat and loves blood!
This is as far removed from the Mahadevi as is humanly possible. The Mahadevi is Durga, with all her wildness removed. However, it is not to be supposed that Durga is a chaotic, undisciplined force of nature. She is so terrifying precisely because she is always in control; there is something cool and deliberate about her that freezes the blood. Even her attahasam, the cosmic bellow of laughter that shakes the earth, seems to be derisive mockery of the pretensions of evil, rather than the outburst of rage it would have been in Kali's case. In fact there is something singularly chilling, a Himalayan coldness, in the descriptions of the manner she wipes the floor with demons. Wave after wave of asuras and rakshasas are annihilated by her and then she waits with this menacing calm for the next lot to rush up on her and meet their doom. Kali would have been chasing them round the four corners of the earth as soon as she had killed a few. The battle fury is always ready to break out in her, but she never loses control, it never becomes the blood lust that motivates Kali's dance of destruction. It is impossible for Durga to get carried away, and it is this superhuman control of hers that has rendered her 'The Inaccessible'.
In some myths Durga is the skin of Parvati, which slips off and fights the demons Shumbha and Nishumbha, a pair of brothers who did not know the old saying about united they stand and divided, by desiring the same woman, they fall. Sometimes she is supposed to create helpers to fight for her, Kali being the most famous. As Kali is an old tantrik deity, the assimilative trend here is only too visible. In other versions she is supposed to have created the Saptamatrikas, the Seven Mothers, who are originally Yaksha gods! However it is worth noting that Durga never needs male help, like Ishtar. She is independent of all direct male influence, and she fights only male demons. In the myth of her origin, what is most interesting and crucial is not that she is presented as the Shakti, the power behind the male god, but that she takes their powers upon herself so that she can save the universe.
This subsuming and in a sense takeover of the formal powers of all creation is what has led the famous hymn to Durga to extol her as the composite of all the elements. Ya Devi sarva bhuteshu, Shakti rupena samsthitha, "Oh Devi who is the amalgam of all the elements, whose form is that of strength." This indicates her essential independence of all that is, as she is made of the very stuff of the universe.
However, amongst her powers and attributes are listed not just positive ones like wisdom, and peace but also she whose form is hunger, sleep and thirst. Durga therefore is only too familiar with the Shadow of the Universe. Durga is thus an impossible reconciliation of opposites, the aspect of divinity that will always remain out of reach of the comprehension of man. She is the divine life force that may not be understood but only accepted.
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