Pranam
The concept of Nava-durga is extremely popular during Navratri.
Navratri refers to the nine nights that lead to the celebration of
Vijayadashmi. The Goddess is worshipped in nine forms. The nine forms are
Shailaputri, Brahmacharini, Chandraghanta, Kushmanda, SkandaMata,
Kaatyayani, Kalaratri, Mahagauri and Siddharaatri. These are not nine
separate goddesses. They represent the nine phases of the goddess’ life.
The nine nights of Navratri are a celebration of the Goddess in her
entirety.
The Goddess is shakti, who brings meaning to Shiva, who disembodied pure
consciousness. The first stage is Shailaputri, where Shakti is the goddess
of the mountains. She is born of the mountains and she decides to marry the
mountain hermit, Shiva. He, however, does not want to marry. He withdraws
into his mountain cave, stubbornly refusing to be with her.
In the second phase, she becomes Brahmacharini, a hermit, who performs
tapasya. She mimics Shiva, who is a tapasvi himself. As she does exactly
what he does, Shiva realises what would happen, if all men and women choose
to become hermits. The next generation will not be created. The world will
cease to exist. The rock (shiva-linga) becomes the plant (bilva), the
object turns into an organism, as Shiva realises without Shakti, he is a
dead body (shava).
Shiva agrees to marry Shakti and the goddess then takes her third form,
which is Chandraghanta. The Chandraghanta, or the bell-shaped moon,
represents the first day of the waxing moon, when only an arc of the moon
is seen. If Shiva is the waning moon (destroyer), with Shakti he becomes
the waxing moon (creator).
Now, as Shiva’s wife, she enjoys the companionship of Shiva and her body is
filled with warmth. This makes her Kushmunda, gently aroused. In her fourth
form, she becomes radiant like the sun, in the presence of Shiva.
The fifth form is when she becomes a mother. She is Skanda’s mother. She
has domesticated Shiva, who was a hermit into a householder called Shankara
and also made him a father.
In the sixth form of Kaatyayani, she becomes the outraged warrior who
fights Mahishasura—who cannot be defeated by any other deva. He arrogantly
declares that no man can defeat him; forgetting that a woman can defeat him.
In her seventh form, she becomes even more fierce as Kalaratri—Kaali who
kills Chanda and Munda. She adorns her body with his entrails, limbs and
head. It is the fiercest and darkest form of the goddess, after which she
quickly calms downs.
She then becomes the eighth form: Mahagauri, the homemaker. Gauri is the
one who is domestic: her hair is no longer unbound.
She doesn’t run amok, naked on the battlefield. She sits at home preparing
food, to feed her husband Shiva, in the form of Annapurna.
In the final form, she is Siddharaatri , the accomplished one. She has
completed her work and now takes her rightful place as one half of Shiva’s
body. She completes him. This is her greatest accomplishment; she has
connected Shiva to worldly life, made him realise his purpose, to animate
the world, and make the world realise its value and purpose. This is the
ultimate role of the Goddess in Hindu mythology.
Courtesy Devdutt KR IRS 25321
On Thu, 25 Mar 2021 at 06:00, cnu pne <[email protected]> wrote:
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