Shri Durga is the Mother Creator. She is revered as Mahakali-Mahalakshmi-Maha Saraswati in the Durga Sapta Shati. She is the cause of that “Tatpursha” which is inferred from the Eco-system, perceived through the natural phenomenon and intuited upon by the men of devotion/Bhakta and faith to understand the higher realms of existence or Prakriti. There are thousands of Names of Durga, but She is popularly revered as Devi/Shakti/Durga/Amba. A shloka in Dev Suktam supports this view, which reads as:
Yaa Devi Sarva Bhuteshu Shakti Roopena Samasthita
Namastasyai- Namastasyai- Namastasyai—Namo Namah
The translation runs as:
My Namaskar to that Devi, who abides as Shakti/Energy in all the embodied souls. My Namaskar be to That Shakti , Namaskar to
…show more content…
Every major god has a goddess counterpart (or consort), and many Hindus worship the Great Goddess exclusively. Although in the Chinese yin-yang duality, the feminine side is dark and passive, in Hinduism the feminine is highly active. In fact, the word for "goddess" in Hinduism is Shakti, which also means "power" or "energy."
Followers of Shakti or Devi, the Great Goddess, are called Shaktas. Just as the masculine aspect of Brahman is manifested in several different gods, so does the feminine aspect of the divine take more than one forms.
Durga: Warrior
…show more content…
I am whole universe.
I am the Vedas and the Agamas. I am Vidya/Knowledge and avidya/Ignorance.
I alone abide in the Rudras-Shivas incarnation and eight Vasus. I move in twelve Adityas and the Vishva Devas.
I raise all the Mitra-Varuna-Indra.Agni and Ashvini Kumars. I hold both Soma-Tvashtaa, Pushaa and Bhaga.
The Three Potential –Brahma Vishnu and Maheshwara function, because of my Ichha/will alone.
I hold the Soma and Havi for the Yajmana, who makes the Anushthanna /invocation for Homa/puja/Archana/Samkirtana/Naam Smirana.
I am Ishvari the Supreme Sovereign of this whole existence. I have created the whole space. This ishat Vedas stand for.
After giving a thought in the Atharva Vedic saying, it is concluded that Devi is the supreme Mother. She is All that is to be seen, visualized and understood. She is the Primal cause of this universe at flux. Durga is to be revered with Bhakti, with Puja and Archana and through the specific Anushtthannas.
To conclude, Durga is the beauty of Vishnu, creativity of Brahma and the Tandava of Rudra.
Shri Aurobindo has said in his famous epic Savitri about Divine Mother
Selvadurai uses an allusion to demonstrate his grandmother’s role as a negative mentor in Shivan’s life. His dream of seeing his grandmother “incarnated as the demoness Kali” running after him (in the body of his mother) is very telling of what Shivan subconsciously thinks of his grandmother. (Selvadurai 371) The demoness Kali is the Hindu goddess of destruction. Though she is seen as a god, her physical appearance is quite appalling. Her dark skin, red eyes, fangs and necklace made of human heads are all quite terrifying. When portrayed, she is often seen standing on top of the Hindu god Shiva as well. Kali’s frightful appearance, paired with her relationship with the god Shiva is very telling of Shivan’s relationship with his aachi. He fears her with every fibre of his being. In said dream, he imagines himself as his mother, carrying a child, running from his grandmother, but proving to be unfruitful when Kali, “snatches the infant from [his] arms and opens her mouth wide to consume him”. (Selvadurai 371) This baby is Shivan, and Kali eating the baby shows how as a mentor, she has taken away all the innocence from Shivan and taken him away from his mother. Shivan’s ammi shows how even negative mentors can push their mentees into
In conclusion, it is obvious that the Absolute is recognized to be within more than one god or goddess. The question that then arises is “who is truly the Absolute?” It could be Vishnu, Siva, or any of the forms of the Devi (Durga). The simple fact is that whether the Absolute be Vishnu, Siva, or the Devi, they all encompass the same qualities that the Absolute is understood to exhibit in their respected branches of Hinduism. Since certain people of the Hindu religion believe that their god or goddess is the Absolute, it is possible that the Absolute is simply all of the gods and goddesses in one body working together to be most supreme and powerful creator within the religion.
Ganesha was one of two children to Parvati and Shiva, he had another brother named Skanda who represented grace, love of virtuous deeds, and bravery. Along with one brother, Ganesha had two wives, Siddhi who represented success and Riddhi who represented prosperity.
important to establish who she is and what part she plays in the legend. Five different
Although according to Islam both masculine and feminine equally have their origin in the Divine, it does well to take a look at the feminine in Islam and remember that the feminine is not to be viewed as weaker than the masculine. In fact, in sources of Islam and in the Sufi tradition growing said sources, there is a strong preference for the feminine aspect of Allah, and often women are portrayed of being most accepting of the truth that the Devine is the only thing of true importance in the world (Galian, “The Centrality of the Devine Feminine in Sufism”).
Gods and goddesses in mythology are used in allusions and often referred to in our daily lives, but do we truly understand them? We may not understand how or why they look the way they do, how they behave, what they are capable of accomplishing, or how they interacted with humans. These super-beings of extremely high status were the heart and soul of prayers and explanations of natural phenomena. They had a variety of natures and were represented in a variety of ways, by different religions.
She is stil worshiped to this day by the Indian people. Her story is quite different from Athena’s, she was not the goddess of war and had nothing to do with violence. Instead she was also the goddess of knowledge helping people learn things such as the Alphabet. The Indian people hold a festival every year in her honor on the fifth day of spring in which the Hindu children are given their first lesson in reading and writing (Das).
Athena was the virgin daughter of the great god Zeus and she was also one of the great
The ancient tradition and the idea of ‘Mother Earth’(Merchant 4) was coined by these indigenous peoples from pre-Hellenic times and Mesopotamian people named their goddess as ‘Ur-goddess Tiamat’(Merchant 4), Greek people named their goddess as ‘Gaia’(Merchant 5), Cerridwen named their goddess as ‘Celtic’(Merchant 4), Egyptian named their goddess as ‘Isis’(Merchant xvi). Their worship and image may vary from one tradition to another tradition but their only believe was Earth as nurturing mother. Carolyn Merchant wrote about the Historical connection between women and nature as “beneficent female who provided for the needs of mankind in an ordered, planned universe” (Merchant
Athena is a female deity. Female symbolizes the origin of wisdom within a family. Also, she teaches the household the wisest and the wrong. It teachers bravery through heroic stories to their young ones. Also, she teaches the art of weaving and cooking to the youth. Females take care of the households and males in most instances consult with them as confidants hence the roles tied to Athena.
Finally, there are the goddesses. They represent women in all their glory. They are very human-like in that they feel the same emotions like jealousy, anger, pride, revenge, excitement, joy, compassion, etc. The exception being that they have supernatural powers. Homer even makes then human-like to the extent that they fall in love with mortals, for instance Calypso.
Every culture has some form of higher being, to be a model for their behaviour, as well as to look up to. In Greek times, these were the gods and goddesses who made their home on Mount Olympus. Women identified with the goddesses because they shared some feminine attributes. Goddesses were a “symbol of motherhood and fertility, but also of strength, wisdom, caring, nuturing, temperance, chastity, cunning, trickery, jealousy, and lasciviousness” (Clarke, 1999). However, not all of the goddesses possessed all of these attributes. The goddess Aphrodite, for instance, was not nurturing, nor was she very caring.
Although Daoism and Hinduism are two completely separate religions with the former indigenous to China and the latter to India, both of them encompass striking similarities that undeniably make it seem that one influenced the other. However, no known relations between the two religions exist. Comparing the small, but contextually vital part of the Hindu epic Mahabharata known as Bhagavad Gita with the central text to Daoism, Tao Te Ching offers an unparalleled journey of knowledge and understanding. Tao Te Ching emphasizes the crucial concept of Dao, which is translated as the “Way” while Bhagavad Gita stresses the all-encompassing Brahman. Since no sufficient language can express the full meaning of Dao, the most suitable example that shows its operations is the movement of water (TTC 8). Water simply flows with unity with nature – it can transform itself into whatever form is needed to flow. Dao is essentially an indescribable eternal energy and origin of the entire universe. Fully arriving at the Dao is the main goal of Daoism. Similarly, Brahman is the ultimate end to everything in the universe. In the Bhagavad Gita, Brahman is described as the source from which all beings originate from and eventually return. The fundamental principle of both concepts is, therefore, one and the same. I will specifically focus on vital parts of the two concepts in order to illustrate the parallelism of the eventual goal of the Dao and the Brahman. The emphasis on action with no desire for the “fruit” of the action, Dao and Brahman’s inexpressible essence, and following one’s own duty in order to complement the movement of the universe. These concepts illustrate the similarity between Dao and Brahman and ultimately demonstrate that they are ide...
Parrilla, Vanessa. "Sati:Vitrous Women Through Self-Sacrifice." The Practice of Sati in India. csuchico.edu, 1999. Web. 21 Mar. 2014. .
Durga is a warrior queen who slays demons in the battle to keep the cosmos at balance. Durga is universally beautiful. She rides on a lion into battle and holds many weapons with her many hands attached to her many arms. David Kinsley, author of Hindu Goddesses, describes Durga as "The great battle queen with many arms, each which wields a weapon. She rides a fierce lion and is described as irresistible in battle." This is very different from the description of Kali, as said by the above author, "The goddess Kali is almost always described as having a terrible, frightening appearance. She is always black or dark, is usually naked, and has long disheveled hair." Kali likes to accent her naturally scary beauty by wearing severed heads, arms and dead children as jewelry. Blood seems to be her favorite cosmetic.