The Goddess in Hindu-Tantric Traditions

Devi as Corpse

Anway Mukhopadhyay

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351063524
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Scienze sociali
• Categoría: Studi sull'etnia

The Great Goddess, in her various puranic and tantric forms, is often figured as sitting on a corpse which is identified as Shiva-as-shava (God Shiva, the consort of the Devi and an iconic representation of the Absolute without attributes, the Nirguna Brahman). Hence, most of the existing critical works and ethnographic studies on Shaktism and the tantras have focused on the theological and symbolic paraphernalia of the corpses which operate as the asanas (seats) of the Devi in her various iconographies.

This book explores the figurations of the Goddess as corpse in several Hindu puranic and Shakta-tantric texts, popular practices, folk belief systems, legends and various other cultural phenomena based on this motif. It deals with a more intricate and fundamental issue than existing works on the subject: how and why is the Devi – herself - figured as a corpse in the Shakta texts, belief systems and folk practices associated with the tantras? The issues which have been raised in this book include: how does death become a complement to life within this religious epistemology? How does one learn to live with death, thereby lending new definitions and new epistemic and existential dimensions to life and death? And what is the relation between death and gender within this kind of figuration of the Goddess as death and dead body? Analysing multiple mythic narratives, hymns and scriptural texts where the Devi herself is said to take the form of the Shava (the corpse) as well as the Shakti who animates dead matter, this book focuses not only on the concept of the theological equivalence of the Shava (Shiva as corpse) and the Shakti (Energy) in tantras but also on the status of the Divine Mother as the Great Bridge between the apparently irreconcilable opposites, the mediatrix between Spirit and Matter, death and life, existence-in-stasis and existence-in-kinesis.

This book makes an important contribution to the fields of Hindu Studies, Goddess Spirituality, South Asian Religions, Women and Religion, India, Studies in Shaktism and Tantra, Cross-cultural Religious Studies, Gender Studies, Postcolonial Spirituality and Ecofeminism.

1
The human death, the divine corpse

If we try to define a corpse in the simplest way, it should be called a dead body. This definition, however, involves two basic concepts: the concept of death and that of the body. Interestingly, for many orthodox and ascetically oriented religious and spiritual doctrines in Hinduism, corporeality and death would be symbolically, metonymically and functionally correlated. As Patrick Olivelle observes, “Brahmanical ascetics are frequently encouraged to contemplate their body as a corpse” (107). If the Spirit is seen as radically different from the body, then, of course, consciousness and corporeality are totally antithetical. And the logical consequence of this argument would be that the body as such is essentially inert, unconscious, jada, part of the conceptual framework of “death”. The Samkhya philosophy, for instance, would divide existence into two elements: Purusha (consciousness, soul) and Prakriti (the material realm including the body, mind, sense organs etc.) [Pradhan 17]. As Basant Pradhan rightly points out, in Samkhya philosophy, the mind is also part of this material realm, and hence the dualism insisted on by this doctrine is different from the Cartesian dualism (17).

However, let us bracket off the issue of the mind for the moment and focus on only the body. If the body is jada, inert, unconscious, then where is the difference between a body and a dead body, or to be more specific, between a living body and a dead body? To frame the question in a different way: where is life located – in the body, or in the consciousness? Is it coterminous with consciousness, or lesser or greater than it? And, what is death? Is it the negation of life or absence of consciousness? Of course, here we are speaking of consciousness with an esoteric and spiritual inflection on the term, and not just in terms of what a doctor clinically defines as consciousness. However, interestingly, as Keshav Prasad Varma has rightly observed, in the Samkhya doctrine, Prakriti is, paradoxically, jada/inert but active and dynamic (Ch. 5, “Hindu Philosophy”). If that is the case, then, following the idea that consciousness is the only essence of being and that the body is essentially unconscious, can we say that a living body is a dancing corpse, while a corpse is an inert body? Or, to make matters more complex, can we say that the corpse is the inert body in stasis because the inert-but-dynamic mind is sleeping in it, and hence dynamic no more, whereas the living body is living, because the inert or jada mind is active herein? But that will make life and mind (or at least the activity of mind) coextensive, which is unacceptable.

Samkhya says that Prakriti is jada but creative, whereas Purusha – the masculine, spiritual, trans-corporeal principle – is totally passive, unengaged in the activity of jada Prakriti. It is only the drashta, the seer, of the dance of Prakriti. Prakriti keeps dancing before him, but once the Purusha, as it were, stops being enticed by this dance, she returns to her original inert, motionless state, while the Purusha achieves liberation (Varma, Ch. 5, “Hindu Philosophy”; Biernacki 3).

Now, the questions are: which and how many metaphors for a corpse can we find in this complex philosophical doctrine? As a passive seer of the dance of Prakriti but never participating in it, and taking no part in Creation, is not the Purusha of Samkhya corpse-like? And it is his similarity with the shava (corpse) which has led many commentators to believe that Samkhya has a great impact on the Shakta-tantric figurations of Shiva as the inert corpse (Dasgupta 70–71). The Absolute as figured by the Mahanirvana Tantra is similar to the corpse-like passive seer, the Purusha of Samkhya (Mahanirvana Tantra 70). However, this is not the only figure of the corpse that Samkhya provides us with. After the end of her dance, Prakriti returns to her motionless state. Can we say that she actually returns to her original corpse-like state, or to put it more grossly, that she becomes a corpse? This would, then, be the second figuration of the corpse for us. But even that is not all. We have a third and the most intricate corpse here: the dancing corpse that Prakriti is, in her active aspect. If she is insentient, then there is no fundamental, ontological difference between her and a corpse. Even when she is dynamic, she does not become sentient, let alone conscious (in the esoteric as well as ordinary sense of the term). Hence, as the dancer before the Purusha, she is nothing but a corpse-in-motion.

Let us look into the deeper problematics of these concepts. All the corpses delineated previously are incompatible with our conventional sense of the corpse as the symbol of a closure, a finality, a sad “ending” because these corpses entail massive paradoxes, and hence continually deviate from the received ideas of death and life. When the passive Purusha sees the dance of Prakriti, he, though corpse-like, paradoxically deviates from the expected nature of a corpse. Even when you do nothing and only see something, you are not wholly passive. Similarly, when the inert Prakriti is able to dance, her materiality, as it were, is not wholly material.

As far as the closest resemblance with a corpse is concerned, both Purusha and Prakriti, in the Samkhya doctrine, assume it, when the dance of Prakriti is over. For Prakriti, there is no “liberation”, as she is jada. But for the Purusha, the absolute and ultimate stasis is liberation, kaivalya (Burley 138–142). In this philosophical framework, don’t we see a continuous dynamics of the nirvana principle, a kind of thanatotic drive? And if the kaivalya of Samkhya actually resembles death and the liberated Purusha, a corpse, then is the liberation offered by this framework a happy one? Liberation, here, becomes totally dissociated from a vision of simultaneously spiritual and material eudaimonia which the tantras foreground.

Probably, one can see the tantras as offering a complex critical commentary on the Samkhya philosophy. Besides, there are some problems with the conventional reception of Samkhya. While it has been seen as an atheistic doctrine (Stenger 206), if we follow Alain Danielou’s interpretation of the Samkhya doctrine, we may say that Samkhya is neither theistic nor atheistic; it is “sacredsecular” (Mani 1–4), a different, deeper and all-encompassing paradigm of sacredness. It is debatable whether Samkhya as such offers this new paradigm, as Danielou’s analysis of Samkhya is more applicable to the tantric texts (which may have radically reworked the Samkhya discourses) than to the Samkhya doctrine itself. Nevertheless, it is important to dwell on Danielou’s tantrically inflected (as I would like to argue) reading of Samkhya:

According to the concepts of the Samkhyas, the universe is made up of two fundamental elements, consciousness and energy … Matter is merely organized energy. There is no material element that exists without being inhabited by consciousness. No element of consciousness exists without an energy-giving support.

(Danielou, While the Gods Play, qtd. in Gabin xxiii)

When we begin to introduce the doctrine of “energy” (in scientific terms) or Shakti (in spiritual-theological terms), the matter-spirit binary – i.e., the Samkhya dualism described at the beginning of this chapter – begins to break down. Energy is a peculiar category; it is neither consciousness nor matter, and yet partakes of the characteristics of both. It is the bridge between the ostensibly irreconcilable categories of spirit and matter, Purusha and Prakriti. If the Purusha can see, despite being passive and corpse-like, it is so only because it embodies (spiritual) energy; if the Prakriti can dance, in spite of being “inert”, jada and hence corpse-like, then it is also due to the play of the energy that makes matter dance. Shakti, in this remodelled philosophical framework, becomes the great mediatrix between consciousness and matter, life and death. The corpse, any corpse, becomes sleeping energy, because, as apparently inert matter, it still embodies “organized energy”. If energy and consciousness are complementary and inalienable, and this conscious energy “inhabits” all material elements, then the corpse is as much inhabited by this conscious energy as the living body. From this perspective, death and life can be radically rethought. They can be re-conceptualized as forming a continuum rather than indicating any ontological disjuncture.

As H. P. Blavatsky argues, for the occultists, life is an energy which is present in everything – whether it is organic or inorganic – and there is nothing such as dead matter. For the occultist, like matter, energy is also an objective reality, and it pervades everything. In an inorganic atom, the life energy is dormant, whereas, in an organic atom, it is active (Blavatsky, “Transmigration of the Life Atoms”). Pranab Bandyopadhyay, while discussing the role of occultism in the tantras, writes:

Mind and body represent two aspects of a single process of change of emergence, according to the Indian thought. They represent different degrees of condensation of the original creative force on (sic.) shakti. The inert is the sub-dued (sic.) expression of life and consciousness. The phenomenon of dematerialism proves the supreme control of mind over body. Matter is plastic, and the psychic can assume any form. The process of change is subtle, but it can express itself without the gross form. The psyche can express itself through subtler forms of matter. It is a form of re-incarnation which does not necessarily mean the complete dissociation of matter from the spirit, for in the evolutionary ascent some form of thin material sheath is necessary for the spirit’s expression. The psychic being a luminous matter energized by spirit becomes the vehicle of expression of the adepts.

(77)

The image of the conscious energy mediating between matter and spirit, which is foregrounded by Danielou, may be represented by the image of the dancing goddess, Mahamaya as Devi Kamakhya, on the Nilachala Hill in Assam. Comparing the image of Devi Kamakhya, dancing for her own pleasure, with the dancing Prakriti of Samkhya, subjected to the gaze of the male spectator, the conscious Purusha, Loriliai Biernacki writes:

Both of these women dance, and in dancing, spin an enchanting web of motion for those who watch. Yet the two stories differ in how they present why and for whom the woman dances. In the classical Samkhya story, the woman dancing serves the male purusa’s interests. Prakrti, the primordial female, exists to fulfill his goals; she herself is simply an object, first inciting his desire and delight, and then his bored rejection. He is the center of the story, the subject viewing the world, and the dancing revolves around his needs and desires …

When the goddess at Kamakhya dances, however, she dances for herself, for her own delight. When she chooses, she may grant a vision of her dancing to her devotee, but this vision of her dance is hers alone to give, and may not be taken without her consent, at least not without dire consequences.

(3–4)

While the Samkhya philosophy would figure the dancing Prakriti as a dancing corpse, the tantric vision would see the Great Goddess as the Immanent Energy in matter and spirit who can dance – if she wishes – even in an apparently inert corpse. And it is this shift which, in my opinion, signals the shift from the dualism of Samkhya to the more complex conceptual patterns of the tantras.

We have seen that the positing of the Great Energy, the Mahashakti, as the Mother of the Universe in whom Consciousness and Energy are de-alienated changes the philosophical framework that associates corporeality itself with the features of a corpse – or to put it in simpler terms, lessens the ontological gap between “death” and “body”, thereby implying that a body is essentially dead, a corpse. I will come back to this point just after telling the story of Shiva and Sati.

The basic narrative of the Shiva-Sati myth runs thus: Sati is the daughter of Daksha, a great king who has a semi-divine status. According to the Shakta texts, the Great Goddess is born to him as his daughter, due to his penances to propitiate Her. This daughter is named Sati. Sati is spontaneously devoted to Shiva since her childhood, and finally marries him. Daksha is angry with his daughter, as he does not like Shiva, due to his apparently unorthodox ways of living. Sometime after Sati’s marriage to Shiva, Daksha arranges a great yajna (fire sacrifice). He invites all the gods and goddesses, except Shiva and Sati. Sati, however, shows her willingness to visit the yajna ceremony organized by her father. Shiva does not want to let her go to the ceremony, as he knows Daksha will malign him in front of Sati, and that the basic intention of the king is to insult him and Sati. Sati remains stubborn, and even, according to some puranas, frightens Shiva by showing him her Mahavidya forms. She finally manages to force Shiva to allow her to go to the great yajna ceremony attended by all the gods and goddesses. There, Daksha, as expected by Shiva, begins to overtly malign Shiva in front of Sati. Sati cannot tolerate this and leaves her body which is biologically linked to that of Daksha (Dasgupta 42–46; Sircar 5–6; Nigurananda 9–10; Chattopadhyay, “Bhumika” (Introduction); Kinsley 37–41; Achyutananda 31–39; Mahabhagavata 34–146; Srimad Devi Bhagawatam Book 7, Ch. 30, verses 17–102; Brihaddharmapurana 128–157; Raygunakar 10–18).

There are various versions of this episode. Some texts say that she leaves her body through a yogic process (Srimad Devi Bhagawatam Book 7, Ch. 30, 26–37). The Kalika Puranam does not present Sati as going to Daksha’s fire sacrifice. According to this purana, when Sati comes to know from Vijaya, Sati’s niece, that her father has arranged the yajna and has deliberately invited everybody except Shiva and Sati, she, burning with anger, leaves her body through a yogic process (108–118). In the Brihaddharmapurana, Sati, angry to hear Daksha’s harsh words on Shiva, curses him and storms out of the place of the yajna. Then she reaches a dense forest near the Himalayas and leaves her Daksha-born body there (155–157). However, according to the Mahabhagavata Upapurana, Sati creates a Chhaya Sati, a Shadow Sati, and asks her to enter the sacrificial fire of Daksha’s yajna. It is not the original Sati, but the Shadow of Sati who immolates herself in the fire. And this Shadow is, paradoxically, corporeal (99–103).

After coming to know of Sati’s “death”, Shiva becomes greatly enraged, and destroys Daksha’s yajna. Then, mad with grief, he begins a destructive dance with Sati’s corpse on his shoulder. In order to preserve the stability of the universe which is threatened by Shiva’s dance, Vishnu applies his chakra to Sati’s corpse and cuts it into pieces (Mahabhagavata 105–133). In another mythic account, it is Brahma, Vishnu and Shanaishchara who enter the corpse, through yogic powers, and cut it into pieces (Kalika Puranam 123). These fifty-one pieces fall at several places on earth and turn into stones (Mahabhagavata 132), as the result of which, at each of these places, a pitha (a scared pilgrim place for the Shaktas) is set up, where Shiva accompanies the body part of Sati in his linga form, out of his tremendous affection towards his wife (Mahabhagavata 137; Brihaddharmapurana 170–172; Raygunakar 16–18; Kalika Puranam 124).

The story poses several epistemological and onto-theological problems for the Shakta-tantric texts. First of all, these texts do not endorse the Samkhya binary of a spiritual male principle and a material female principle. Hence, unlike the Samkhyavadis, the authors of these texts cannot see the female principle as confined to the realm of matter. The maternal-feminine principle, the Shakti as Mother, is the Ultimate Consciousness, the metaphysical Absolute, for them. And yet, the story of Sati necessitates a reading of the body of the human avatar of the Great Goddess as body. Hence, these texts cannot deny the materiality of the corpse of Sati, as it is on the basis of this corporeality that their pilgrim centres are formed. If you don’t accept the bodily nature of Sati’s body, you cannot say that the sacred parts of that body become stones and give rise to the Shakti pithas. The body-as-body is the origin of these pithas, as the link between the Devi and these spots is corporeal in nature.

In fact, there is a marked difference in the Hindu-tantric traditions between – on the one hand – a Siddha Pitha, where a spiritual aspirant obtains siddhi, that is, succeeds in his worship of the Conscious Energy of the Devi, but which does not contain a body part of Sati, and – on the other hand – a Sati Pitha, which enshrines a part of Sati’s holy corpse (Kanchhal 4–5). In the theological hierarchy of tantric Shaktism, a Sati Pitha enjoys a higher status than a Siddha Pitha. Hence, we must understand, the body of the humanized Great Mother lies at the core of this Shakta-tantric epistemology of the sacred.

However, the problem is that, it is the same epistemology which insists on the fundamentally metaphysical, abstract, transcendental nature of the Great Goddess. So, in the Shakta-tantric doctrine, a radical reconciliation is required between Devi-as-pure-transcendence and Devi-as-pure-...