DURGA
PUJA – Myth and Metaphysics
One great German, I think Wagner spoke with great
brevity on myths – Destiny of a people are hidden in their myths. Myths share
a strange relation with history. They are that essential part of history, which
lying outside the scope of history provides that amorphous space where
flutter the wings of history’s angel. One way, myths of our species are like
seeds. They cross-germinate, they are carried by diverse agents – birds, wind,
water, animals, and men and in this way, a whole forest gets transported from
one continent to another. This simile holds its charm further still. All myths,
ancient or modern are tremendously convoluted structures, holding un-manifested
structures (imagine a seed and a banyan tree) manifesting stranger, different
attributes but retaining the potency of producing the same convoluted replicas.
They have a very mysterious power of potent regeneration. In this way,
they produce another parallel with another very interesting structures – genes.
The genetic material are made up of couple of thousands of electrons and how
such a small number of particles remain so stable over years, centuries,
millennia is a great mystery to Quantum Physics, whose founder-architect Erwin
Schrodinger raised this very significant question in his What is Life?
If genes are the subtle material stuff of our
destiny, myths are the subtler stuff our Mind is made up of. We are, in our
brain, children of myths and we continue creating infinitely diverging and
convoluted myths. Through our myths, we have waged the most democratic, most
bodily rebel against the Laws of Space-Time and Causality. Time, the time we
know and not philosopher’s time is the father of Cause and one of the names of
Mother Durga is Mahakali - who fascinates Mahakal and more bodily
– in eternal coitus.
The mythical element of Durga Puja of Bengal (or of
the Greater Bengal) is related to its metaphysical dimension just as apparent
size of sun and its actual size are related. Without that sympathy and
broadness of Knowledge-Spirit, this Mother-Goddess, this icon of fractal and
morphed icons will remain only a Pagan Deity. One-way, unmistakably, She is.
But human culture suffers from inertia of choices and most of the cases; choice
is guided by absence of choices rather than experiment with choices. This cultural baggage lies at the
evolutionary level and goes further, further into history as ferocious
obedience to its Totem-Deity, to its own view of Supreme Controller, to its
specific brand of Religion and reciprocal intolerance to the “other.” If we look at this icon only as a Pagan
Deity, an idol with strange attributes, we are going to miss a point. In this
Mother-Deity is a continuum of lost memories and mythical connectivity that is
as mobile and as immobile. Around her have been woven myths more about us than
about gods. With her form as a young and weapon-dressed woman with lion and asuras,
surrounded by her family and the husband of questionable virtue, she hides the
entire mythical world. She is pleasant and sparkling, she is manicured to the
extent of the age, she is given contemporary veneer but the moment the Sanskrit
texts open, we enter into another world –
·
Sristhi-Stithi-Vinasanang
Shakthi-bhute Sanatani
[Oh Goddess, who is
present in all living entities as fundamental
Energy or Life Force and creating, nurturing and destroying the worlds]
As we continue, we hear stranger and stranger sounds, the high feminine adjectives (which Sanskrit’s rich phonetics supply liberally and laws of conjoining approve with ease) – Kaushiki, Varahi, Hari-netra-vilasini, Roudra, Shanta, Narayani, Bhairovi, Chandi, Bhubaneswari, Shuladharani, Gouri, Katyayani, passed, suddenly we hear, in our so known voice of Virendrakrishna Bhadra –
·
Ardha-Matra Shitha Nitya janucharya visheshata
[Oh Devi, Thou are the inarticulable half metre of
consonant sounds]
From the great and gorgeous
description of imageries, beauty and power, adorning the Mother with all
weapons, magic, opulence from the three worlds, (thri-vhuban) invincible
and shining in eternal radiance of Fundamental Energy that drives all beings,
all of a sudden, like a Bell tolling, the poet of Sri Sri Chandi entered into an abstract realm,
a world of uncertainty, an intangible being, a very subtle world – the inarticulable
metre of consonant sound. The myth is transforming. It has started from the
known and with the great adjectives ringing in our ear, we are visualizing her Bhuvan-Mohini Form and the poet has
passed onto something else. He has connected – our consciousness with the
collective unconscious. To Nitya from Lila. The confirmation comes, just after all
battles are over, all enemies are annihilated, Flowers are being thrown in
benediction, the whole cosmos bows to her feet, time and again –
Namo-tashmoi! Namo-tashmoi ! Namo-tashmoi!
·
Ja Devi Sarbha-Bhuteshu Bishnu-Mayeti Shabdita
[Oh Devi, who is sounding in the whole Universe as
Vishnu-Maya]
We are entering into more and more cosmic dimension;
the inspiration of the poet becoming finer and finer, form is slowly
approaching formlessness. The landscape of Bengal (a mindscape as well), its seasons, its green and blue of Earth
Mother and Sky-mother have been searching for a concentrated Being, and she is our Mother. The poets and wordsmiths, the common men and
revolutionaries, the singers and lyricists of the land, the holy men and women,
the ages, the rains and sun, the spring bloom and winter dew, all have added
their spirit onto the concentrated being, because to a Mother, everything is
permissible.
In
next few days, we don’t care whether she came from Kailash or whether she is Vishnu-Maya
or Bramha-Moyi, whether she is the Supreme Controller of the Universe.
We know and half-know that Ram, King Surath and other celebrities of the past
have worshiped her. But we know one thing for sure – she will come every-year.
Whether she comes from Kailash, Nepal, Afghanistan, Egypt, Sumer, Mesopotamia,
Babylon, Greece, Rome, Papua Newgini, Heidelberg or Al-Tamira or from all of
these places and some even unknown or yet to be known or Unknowable, all are
immaterial for the coming days. It is insignificant to know at least in matured
autumn that Artemis, the Egyptian Goddess of Fertility shares some similarity
with Durga. And I also know that my readers are also impatient. So we close the
essay, seeking no clarification of her godliness, of her powers, of seeking no proof
but having that great reproof inside us, where as per the poet, she is
sounding, ceaselessly and omni-directionally, like cosmic background radiation.
She has been first a Mother, rest everything has little significance for sons
and daughters like us.
·
Twang Sabitri Twang Gayatri Twang hi Janani Para
[Thou art the Essence of the Sun, thou art Gayatri
and Thou are, Oh, Mother of mine, the hyper-Mother]
Contributor wordsmith is a Network Manager by profession and earns his living at Calcutta.