Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship 9780197266106

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Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

Title Pages Bihani Sarkar

(p.i) Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship (p.iii) Heroic Shāktism by Published for THE BRITISH ACADEMY by OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS (p.iv) Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP © The British Academy 2017 Database right The British Academy (maker) First edition published in 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the British Academy, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Publications Department, The British Academy, 10–11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH You must not circulate this book in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

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A British Academy Monograph

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

(p.ii) A British Academy Monograph Bihani Sarkar

British Academy Monographs showcase work arising from: British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships British Academy Newton International Fellowships

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Dedication

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

Dedication Bihani Sarkar

(p.v) For Mayu (p.vi)

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Figures, Maps and Tables

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

(p.viii) Figures, Maps and Tables Bihani Sarkar

Figures 1. Image of Śākti Devi 122 2. Image of Lakṣaṇā/Bhadrakāli 123 3. The Sword of Taleju in Durbar Square, Kathmandu 196

Maps 1. Goddess-sites receiving patronage, 2nd–4th centuries 44 2. Goddess-sites receiving patronage, 5th–13th centuries 117 3. The major clan-goddesses and their affiliated clans 147

Tables 1. Evidence of sponsorship issued to heroic Śāktism (4th–13th centuries) 22 2. Common plot elements between the early myths of Skanda and Durgā 107 3. Aikṣvāku/Solar line (based on the Sahyādrikhaṇda) 161 4. Aila/Lunar line (based on the Sahyādrikhaṇda) 162

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Acknowledgements

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

(p.ix) Acknowledgements Bihani Sarkar

This book represents not the culmination but rather the beginning of a long road, that I have merely been preparing for since 2005, when I first grew acquainted with Sanskrit. This preparation would not have been possible without the help of others. My gratitude firstly goes to my Sanskrit teachers, Professor Alexis Sanderson, Dr James Benson and Professor Christopher Minkowski, who introduced to a naive ingénue the wonders of a rich, and often exasperating, language and literature, and an ancient world full of promise and excitement. I am profoundly grateful to my M.Phil. and D.Phil. supervisor Professor Sanderson, who generously shared aspects of his own research, time and vast knowledge of Sanskrit at all stages of this study. No part of this book would have been possible without his inspiration and guidance during my studentship. As well as suggesting the topic of kingship and goddesses as something promising to work on, he also pointed out to me the practice of local goddess worship by kings, sharing his copious notes on individual kuladevis. In addition to teaching Śākta ritual literature such as the Kālikāpurāṇa and the Durgāpūjātattva during my postgraduate studies, he opened my horizon to the intricacy, beauty and passion of Śākta poetry by reading with me the stotra to Durgā in the Haravijaya, and lengthy portions of the Caṇḍiśataka and the Durgāvilāsa. And lastly, through his emphasis on paying close attention to detail and being meticulous in one’s approach, he taught me the concept of scholarship as a fine craft that ought to be perfected. I am particularly grateful to Professor Rosalind O’Hanlon and the anonymous reviewer who, after a careful reading of drafts, had noted that the implicit story of the Indian kingdom and early civilization could be brought out to the forefront of the argument. I am thankful to Professor Christopher Minkowski for commenting on chapters, Dr Benjamin Spagnolo and Dr Belinda Jack for their guidance and feedback, and to Dr Somdev Vasudeva, Dr Peter Bisschop, Dr Nirajan Kafle, Professor Harunaga Isaacson and Dr Martin Delhey for kindly allowing use of their research, much of which is unpublished. This book was written during a postdoctoral fellowship granted to me by the British Academy, who supported and encouraged me throughout my fellowship. Professor Diwakar Acharya’s detailed and patient assessment as academic editor of the book, and suggestions of textual resources I was not aware of, have enriched the arguments beyond measure. Christ Church College and my friends and (p.x) colleagues there have provided me with a haven of kindness and intellectual stimulation. At a stage when I had not even considered making a book out of this research, Professor Ralph Nicholas provided Page 1 of 2 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Acknowledgements unstinting encouragement. For his optimism and kind words, I will be ever indebted to him. To my family and friends, particularly Dr Péter Dániel Szántó—words will never be a sufficient sragdharā for their support during my ten years of working with this subject.

Author’s Note Unless otherwise stated, all dates are CE. For the sake of guiding readers unfamiliar with the distinction in Sanskrit between a palatal and a dental s, Śāktism, otherwise spelt with a palatal ś throughout the book, is written as Shāktism in the title.

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Prologue

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

(p.xi) Prologue Bihani Sarkar

arṇorājanarādhirājahṛdaye kṣiptvaikabāṇavrajaṃ cyotallohitatarpaṇād amadayac caṇḍiṃ bhujasthāyinīm | dvārālambitamālaveśvaraśiraḥpadmena yaś cāharal lilāpaṇkajasaṃgrahavyasaninīṃ caulukyarājānvayaḥ ||1 In 1151 this curious inscription in Sanskrit was commissioned by the Western Caulukya sovereign Kumārapāla. In it he boastfully commemorates subjugating Arṇorāja, a rival lord of Mālava, with a savage and bloody act. Cutting off the head of the warlord, ‘having shot his heart with a single flight of arrows’ (-hṛdaye kṣiptvaikabāṇavrajaṃ), Kumārapāla hung it from his palace gate (dvārālambitamālaveśvaraśiraḥ-) as a trophy to please the war-goddess, the fiery ‘Caṇḍī present in his arm’ (caṇḍīṃ bhujasthāyinīm). It was she who he believed had furthered his success. As a sign of his gratitude, the king ‘intoxicated her with propitiatory offerings of [his rival’s] gushing blood’ (cyotallohitatarpaṇād amadayat) and ‘captivated her’ (aharat) with Arṇorāja’s ‘lotus-like head’ (śiraḥpadma), given (the versifier notes with unintended humour) ‘her penchant for collecting toy-lotuses’ (līlāpaṅkajasaṃgrahavyasaninīm). Vividly evoked in this stanza is a particular aspect of medieval courtly life and religion, one of utmost importance to Indian kingship—the cult of the heroic goddess. This was a deity of kaleidoscopic identity. Her immediately visible form was the amazonian Durgā, represented in medieval iconography as a tempestuous buffalo-demon-slaying sovereign. She also incarnated divinities from wholly separate religious traditions. She was celebrated in Page 1 of 3 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Prologue each of these charismatic embodiments with the greatest pomp, involving the entire populace of a kingdom and in absolute secrecy, with worship known only to a few. It was (p.xii) considered necessary to appease the deity—widely regarded to be fickle and capricious—at the onset of the military calendar in autumn, through splendid court ceremonies. Here large numbers of buffaloes, goats and sheep (and in a few cases even a human2) were sacrificed for her sake, weapons and armies were blessed and infused with her energy, and kings demonstrated their fealty to her. For the medieval Indians, this ritual appeasement was believed to encapsulate the very essence of the heroic ethos. Even when certain features such as offering blood and appeasing wilder, unbridled forms of this devī were condemned by the medieval moral codes, their worship remained central to political practice rather than being relinquished. Why were Indic kingdoms loath to let go of these divinities? One reason was that the custom in medieval India required a kingdom and its ruler to be sanctified and affirmed by a powerful god and an associated cult.3 The acceptance of the ruling clan by the local population depended greatly on the belief that an important deity, in a large number of cases a tutelary goddess who commanded a much broader following among groups other than the ruler’s, had exclusively sanctified the family in power. It was politically necessary that the continued rule of the dynasty was owing to her grace. However, the literature of the times suggests that the reason for royal goddess worship, besides the social need for inheritance and popular acceptance, was also more emotional and psychological. On the one hand, a king had the consolation of his patron-devī’s prodigious protective powers safeguarding him through critical times, such as the loss of the throne, or on arduous journeys, a gift ancient Indic sacred and secular literature associated most particularly with a female potency. However, her protection was not permanent but remained entirely contingent on regular placation. If this pact was to be broken, legends warned she could cast one of her awful curses in displeasure, or let loose a horde of ghosts, and the consequences for king and kingdom could be dire indeed. On the other hand, a king would also turn to a devī for a profoundly intimate and revelatory experience of the basis of his authority—celestial power. The most heightened embodiment of this power was thought to be his tutelary goddess, whom he called his Śakti (‘capability/potency/ power’ in Sanskrit). Given her immanence in the world, a well-attested and widely held view, it was possible, suggested the literature, to grow close to śakti, to be able to experience her without distance. This meant that a king could transform himself into a conduit channelling the energy of the deity. (p.xiii) This belief found expression in an impressive range of rituals whereby the Śakti’s potency could be internalized by a ruler who was a committed practitioner of her creed. By performing these rituals a king believed he was transformed into a mahābala, a man of superhuman might, unvanquished in the onslaught of battle, or indeed under any duress. These interactional, sometimes ecstatic, substantiations of mystical power in the person of the king took place in special ceremonies propitiating the royal devī, taught in traditions refined in courts. Ritual strategies whereby power was invested in the king ranged from reciting secret mantras propitiating the deity, performing rites of self-identification whereby the body of the worshipper was transformed into the body of the goddess, to summoning the goddess and Page 2 of 3 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Prologue appeasing her with blood in return for great gifts. The ecstatic experience of a Śakti’s power was often to be had by possession or through esoteric (Tantric) meditative-worship believed to grant mystical encounters with flying yoginīs.4 In narrative too this intimate relationship between goddess and king is revealed. Some myths show the goddess appearing to a great warrior and granting boons. Some show kings losing their sense of self and speaking in the voice of the goddess. Certain legends even suggested that a king could be inhabited by śakti in dreams or trance.5 Others cast the devī in forms palpable to men—a royal sword or amulet kept close to the monarch’s body, a Kumārī who counsels the king and plays dice with him.6 Such was the passionate devotion aroused by the deity that a good king was even prepared to lacerate his body and offer his blood or decapitate his head to appease her, should she grow more demanding. These myths convey an important cultural belief about royal authority: in medieval India the relationship between sacred and mundane power— Devī and Rājā—was not abstract, but one of real, close and visceral engagement. It was even believed that both were mutually permeable, even different sides of one personality and occasionally fused identity. Notes: (1) Epigraphia Indica (EI) 1.34, v. 15. I am grateful to Alexis Sanderson for indicating this verse to me. (2) See Chapter 7, and for the Maithila Navaratra, in which a human head was offered, see the discussion of the Maithila rite in that chapter (pp. 234–58). (3) Sanderson (2005: 232 ff.; 2009: 252–73). (4) For the second among these, i.e. the transformation of the king into the goddess, an event that would take place during the Navarātra, see the Sāmrājylakṣmipiṭhikā discussed in Chapter 7, pp. 262–70. For 19th-century eyewitness accounts of the Navarātra rites in Śivagaṅgai and Ramnad where the king is made interchangeable with Durgā on Navamī, see Price (1996). For tantric worship of this kind see the example of the Paramāra Naravarman discussed in the Introduction, p. 34. (5) See Chapter 5, pp. 168–72, the first Cooch-Behar king’s experience of dream-visions of Kāmateśvarī. Consciousness occasionally permeated by śakti was presented in this and similar stories (such as those of Śivāji’s possession by Bhavānī) as a highly prestigious feature of divine kingship. When entered by the ideal projection of heroic power, the king was made cognate with her. (6) The legend of the dice-playing match between a tutelary goddess in the form of a little girl and a king is best represented by the tales of the goddess Taleju of Nepal and her relationship with the Malla kings. See Allen (1975: 18–19) for an overview of these legends in the Nepalese genealogies. (p.xiv)

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Introduction

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

Introduction Bihani Sarkar

DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.003.0001

Abstract and Keywords This Introduction outlines the backdrop for the emergence of the cult of Durgā, characterized by a transformation of political structure from empire under the Kuṣāṇas and the Guptas to autonomous kingdoms following imperial decentralization, as villages grew into kingdoms and aspirational lineages, successors to the Guptas, seized control of territories. While describing cultic antecedents in the Kuṣāṇa empire, marking out the decline of the Guptas as the key political moment galvanizing the wider popularity of Durgā's worship, and in describing transforming social landscapes, it explains the central proposition of the book: throughout the course of these developments Heroic Śāktism was a tradition structured around controlling communal dangers and civic threat, which resonated with rising monarchies confronting continual warfare and the threats of the civilizational process. By assessing examples of lineages and the formation of their religious policies, it shows that in absorbing local divinities, many outside the Brahmanical world, Durgā and her worship became a point of interfusion between the classical ‘Sanskritic’ and the non-classical ‘āṭavika’ (forest) domains, as new kingdoms arose from a tribal base after the Gupta decline. This led to the central place of paradox in the symbolic systems of the cult and the goddess's representation of wide-ranging identities, affiliations and loyalties, which in turn became a powerful symbol of the cohesive Indian state in the medieval period. The introduction also summarizes previous research on the Goddess in kingship and sectarian absorptions described in further detail in the subsequent chapters. Keywords:   State-formation, crisis, Gupta, Kuṣāṇa, civilization

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Introduction cakre cakrasya n̄aśrȳa na ca khalu paraśor na kṣuraprasya n̄aser yad vakram. kaitavāviṣkṛtamahiṣatanau vidviṣaty ājibhāji | protāt prāsena mūrdhnaḥ saghṛṇam abhimukhāyātayā kālarātryāḥ kalyāṇāny ānanābjaṃ sṛjatu tad asṛjo dhāraȳa vakritaṃ vaḥ || Caṇḍiśataka, ‘Hundred Verses to Caṇḍi’, 53. Not for the edge of the discus Nor for the edge of axe nor dart Nor for rapier did her face flinch While the Foe1 in guile had conjured Up a buffalo’s form as he made war; But at the ‘stream/edge’ (dhārā) of gushing blood Spurting from his lance-riven head Before her eyes did it become Contorted in aversion— May that lotus-face of Kālarātri [Durgā] Shower on you felicities.2

Aims This book tells the history of the relationship between sacred and mundane power between the 3rd and 12th centuries as it unfolded in Indian courts. It is about the story of Durgā, the buffalodemon-slaying deity dear to rulers, which illuminates an entire belief system concerning political power: warrior-centric goddess worship, henceforth called heroic Śāktism. (p.2) Fundamentally, the slow development of this deity cannot be disentangled from the narrative of the state in pre-modern India. Heroic Śāktism unfolded within a social landscape of conquest and competition, dependent on a monsoon economy in which harvests were unreliable and the appeasement of gods in control of environmental crises, foremost among whom was the goddess, was paramount. Its emergence is imbricated with the imperatives of state: military expansion, the rise of local lineages, the assertion of regional cultic identities, the authorization of territorial ownership and the development of the regular ritual life of kingdoms. All these political processes involved Durgā at their very core. She was the prime symbol that communities used to articulate the shifts they underwent during the fluctuations of expansion and consolidation. Within the story of ancient Indian kingship, two critical transitions overlapped with the rise of heroic Śāktism: the decline of the war-god Skanda as a military symbol and the concomitant rise of the early Indian kingdom. The first shift coincided with a transference of the rhetoric of kingship once strongly linked with the older war-god to the cultural narratives of the goddess. This process consolidated her political imagery and broadened its cultural resonance like no other. The second led to the association of indigenous deities in possession of territories with Durgā and thereby the unification of small states into a broader conception of civilization. Both transitions are interconnected. Skanda was the symbol of empire in its heyday, which had lasted up to the time of the Kuṣāṇas. But from Gupta times, the hegemony of empire was confronted by the need for a more expansive political canvas encompassing upcoming aboriginal states and their symbols of faith. From Samudragupta’s time comes an official declaration of the inclusion of, among a series of rulers in the north, south, east and frontiers of India, the āṭavikarājas, or ‘forest kings’, within the empire, the restitution of disempowered royal lines, Page 2 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Introduction and also assertions of the donative rights of local chieftains.3 These declarations of local powerplayers tell us that the notion of empire was changing to mean something more expansive, accommodating the rights and authority of regional kingdoms. As Gupta empire declined and northern India became a crucible for rising polities forged by independent lineages, imperial symbolism began to transmute in a profoundly radical manner. Once the unchallenged metaphor for charismatic power, Skanda, a male war-god, became eclipsed by smaller goddesses with control over the āṭavika lands. They in turn were made into parts of a larger identity, Durgā, whose very nature was, like the transforming empire, patterned by difference and even contradiction. Durgā in one sense was the most potent (p.3) image of the new socio-cultural map at the dusk of ancient Indian empire, in which regional actors and polities were fashioning their identities in active conversation with a notion of wider civilization. Though she had come into being in the womb of the great empires run by the Kuṣāṇas and the Guptas, she grew into a more expressive symbol for the ‘new world’ and its spirit of entrepreneurship at their disintegration.

The Scholarly Tradition The lengthened historical perspective in this book of the goddess’s slow transformation and its position within the broader history of Indian state-formation are indebted to observations made in scholarship on India since the 19th century. Even in colonial India, the early traditions of the goddess in empowering heroic practice had endured and were visibly evident to observers. British ethnographic accounts of the warrior Rajputs had noted in descriptions of religion that ‘the principal deity of the Rajputs is the goddess Devi or Durga in her more terrible form as the goddess of war. Their swords were sacred to her, and at the Dasahra festival they worshipped their swords and other weapons of war and their horses.’4 This role continued to excite scholars of religious traditions in South Asia for the next hundred years.5 Their studies dealing with the life of small medieval kingdoms in Rajasthan, Nepal, Orissa, Bengal and Tamil Nadu had pointed out the charismatic goddess involved in all their processes, and that the ruler and the royal family shared a mysterious connection with this powerful if enigmatic deity shrouded behind private shrines and private practices. They had also pointed out that one of the key roles served by the goddess’s public rituals within the regular functioning of kingship was to consolidate social structure. Among these studies, Burton Stein in an influential article had explained the importance of the south Indian Navarātra, the principal ritual of the goddess, in consecrating the power of the Vijayanagara kings.6 This function of blessing rulers continued until very recently. Even in the mid-20th century, Taleju, the presiding goddess of Nepal, in her incarnated form the Kumārī, a pre-pubescent girl from the Buddhist Newar gold-making clan, was believed to sanctify the Nepalese king and she was worshipped with (p.4) due importance. Since it was still a living tradition, its particular place within the constitution of Nepalese kingship could be studied in great depth by a number of scholars. Taleju, whose spirit was made to fill the Kumārī every Mahāṣṭami, was of paramount importance to Nepalese kingship. Her mantra was, in the words of Allen, a ‘mark of legitimate succession to the throne—rulers who failed to receive the mantra were regarded as liable to lose their kingdoms’.7 The significance of Taleju is visually manifest in the architecture in Durbar Square in Kathmandu and Pāṭan, where her public form as Mahiṣāsuramardinī or Cāmuṇḍā leaps forth from nearly every tympanum in the courtyards, both of the Kumārī palace and in the main courtyard at Pāṭan. Here one is greeted, even today, by a garland of buffalo entrails offered to her festooning the entrance.

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Introduction That goddess worship formed a common practice among Nepalese rulers as early as the 11th century is attested in records of Lakṣmīkāmadeva, a king of Kantipur,8 and in the narratives of the Malla kings. Oral traditions claim that Taleju was a Maithila import. These traditions, seeking to establish dynastic connections between the Nepalese Malla and the Kārṇāṭa lineages of Mithilā, relate Taleju’s rise in Mithilā among the Kārṇāṭas.9 They say that she was a Tantric goddess who had revealed herself to the founding ancestor of the Maithila Kārṇāṭas, Nānyadeva, in a yantra contained in a casket in the Sarayū river and had caused the building of the Kārṇāṭa capital Simraun Gadh in one night. Under Harisiṃhadeva, Simraun Gadh fell when attacked by the Turkish Ghiyās-ud-din-Tughlaq in 1324. The ruling dynasty is said to have been forced to flee Mithilā and take shelter with Rudra Malla of Bhaktapur in Nepal, the country of their initial forays,10 eventually permanently settling there. Harisiṃhadeva brought with them their tutelary deity Taleju. When in Nepal, the legends report, the first place Harisiṃhadeva established her was Bhaktapur, and her principal officiants in Nepal became the Rājopādhyāya brāhmaṇas of that city.11 Taleju was appropriated by the Malla dynasty, the traditional rulers of Nepal, and her worship at the Nepalese Navarātra came to be associated with Newar Vajrayāna practice and esoterized. On the other hand, even before the purported arrival of this goddess on Nepalese soil, devīpūjā appears to have formed an integral part of Nepalese royal practice—Kumārī worship was possibly a long-standing Vajrayāna, specifically Newari, custom that was incorporated by the Mallas when they sought credence among the Newars.12 (p.5) Heroic Śāktism endowed even a village with the myth of imperial structure. As late as the 1970s, social hierarchies were legitimized during the Navarātra within the micro-unit of the Bengali village. Ralph Nicholas in his careful study of religious life in the village of Kelomal notes how the social fabric of the village, what he calls the ‘sacrificial polity’, comprising ‘the social assembly of sacrificers and caste-specialized workers’, was ‘ritually enacted and the authority of the magnate … legitimized’ during the annual village Durgā Pūjā.13 The ruling zamindār family and other members of the social strata had their role and place in village society affirmed under the eyes of the goddess, even though, Nicholas writes, ‘Bengal villages, particularly after independence, have become politically dynamic, with factions playing out their rivalries in the guise of competing political parties … In the face of such radical changes, the village under study here in the late 1960s, still sustained the framework of the older social order.’ The close association between the goddess’s festival and the sanctification of zamindārī power in Bengal traces its roots to the 16th century,14 but the ultimate belief system out of which this association stemmed went far further back in culture, to the mystical and energizing connection between the goddess and heroic power that permeated ancient Indic cultural consciousness. That the roots of this connection lay far earlier in Indian history, in the Sanskrit and Prakrit literature emerging from the classical period, had not escaped Sanskritists. It was pointed out in instances of Sanskrit poetic literature by Baldissera in the Kathāsaritsāgara, and by Sanderson both in the Tantric textual corpus of Orissa15 and in the developmental trajectory of medieval Śaivism.16 Indeed, Sanderson’s works on early medieval Tantric traditions and their rise have been invaluable in revealing the elaborate intellectual discourse about the ‘hidden’ nature of the goddess. His work has shown the critical place of antinomianism within Śākta cults and its effect on the figuration of the goddess herself and the concomitant worship of the practitioner. In particular, his writings have shown how the presence of such antinomianism led to tensions between the goddess-tradition and the dharmically ordered social matrix in which it was embedded.

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Introduction The landmark study of the early warrior goddess cult is by Yokochi (2004). Working through a range of materials with emphasis placed on an early recension of the Skandapurāṇa, Yokochi provided evidence that the legend of the goddess Kauśiki Vindhyavāsinī contained in the oldest version of that work represented the stage of Durgā’s history, around the 7th century, when (p. 6) she had been elevated from a formerly minor martial goddess of the Vindhya mountains into a supreme ruler of the gods. On the basis of the portrayal of the goddess in this text, she concluded that the origins of the deity lay in ‘the social segment centred on kings and the warrior class’ (154). To Yokochi I am indebted not only for the historical emphasis on the Vindhyavāsinī legend in the old Skandapurāṇa, but also for my methodology. In this book I have chosen to investigate a broad and eclectic range of sources, as reliance on a single text, or a single genre such as epigraphy or mythology, would provide a very limited picture of the cult of the goddess in kingship. Since we are concerned with a belief regarding royal power, its expressions were culturally manifold, reflected in art, literature and rituals of the age, and tied into the political practices of the time. The early literature in Sanskrit and Prakrit is particularly emphasized and investigated in depth, for, despite its wealth of detail, it is often neglected in contemporary studies of royal goddess cults. Though at first sight this corpus of genres, spanning a wide period and locale, appears rather dispersed and haphazard, on close reading it would be seen to articulate a consistent narrative regarding a commonly held cultural perception and practice. In epigraphy we find a reflection of an aspect of the association between kings and goddesses that was official, in Purāṇic legends the scriptural, in poetry the personal, and in ritual the practical. I am also deeply indebted to the work of Sanskritists for the interpretation of myth as sources of history. Among various sources, there is a large body of medieval legends on goddesses and kings in various Purāṇic sources popularized in several recensions in different parts of India and in the vernaculars. Many among such myths contain the memory of historical events that were transmitted and preserved through oral traditions before being committed to writing. They may be seen to reflect, or symbolically depict, processes of actual religious transformations. The myths of the Skandapurāṇa have been fruitfully studied in this way by Granoff, who finds Śaiva myths in this work to reflect the early absorption of local cults and deities by Śaivism in its nascent form, providing thereby a glimpse into the roots of Śaivism in heterodox cults.17 Similarly, Bakker too sees the Vārāṇasīmāhātmya myth of the Skandapurāṇa, which eulogizes and narrates the history of the great sacred city of Vārāṇasī, as ‘reflecting the earliest stage of a process in which the Śaiva religion transformed what originally might have been mainly a commercial centre’.18 In other words, myths can be seen, as described by Bakker, as ‘religion in actu’.19 They were used to explain and justify changes in religions. When a new deity was (p.7) absorbed by another sect, a legend developed to narrativize this process. Similarly, when certain sites acquired importance as pilgrimage destinations, tales developed to explain why that happened, and to establish the primordial connection of a certain god—Śiva, Viṣṇu or Śakti—to that site. I have interpreted the numerous narratives of kingdom formation evoking a goddess as stories that encode such processes. They preserve the conceptual germs of older forms of worship connected to kingdoms before their adoption of a Brahmanical superstructure, and reflect the crucial role played by the older goddess cults in the ritual sanctification of sovereignty.

The Goddess and the ‘New World’ For the imperial Kuṣāṇas and the Guptas, the goddess, like their border of forest kingdoms, was a peripheral deity, essentially monolithic in personality and, though linked to the metaphysics of

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Introduction death, only vicariously linked to the pragmatic necessity of war. For the kaleidoscopic ‘new world’ born from the Gupta demise, the goddess was a much more centrally positioned, indefinably protean and pragmatic symbol. Her place within the āṭavika lands that were now being empowered was much more integral than it had been under the successive Iranian and Vaiṣṇava ideologies of the previous two regimes. This was because the concept of sovereignty as a woman with martial and also fecund potency who was to be appeased for protection was a belief traditionally cherished by many of the non-Brahmanical groups in power in those lands. Among those tribes to have left us epigraphical records from the period are the Orissan Śulkīs, a formerly tribal monarchical lineage, who swore allegiance in their inscriptions to Stambheśvari, a regal deity thought to protect the tribe. An example of a tribal goddess whose uninterrupted worship was thought to confer continued success on the clan, Stambheśvari was the patron-deity initially of Tuṣṭikara20 in the 6th century and then of the Śulkīs of the Dhenkanal-Talcher region of Orissa between the 6th and 9th centuries. The goddess was important to the predominantly tribal area around Sonpur. In fact, she is still worshipped by various communities such as the Dehuris of the Kondh tribe in the Dhenkanal-Talcher area in wooden posts or stones planted outside the doors of their homes, under the name Khambeśvari.21 The dynasty faithful to her for the longest period of time, the Śulkīs, who (p.8) ruled Dhenkanal between the 6th and 7th centuries, originated either (as suggested by Kulke) from the Śaulika tribe,22 or (as suggested by Sircar) from the similarly named Śuklīs of Midnapore district in West Bengal.23 By 554 they had grown from obscure origins in the east to become a considerable power noted for their infantry, who faced the Maukhari king Īśanavarman in battle, as reported in the Haṛāhā inscription of that year.24 They maintained their allegiance to Stambheśvarī by joining their name with hers (Raṇastambha; Kulastambha) and claiming to receive kingship from her in inscriptions.25 Such seems to have been the deity’s charisma that she was even invoked as a legal witness for authorization (pramāṇa) when a land-grant was issued to a brāhmaṇa by Kulastambha in about 709.26 The case of the Śulkis is notable in revealing that the process whereby land was reorganized when kingdoms formed at the end of the Gupta period involved the āṭavika deity at its core. To understand how this process unfolded, we are indebted to the work of Kulke. In his model of the formation of the Indian state after the fall of the Gupta empire, Kulke (1995) postulates four factors enabling the development of early medieval kingdoms from the peripheral unconquered regions outside Gupta provincial towns and capitals, particularly in the fertile riverine areas on the eastern coast: (i) the growth of the chieftain’s power in a central tribal ‘nuclear area’; (ii) the penetration of this tribal ‘nuclear area’ into neighbouring communities and the rise of an ‘early kingdom’; (iii) the further expansion of the kingdom and the emergence of an ‘imperial’ phase; (iv) the development of a cohesive ritual policy by the imperial ruler through the patronage of local cults.27 Many of these cults centred on goddesses who traditionally held great power among the tribes in the kingdom, and whom the newly rising kings would worship as their personal clan-goddesses (kuladevīs).The territorial power of the deities, regarded as the true sovereigns of the land, was held to maintain the might (p.9) and unity of the kingdom.28 Even when the polity was fully harmonized with a classical model of kingship, it affirmed itself by actively acknowledging this power by establishing temples and installing icons for her. In this way, the development of the kingdom and the acceptance of the king by local tribes depended on the connection with, and elevation of, autochthonous devīcults.29 The goddesses of these cults served as the pivot for the interaction between non-classical and classical worlds that had been set in motion in the stages of political growth.

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Introduction But their identities were now doubled. Amalgamated with the goddess most evocative of imperial times, Durgā, or her Śaiva alter ego Pārvatī in the form of the female regenerative organ (yoni), worshipped by means of the same ritual systems and made into the recipients of elite patronage from royal palaces, their charisma now evoked the grandeur of empire just as it recalled the indigenous practice of the village.30 The old tribal identities of these goddesses were not erased, in spite of the proliferation of their natures, as the kings of the region forged new territorial and sectarian allegiances. They remained the seeds of a many-layered whole, regularly propitiated by the emerging kingdom in addition to its new-found worship of classical manifestations. In this way, a clan-goddess served as a visible memory of a far older history of political order.31 Ritualized acts of anthropomorphization visibly trans-substantiated these goddesses from tribal stone to icon. Such still occurs in the case of the ancient goddess Vindhyavāsinī, now known as Bargabhīmā, of the erstwhile busy port of Tāmralipta (modern Tamluk) in West Bengal. Every day priests place a mask representing her face, weapons indicating arms, ornaments and robes on the formless stone that is her archaic presence (observed in situ January (p.10) 2010). Her shrine is also said to be a Śākta piṭha and thereby given a classical myth. The daily drama of shifting identities performed before worshippers crowding at the shrines of these divinities implicitly retells the fluctuating identity of the polity in the past.32 In this way the Gupta era cult of a single goddess ‘Durgā’ with roots in the Kuṣāṅa period transformed, from the 6th century onwards, into a multi-layered cult formed of particular local goddesses, many from an indigenous background, in whom she was thought to inhere and for whom she served as a grander, classical symbol. With her they were united and made nondistinct, a generalized concept of an omnipresent female power-force Śakti was used (p.11) to integrate all of them into a single theological idea, and their individual cults, which had their own character and pasts, were explained as her local embodiments. In other words, the newly formed kingdom became a space for an interaction between the larger and the local. The point of fusion was Durgā. Through the goddess, the two traditions collided and coalesced as her depictions and rituals encompassed both.33 From a monolithic, primarily Vaiṣṇava, entity, the goddess’s nature had now been almost totally reformed into something widely incorporative.

The Archetypical and the Particular The formation of Durgā’s many cultural identities overlapped not only with the conditions of kingship (military success, protection of the civic order) but also with the identity of statehood that had changed after the Guptas. Her development from an archetype to something more heterogeneous paralleled the political shift from empire to kingdom. The stable archetypical singular Durgā (examined in Part I of this book) resonated with the hegemonic nature of empire under the Kuṣāṇas and the Guptas based on a strong central authority and dependent vassal states. Once imperial coherence was destabilized and the rise of the āṭavika-kingdoms and new warrior lineages brought the margins into the very centre of the political landscape, Durgā’s original cultural identity became more diffuse and assimilative of deities symbolic of the sovereign power of local communities (which we examine in Part II). At each stage her nature mirrored the nature of the state, because she always articulated the political. In this sense her transformations were profoundly representative of social change, unlike those of any other deities. What common grounds united this broader cult of Durgā with its particular and independent manifestations? First, all these independent goddesses always represented in one essential aspect rulership; they sanctified kings and represented heroic power. Second, their cults fulfilled Page 7 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Introduction the role of public, political religion, warding away dangers and crises from cities and communities. They were seen to protect and to guarantee the well-being of (p.12) the army, the ruler and all the people, when worshipped in spectacular communal rituals. Durgā’s ritual repertoire was highly sophisticated in this exoteric aspect and was taken over by these individual cults and incorporated in their own ritual expressions, coalescing during the autumnal festival of the Navarātra. Third, the understanding of Durgā’s worship as an act of ‘calming’ the deity with interpersonal ecstatic forms of rituals such as trance and deity-possession overlapped with the understanding of the worship of local goddesses. These passionate, transcendentalizing, highly individualized modes of propitiation had always played an important role in aboriginal religions, and they continued to do so within Durgā’s ritual sphere (even as late, in fact, as the early modern period, when Śivaji claimed to be possessed by the goddess in state-sponsored hagiographies). As the divinity who radiated manifestations as her regents in a vast network of power, blazed like the sun with the energy (tejas) of other gods, and conquered enemies, Durgā embodied a notion of the triumphant, puissant ruler, in whom the luminous particles of other deities inhered. Such was the archetype, reinforced through a complex symbolic system meaningful to the medieval Indians, similar in function and spirit to that of a distant relative in the ancient world, the Roman imperial cult in Asia Minor, also, like the cult of Durgā, one associated with augmenting power in the world. In reinforcing and conveying the notion of power, the Roman cult’s ‘symbolism evoked a picture of the relationship between emperor and the gods’.34 In the same way the Indic sovereign goddess, while symbolizing a divine form of power, simultaneously invoked an earthly one: the image of an Indic rājā. The first set of symbols invoking this analogy was visibly manifested in art, in sculptures of Durgā as the slayer of the buffalo-demon Mahiṣa, an image of victory, or bestride a lion-throne (siṃhāsana), the emblem most resonant of Indic regency. In these images the goddess enacts and upholds the role of the omnipotent Dharmic emperor, one who punishes agents of chaos and thereby performs a ruler’s duty: maintaining the equilibrium in Dharma, cosmic order. At the same time, not only does she regenerate cosmic order, but she also enforces her power to annihilate or punish, also a ruler’s prerogative just as much as the prerogative to grant life. The second set of symbols representing Durgā as an archsymbol of rulership is conveyed, through poetic devices of narrative, metaphor and other tropes, in her principal litanies recorded in Purāṇic myths. The myth cycles contained in the corpus of Indian mythology called the Purāṇas that describe in many versions Durgā’s annihilation of demons collectively embody the symbolic language of Indian kingship and royal power. By no means circumscribed simply to a priestly audience as the (p.13) Vedic texts were, these Purāṇic legends of the goddess had a life and currency of their own, publicly recited for all people as custom in every influential court during the autumnal celebrations of the Navarātra. Whether one understood Sanskrit, the language of the Purāṇas, or not, simply listening to these legends being recited was thought to generate merits and various other rewards, usually listed towards the closing of the legends in a section known as phalaśruti. Hymns from the Purāṇas would be chanted loudly during ritual so that they were intimately enmeshed with the life of active worship. Even today many Indians know these hymns by heart. Their performance functioned as a tacit glorification of the real king, who would see in Durgā’s battles a mythicized, ennobling reflection of his own duties and deeds. Several features evoke Durgā’s correspondence with the real king in these recited legends: she is accompanied by a lion (as a king seated on the siṃ hāsana), the colour of her light is white (and white is the colour of yaśas, glory/royal fame, in kāvya35); she grants victory in battle (as a king inspires his troops to victory),36 she protects from danger (durga) those who seek her refuge (as a king confers abhaya

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Introduction on his subjects),37 and, as statuary shows, punishes Asuras who oppose cosmic order (as a king applies rājadaṇḍa to offenders). Among all legends, it was one in particular that formed from the 8th century the archetypical text of imperial kingship: the Devīmāhātmya. This myth concerning Durgā was employed in various rites and symbolic actions of the kingdom. It conveyed the idea of the war-goddess as imperial metaphor: she is an image of the king himself in his most potent form, the cakravartin —‘the one at the centre of the circle’—unifying vassal states as she unifies smaller goddesses, granted power and light by the gods and appointed by them to restore Dharma, the pristine true order. Even though empire was no longer the dominant political framework in the context of the ‘new world’, heroic Śāktism perpetuated its myth for the cultivation of transcendent kingship by smaller kingdoms with aspirations to connect themselves to a broader network of classical civilization. (p.14) But before we proceed any further, let us tackle the first of our many problems—the name Durgā. The goddess has many names and, indeed, litanies emphasize this point by compiling long lists. Among names, the most popular seem to have been Caṇḍikā, Caṇḍī, Kātyāyanī, Kauśikī, Āryā, Bhavānī, Kālarātri and Nidrā, excluding those synonymous with Pārvatī. Then there are her epithets such as, for example, Mahiṣāsuramardinī (‘Slayer of the Buffalo Demon’), Vindhyavāsinī (‘Dweller of the Vindhya mountain’) and Śumbhaniśumbhanāśinī (‘The Destroyer of the demons Śumbha and Niśumbha’). In this book I refer to the goddess as Durgā in the first instance. Why? First, among all her names, this was regarded as the most neutral, in that it was used by all sects. As we shall see, Caṇḍikā or Caṇḍī appears primarily in Śaiva contexts, Nidrā in Vaiṣṇava ones; Kauśikī, though used by both these sects, was a clandesignation; Kātyāyanī was explained by a linkage to a sage, Kātyāyana (in whose hermitage she had, according to one legend, arisen); while the rest were not as frequently used as these. Second, ‘Durgā’ appears exceedingly early in Vedic literature, in the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka of the Black Yajurveda 10.1 and the Ṛg Veda Khilas 10.127a–d. These contain a Durgāṣūkta, in which the goddess is invoked as the goddess Durgā and nothing else, though adjectives descriptive of her flame-like appearance are used (agnivarṇāṃ, jvalantim, vairocanīm).38 This hymn is within a set of hymns that, according to Sāyaṇa, the commentator to the Black Yajurveda., are mantras that are to be recited to remove undesirables (aniṣṭas).39 The first among them is to the fire-god Agni.40 The one to Durgā is similarly to be recited to tackle unwanted crises. According to the logic behind its usage in this apotropaic context, the name Durgā bore a direct connection to adversity—durga is something difficult to pass through—and the central argument in this book is that throughout her early development she and her rituals were essentially connected to averting or managing periods of communal crises. In this respect warrior-goddess worship was intrinsically a religion whose domain was danger. Therefore on grounds of neutrality, antiquity and the fact that it evokes the central purpose of the goddess in the period under consideration, we shall consider Durgā as historically the most important of her names.

In the Darkening Glades of the Margin The unique coalescence of aṭavī and empire, of ‘foreign’ and ‘established’, unfolding in the process of state formation, was essentially a conflicted one, (p.15) given that the two worlds were profoundly inconsistent with each other. Far from ignoring this, Indian literature from the time represented the social confrontation between the two disparities through its own symbolic modes and language. In doing so, it always positioned the goddess in the very centre of its conception of a sinister, if alluring, world outside the classical universe. Categories of the reviled, the impure and inherently suspicious, from which classicism sought to distance itself,

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Introduction tended to be identified with the goddess and her tradition. In many examples from early medieval Sanskrit kāvya, epics and the Purāṇas, written during the strengthening of formerly āṭavika communities into kingdoms, she is presented as a deity of liminality, an outsider to classicism. Some extreme forms of her ritual worship (offering human heads or blood) are called barbaric in Purāṇic literature, and thereby dissociated from the great majority of Brahmanical worship, with the exception of that taught to kings. Among the range of representations emerging about her in sources of that time (and there are several), it is this that is the most revealing about the role played by heroic Śāktism in the encounter between assertive tribal culture and weakening Sanskritic imperialism. In the Harṣacarita, the Kādambarī, the Gaüḍavaho, the Haravijaya and in several tales of the Kathāsaritsāgara41 outcastes are depicted as Durgā-worshippers. No specific historical group is named, but one fictive tribe, often appearing in Sanskrit as a general symbol for any outcaste, is particularly connected to Durgā: the Śabara. To cite a specific example, in the Harṣacarita, a Śabara called Nirghāta is called ‘the lover of Kālarātri [Durgā]’. He is also said to be ‘a veritable Mahānavamī festival for countless buffaloes’ (mahānavamīmahaṃ mahiṣamaṇḍalānām […] kāmukam […] kālarātreḥ).42 Mahānavamī was the lunar day when buffaloes were meant to be sacrificed to the goddess. Baa conceives of the Śabara as no less than the goddess’s intimate beloved and associates him with the principal day of her ritual. At the same time he plays with another, pejorative, sense that he inlays in the two words connected to the goddess, Kālarātri and Mahānavamī. The Śabara is ‘a lover of Carnage’ (kālarātri also means the night the universe is destroyed). He bodes, like Durgā’s ritual for buffaloes, the slaughter of life. In Sanskrit literature, modes of representing liminality articulate a certain uneasiness about the new āṭavika world as the antithesis of the classical. Like the Śabara, the dark-skinned ‘other’, Durgā is characterized by violence and dark colouring (though this dark colouring originated in the classical conception of her as the Vaiṣṇava Nidrā). Both are linked to death and bloodthirstiness, although they are viewed as potentially benevolent. The sites of Durgā’s (p.16) worship are located in the middle of the wilderness rather than in the urban environment of courts. Her old cult centre in the Vindhya mountain became an image of the outside for the writers of classical literature. In the imagined topography of classical Indian literature, the Vindhya was considered the home of the Śabara people. Its expanses represented the darkening, dangerous glades of marginal religious beliefs and communities ranging beyond the northern cities, however far from reality this was (as great Sanskritic empires flourished south of that mountain). In fact, Sanskrit literature, in describing Durgā in the Vindhya region, often gives her the name Śabari, thereby calling her a Śabara goddess. In the real world, though, Durgā was far from the peripheral, threatening symbol that she was in some literary portrayals. By the time these accounts were written, she had become deeply embedded in the classical. She was incorporated successively into two prestigious Indian religions, Śaivism and Vaiṣṇavism, as no less than the other halves of their presiding male gods. Far from being a local attraction, her shrine in the Vindhya mountain was positioned in a critical way in poems about large-scale royal conquest such as the Gaüḍavaho commissioned by Yaśovarman, king of Kanyakubja, the political heartland of 7th-century northern India. There were installations of her temples in Vārāṇasī and even in Pāṭaliputra, as Subandhu would lead us to believe, and growing numbers of her icons from the Gupta era onwards. In fact, Baa describes the very antonym of these portrayals of marginality in his conception of Durgā as the wielder of empyrean order in the classically ornamented verses of the Caṇḍīśataka. In the context of her cultural eminence, what the descriptions of ‘Śābari’ reflect is not that her origin was in a

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Introduction ‘barbarous’ setting—of that we have hardly any testimonial—but that at the time such images appeared in writing, her cult was absorbing deities outside the dominant idea of civilization. The trope of Durgā as the outcaste’s goddess in literary portrayals, such as the one in Bāṇa’s work, became a vehicle expressing latent anxieties concerning the emergent new kingdom knocking on the door of established polities. These were anxieties in the Sanskritic world about the foreign, the anti-classical, the disintegration of empire and the disordering of civilization attendant on the elevation of tribal culture in the social scape. Underlying the unease is the fact that Durgā was becoming the alter ego of deities with little or no standing within classical conceptions, that in the process of kingdoms arising, she was demystifying the otherness of these marginal faces.43 (p.17) They also tell us that, just as it was where they became manifest, the arena of heroic Śāktism was also where the tensions between the margin and civilization, between ‘foreign’ and ‘native’, in the story of the new kingdom were resolved. Anyone, even an outcaste, could worship her. There was little sense of breach, pollution or interdiction as there was in such selfconsciously pure shrines as Vaiṣṇava ones, an aspect that remains intact even in present-day goddess shrines. In other words, within the fraught dynamic between old and new social orders, heroic Śāktism served as a node of resolution for potentially dichotomous, tense relationships. In the wider world, the scenes with tribal votaries in poetry, of Śabara boys offering swords to her in devotion, are given credence by doctrinal literature that was used on the ground. Instructions for priests teach that Durgā’s worship during the Nine Nights festival was for everyone and should be expansive enough to include even ritual forms deemed suspicious. For example, a verse said to belong to the Bhaviṣyapurāṇa describes three categories of her autumnal worship, among which Durgā’s worship by outcastes (typified by the category Kirāta, often called a mountain-dwelling tribe) is accommodated in the third category of the Navarātra named tāmasī (‘Pitch-Black’), which is without mantras and accompanied by wine and meat.44 Likewise, rites normally out of place in dharmically ordered society were taught by prescriptions of the Nine Nights as celebrations mandatorily.involving everyone, even the most respectable śaṅkā-ridden brāhmaṇa. For instance, the Eastern Kālikāpurāṇa teaches the universal celebration of a Śābarotsava, the Festival of Śabaras, on Daśami, the day after the last tithi of the Nine Nights.45 The Śābarotsava, whatever its origins, was stereotyped as an old tribal rite by the Dharmaśāstric commentarial tradition,46 which explains that the dissolution of caste on that day and the injunction to behave like a Śabara (a euphemism for abandonment) make it a ‘tribal’ festival. Sanskrit doctrine accommodated the ‘tribal outside’ in other ways within the sphere of the goddess’s ritual, and re-categorized them as specifically heroic customs. Among the range of sanguinary rites, it teaches kings more extreme forms of self-mutilation and offering human heads to fully sate the goddess, not on the grounds that they are traditional practices of appeasing Durgā’s earliest Vaiṣṇava form, Nidrā, as they were (see Chapter 1), but on the strength that they are old tribal customs testing heroic courage. For instance, (p.18) the Bhaviṣyapurāṇa, and closely related passages from other Purāṇas cited in Dharmaśastric literature, repeatedly note that Durgā is venerated with such practices only by ‘hordes of outcastes’ (nānāmlecchagaṇaiḥ), ‘dwellers of Anga, Vaṅga and Kaliṅga, Kiṃnara Varvaras’ (angavangakalingaiś kinnarair varvaraiḥ) and Śaka tribes (śakaiḥ).47 While Anga, Vanga and Kalinga constituted lands that were understood more vaguely as lying beyond the Sanskritic pale, Śakas and varvaras were all terms in orthodox discourse used to typify indigenous races. The fundamental point the scripture makes, though, is not the one about the

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Introduction typology of Śākta ethnic groups but that such practices must be performed by all Indian kings when propitiating the goddess because foreign rulers from the outside perform them—a statement of radical inversion if ever there was one. What it shows again is that the goddess and her rituals were the instruments through which comminglings of social and ritual dichotomies could be enacted in the early medieval world. Durgā’s cult in the early medieval period from the 3rd to the 7th centuries was not therefore exclusively Brahmanical, nor Vaiṣṇava nor Śaiva, but ecumenical. Groups outside the castesystem generalized as mlecchas, ‘foreigners’, in early medieval Sanskrit were all worshippers of Durgā or a form related to her. Later her cult came to include Buddhist and Jaina (as we shall see in Chapter 5) worshippers too, while one among the early Muslim traders acquiring power in Mahārāṣṭra made endowments to her temple (discussed below, p. 118). Esoteric Śaiva theology, influential in this period, may have played some role in this outlook: in early medieval esoteric thinking caste-distinctions had to be dissolved in the maṇḍalic ambit of higher śākta worship. This was because śākta theologians felt that observing hierarchical norms was simply a matter of following the ‘mundane’ (laukika) order of the world. But, in their view, proper śākta worship, rooted in perceiving the goddess as ultimate non-dualism, ought to transcend dichotomies of caste.48 Śāktism therefore idealized a conscious violation of the purity rules determining caste. (p.19) All this changed once the āṭavika kingdom was absorbed into the matrix of Sanskritic empire—once, that is, the new state had become fully enmeshed with the paradigm of the classical and its onus on purity. With the advent of the Devīmāhātmya from the late 8th century onwards, in which Durgā’s status achieved its zenith, the knowledge of an essentially dangerous goddess, and the unease about her in religious writings, disappeared. References in later kāvya and Purāṇas to Durgā’s outsider status also diminished once her integration into Indian religion was fully affirmed and glorified, and once (by the late 8th century) Brahmanism, supported by the growth of rule-defining Dharmaśāstric literature, became the dominant ideological discourse. Once the political integration into the classical was achieved, the ecumenical character of her cult diminished. By becoming more public and synonymous with what proper, or ‘classical’, kings did, the practice of worshipping Durgā also became restrictive regarding who was entitled to worship. After the Ghaznavid invasions in the 11th century, there was a reactionary ossification of the Brahmanical kingdom and the privileging of the caste-model as the ideal social structure. Discussion on the finer points of Durgā’s royal pūjā, including who was entitled to worship her, was dominated by the smārtas, orthodox commentators of the Dharmaśāstra, and their word on the subject was regarded as law (and indeed continues to be in present-day practice).49 The smārta appropriation of Durgā’s worship is evidence of a process of increased Brahmanical control in the domain of heroic Śāktism after the post-Gupta Indian kingdom was fully classicized. As a result, the worship of Durgā was made to conform to Brahmanical ritual conventions of purity, and versions eschewing animal sacrifice and the offering of alcohol, and prescribing rites for the rule-abiding vegetarian and teetotalling dvija, began to appear in ritual manuals from this period.50 These included offerings of cleansing water, a Vedic verse inserted to exonerate animal sacrifice as ‘not a killing’ (avadhaḥ), options to substitute animals with vegetables for vegetarians, and the exclusion of alcohol from the list of offerings. These Brahmanical influxes are in fullest evidence in the smārta Raghunandana’s ritual manual, the Durgāpujātattva.51 Durgā’s depictions in literature also underwent a transformation. Whereas older literary depictions lavished praise on her antinomian character, her Kali-like associations with the cremation ground, later depictions preferred instead a less transgressive form that was

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Introduction in keeping with conventions of feminine propriety. As the royal goddess became more sanitized (p.20) and subsumed by caste, her worship, formerly practised by kings of all creeds, came to be associated with an exclusively kṣatriya form of kingship. There was little chance for an outcaste in this period to commission a glittering devīpūja as an assertion of his sovereign independence. As she was made into a kṣatriya deity, literary allusions to outcaste kings and Durgā, once abundant in earlier texts, disappeared.

State Formation and Heroic Śāktism But all this was vastly different at the cusp of empire to kingdom in the late 6th century. The goddess was the metaphor for the possibility of all sorts of radical collusions: pure and impure, brāhmaṇa and outcaste, Śāiva and Vaiṣṇava, Buddhist and non-Buddhist, Jaina and non-Jaina, rājya and tribe, ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’, dharma and adharma. Against the backdrop of this ‘new world’, the idea of Durgā’s cohesive nature composed of infinite paradoxes in dynamic relation to each other was nothing less than a reflection of the emergent political structure grounded in an āṭavika base. The sharpened emphasis on her control of war resonated with the competitive arena of warfare that the Gupta collapse had opened up. The rearticulation of her as a cohesive deity enabled the apotheosis of previously faceless goddesses and a far bolder expression of heroic Śāktism in testimonia. The number of official charters testifying to this process, so far insubstantial, significantly increased. All of a sudden, goddesses began to emerge more fully in the officially commissioned inscriptional records of Indian history (see Table 1). Simultaneously, literature on devīs in Sanskrit, the language of the cultivated, began to appear, and did so in voluminous quantities. This expanding culture of intellectual discussion was employed by a culturally ambitious court to refine pre-existing rituals and ideas concerning a local clangoddess. In broadest terms the texts describe a theological tenet of feminized power called Śākti. Locally influential royal goddesses were described as emanations of this concept. A number of formulations on the subject of who or what Śakti was, and the appropriate method of her propitiation, appeared in esoteric Tantric and exoteric Purāṇic writings, leading to a diverse range of scriptural and ritual spheres available for a state to draw from. In other words, a sweeping transformation had occurred: heroic Śāktism had crystallized from a peripheral faith under the Guptas to a religion of state or imperial power where political might was figuratively understood and ritually cultivated by a kingdom in her cohesive, archetypical form as Śākti. The pragmatic outlook of the goddess-cult was reiterated time and again in literature from the 6th to 11th centuries, so that heroic Śāktism was seen to (p.21) enable the enterprise of kingdom-formation. It presented itself more forcefully than ever before as a soldier’s faith in a deity granting protection from danger and the attainments necessary for human survival, as opposed to the ascetic, world-negating outlook of Upaniṣadic Brahmanism, Buddhism and Jainism. This contributed to its popularity not just with warriors, but even with itinerant merchants who, like soldiers, undertook risky journeys. With the rise of the later medieval states after the 10th century, warrior-centred devīpūja, particularly in autumn, spread all over the Indic world and was performed almost de rigueur, from the Vijayanagara empire, the kingdoms of Mysore,52 Ramnad and Śivagaṅgai in the south, the Maratha domains in the west, the Rajput kingdoms of the north-west,53 Bihar54 and the Nāga and Kākatāya domains in Madhya Pradesh, to the eastern kingdoms of Aṅga, Vaṅga,55 Kaliṅga, Mithilā and the Nepalese kingdoms, and further to the east, in the principality of Surakarta in Java.56 There are impressive accounts of the carnivalesque magnificence of these rituals and the great expense monarchs were prepared to lavish on mounting fine displays centring on the tutelary devī, not just for their own clans, but for all dependent subjects. Brought out fully from

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Introduction behind the curtains of private, clandestine or indigenous practice, goddesses, whose identities slipped in and out of Durgā’s, had by now become much more visible in the systems ordinarily regulating a state. The fall of the Guptas had precipitated a crisis of civilization. In its aftermath, it generated the ideal social context for granting impetus to royal goddess worship—dynamic processes of state formation requiring military action. Civilization was being radically reshaped. The Gupta collapse (542–3) marked the end of the protective canopy of a unified empire and ushered in inter-state political rivalry and continuous regional warfare, the great century-long struggle over the prized city of Kanyakubja being a defining example of this turbulence. The battle for Kanyakubja witnessed the maturation of the military might of the Pālas, the Gurjara-Pratīhāras and the Cālukyas. After the cessation of hostilities and, later, the fall of the city, emerged new dynasties hungry for power—the Coḷas in the south and in the north the Paramāras, the Chandellas, the Kāḷacuris, the Gāhaḍavālas and the first Rajputs.57 These shifts coincided with a harmonizing of Durgā’s ritual system with the imperatives of military state-expansion. (p.22)

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Introduction

Table 1. Evidence of sponsorship issued to heroic Śāktism (4th–13th centuries) in the form of copperplate/stone inscriptions and inscribed statuary. Era/date (CE)

Durgā/associated deity receiving patronage

Donor

Site of patronage

Published source

4th cent.

Mātṛs

Gupta vassal Bhuluṇḍa

Bagh, Gupta-Valkhā

Ramesh & Tewari (1990: 4)

4th cent.

Mātṛs

Gupta vassal Bhuluṇḍa

Bagh, Gupta-Valkhā

Ramesh & Tewari (1990: 22)

4th cent.

Bhīmā

Viṣṇuśiri (Jaina charter)

Miñjaparvata (Kashmir Smast)

Falk (2003)

528–9

Piṣṭapurikā

Gupta vassal Saṃkṣobha

Mānapura

CII 3.25; Willis (2009: 88)

6th cent.

Piṣṭapurikā

Gupta vassal Śarvanātha

Mānapura

CII 3.29; Willis (2009: 88)

6th cent.

Piṣṭapurikā

Gupta vassal Śarvanātha

Mānapura

CII 3.31; Willis (2009: 88)

6th cent.

Kātyāyanī/Bhavānī

Anantavarman Maukharī

Nāgārjunī Hills

CII 3.50

606

Licchavi goddess (Māneśvarī?)

Aṃśuvarman Licchavi

Hāṃḍigaon

Vajrācārya (1973: 301–2)

644

Ghaṭṭavāsinī

Dhavalappadeva (Guhila grant)

Dabok, Mewar

Slusser (1998: App. 4.1); EI 20.13

646

Araṇyavāsinī

Śilāditya (Guhila grant)

Mewar

EI 20.9

7th cent.

Śarvānī

Prabhāvatī (Khaḍga charter)

Samataṭa

EI 17.24.4; Sanderson (2009: 84)

Late 7th cent.

Durgā

Harivarman, vassal of Harṣa

Kudarkot

EI 1.22

7th–8th cent.

Durgā

commissioner unknown

Badami

SII 15.2.405

726

Kṣemāryā/Khimel Mata

Rājjila, chieftain of Varmalata

Vaṭākarasthā

EI 9.25

8th cent.

Caṇḍi

Pantha (private charter)

Vārāṇasī

EI 9.8

8th cent.

Bhadrakālī/Lakṣaṇī

Meruvarman (Chamba charter)

Brahmaur

Vogel(1911:85)

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Introduction

Era/date (CE)

Durgā/associated deity receiving patronage

Donor

Site of patronage

Published source

8th cent.

Śaktidevī/Śivaśakti

Meruvarman (Chamba charter)

Chhatrari

Vogel(1911: 138–45)

8th cent.

Mahiṣāsuramardinl

Bhogaṭa, Chura chieftain

Kangra Valley

Vogel(1911: 150–2)

8th cent.

Pārvatī

Sātyakī, son of Bhogaṭa

Sarahan, Kangra Valley

Vogel(1911: 152–9)

8th cent.

Durgā

Sātyakī, son of Bhogaṭa

Baijnath, Kangra Valley

EI 1.16

8th cent.

Durgā-Bhagavatī

civic association

Aihole

SII 15.2.463

8th cent.

Durgā

Nakkan Kori (private charter)

Tirupparanguram

EI 36.15; SII 14.3

9th–13th cent.

Durgā-Bhatārakī

village mahāsabhā (Coḷa grant)

Puḷḷalūr, Tamil Nadu

SII 13.341

(p.23) 10th cent.

Umā-Parameśvarī

sister of Rājarāja (Coḷa grant)

Thanjavore

SII 2.1

10th cent.

Umā-Parameśvarī

sister of Rājarāja (Coḷa grant)

Thanjavore

SII 2.6, 2.7

10th cent.

Durgā-Parameśvarī

citizen of Nallur (private grant)

Thanjavore

SII 2.4.79

10th–11th cent.

Carcikā

Mahendrapāla and Nayapāla

Bāngarh

Sanderson (2009: 108, 226 and n. 512)

17 April 926

Daśamī

Madhumati Sugatipa (Rāṣṭrakūṭa grant)

Chinchani, Mahārāṣṭra

EI 32.4; Sircar (1971: 126– 32)

Late 10th cent.

Durgā-Bhaṭṭārikā

chieftain Subhiksarājadeva Garhwal

EI 31.38.3

1019–24

Bhīmā

Bhaumakara feudatories

Peḍāgaḍhī, Mayurbhanj

EI 33.14

1034

Daśamī

Cāmuṇḍarāja (gov. of Saṃyāna)

Saṃyāna, Mahārāṣṭra

EI 32.5

1048

Daśamī

Vijjala (private charter)

Saṃyāna, Mahārāṣṭra

EI 32.5.2

13 November 1053

Daśamī

Vijjala (private charter)

Saṃyāna, Mahārāṣṭra

EI 32.5.3

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Introduction

Era/date (CE)

Durgā/associated deity receiving patronage

Donor

Site of patronage

Published source

Late 11th cent.

The Navadurgās

Nayapāla

Pāla Bengal

EI 39.2.7; Sanderson (2009: 111–12)

Late 11th cent.

Ambikā

Nayapāla

Pāla Bengal

EI 39.2.7; Sanderson (2009: 112 and n. 235)

1171–2

Ambikā

Sāmantasiṃhadeva Guhila

Jagat, Mewar

Sinha-Kapur (2002: 216)

12th cent.

Durgā

Vāmaṇan Srlrāman (private)

Tiruvakkarai

SII 17.203

12th cent.

Caṇḍi

Lakṣmaṇa Sena

Bengal

EI 17.24.5

1249

Ambikā

Jayasiṃhadeva Guhila

Jagat, Mewar

Sinha-Kapur (2002: 216)

13th cent.

Vindhyavāsinī

Vijayā (Guhila grant)

Dungarpur, Mewar

Sinha-Kapur (2002: 216– 17)

1298–9

goddess of Kankroli

Rāval Samarasiṃha

Kankroli, Mewar

Sinha-Kapur (2002: 217)

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Introduction (p.24) The rituals of the martial Durgā, and royal goddesses assimilated with her, blessed the onset of battle, in particular the potentially dangerous march (yātrā) leading to armed confrontation. Like the Marathas before the advent of colonialism, who functioned in a climate of extreme instability and financial uncertainty,58 the kingdoms of medieval India existed in a fraught and continuously threatened political map. Their ‘marauding’59 of other dynasties coincided with the cult of a Śakti, just as it did in the Maratha domains, in which the goddess Tuḷjā Bhavānī had sanctified such efforts. In similar periods of campaign and state-building among the medieval Pālas, the Cālukyas, particularly under the revival by Viṣṇuvardhana against the Gangas and the Kadambas, the Nāgas immediately during their rise in Bastar, and the Maithilas during the early Nepal conquests orchestrated by Caṇḍeśvara, court-sponsored goddess-cults flourished to ritually empower such activities.60 These royal dynasties also incorporated Durgā into the official narratives appearing in their inscriptions explaining their rise to power. The Southern Cālukyas were the first to do so. Other major combatants in the struggles for power summarized just before, such as the Pālas, the Gurjara-Pratīhāras, Yaśovarman of Kanyakubja, the Chandellas and in particular the Rajputs, similarly professed to having been sanctified by a warrior-śakti in their military endeavours. Kanyakubja, the city ruled by the first three of those dynasties, grew into a centre for Durgā worship by the 10th century. Legends developed in Sanskrit about how great kings who went on to establish their mighty empires could do so only because they were granted kingship by Durgā. Proper kingship, in fact, wholly depended on this belief. Like Śāktism under the later Marathas, medieval heroic Śāktism attracted entrepreneurs involved in medieval state-formation, who dealt with risky opportunities of advancement with little financial solvency. A royal goddess’s being and function was intimately connected to these shifts of political power and dynastic ambitions. Time and again, it was the language of managing dangers attendant on expansion and metaphors of power transactions that heroic Śāktism resorted to in its liturgy and literature. Thus the terms that keep appearing in its literature are those for victory, for dispelling obstruction, for power and reward, the rhetoric of soliciting protection and quelling suffering, the particular relevance of a goddess in the battlefield, the theme of (p.25) the goddess investing a prince with kingship in return for loyalty. Throughout its long history, it remained essentially a religion providing security and reward in such ventures, which is why any act of ambush—be it a state-sponsored campaign or even an illegitimate robbery—began with the propitiation of a goddess and averting crises; and why any aspirant in the social structure, from tribal chief to robber to king at the helm, sought security in a devī. Material history bears witness to this expansion. The era witnessed a burgeoning of royal donations of land (one or a number of villages), money, images and kind made to support goddess shrines by kings and wealthy individuals (see Table 1 above). For example, in Thanjavur, a grant of jewels by a Coḷa princess to the goddess Umā-Parameśvarī had notably included a gold crown set with an astonishing 859 diamonds, 309 large and small rubies and 669 large and small pearls; a gold garland set with 505 diamonds, 110 rubies and 94 strung pearls; earrings, armlets, a pearl ornament, arm-ornaments and bracelets all equally set with precious gems.61 These were inordinately splendid donations. The business of commissioning Śakti icons was undertaken with equal care and magnanimity. In the case of the Chamba rulers, the most eminent artisan of the region was commissioned to produce cult images of important royal

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Introduction goddesses and his name was proudly emblazoned at the base of the images, given the great prestige it brought to the commissioner.

A Pre-Gupta Antecedent in the Kuṣāṇa Period I start the story of this goddess-centred religion of controlling risks and dangers with the Guptas. However, material history leads us further back, to the 2nd century and the Kuṣāṇa empire (127–93; extent of empire: Afghanistan, north India including the principal cities of Sāketa, Kauśāmbī and Pāṭaliputra, and Śrī-Campā in the east), and no discussion on the goddess under the Guptas would be complete without assessing her pre-Gupta antecedent, what I call a ‘proto-Durgā’ or ‘proto-Caṇḍikā’. There is much evidence that Mathurā was an important seat of the Kuṣāṇas in India, and it was here that the earliest known images of Mahiṣāsuramardinī appeared. An astonishing thirty-eight images of a warrior goddess have been found in the Mathurā area.62 These resemble the mature conception of the goddess that is later represented in images found widely in India. Before their time, there is no evidence, either material or textual, to suggest that the goddess had been (p.26) popular in Indian culture. In these icons she is shown either slaying the buffalo or as a standing, serene figure adopting the couragebestowing abhaya gesture, in each case with a trident and sometimes with a lion, important elements unifying the goddesses and demonstrating that they are one deity in two divergent stances, aggressive and beatific. The buffalo-slaying stance also shows that the myth of Durgā and her battle with the demon Mahiṣa was well known at that time. One icon of this goddess, broken but matching the bottom half of the standing goddess figurine, has been retrieved from Mat, one of the sites of the Kuṣāṇa divine sanctuaries,63 which may also suggest that the protoCaṇḍikā was perhaps worshipped at that Bactrian site by the Kuṣāṇas. The buffalo-slaying icons show the goddess with four, six or eight arms firmly holding the body of the buffalo stretched across the body, with one arm gripping and strangulating its neck. The top arms hold a wreath and carry a trident, while the buffalo’s head looks upwards at the goddess’s face, its horns pointing downwards. Elements characteristic of a Near Eastern goddess, Nana’s64 iconography such as the sun and moon discs and the lion, appear in four of these figures. In one65 the goddess slays the buffalo while at her feet are crouched on either side two lions. She holds aloft the wreath with two of her top hands, and with another pair of arms carries a sun and a moon disc held in each hand. In another broken figurine,66 depicting her slaying the buffalo, a lion is also to be seen crouching at her foot to the left, its paws crossed on the ground. In the Mat image of the same goddess in her beatific pose, the lion appears once more crouched behind her feet.67 Based on the presence of these syncretistic elements, scholars of Bactria have deduced that the sculptures of the Mathurā proto-Caṇḍikā in her two styles, buffalo-slaying and serene, had synthesized aspects of Nana, notably the lion. But everything else differs, and it is clear that these are two very different goddesses. Whereas Nana on Bactrian coins is fully robed with simple ornaments and two arms, carrying either a sceptre or bow and arrow, with only a wreath as a headdress, the sculptures of Durgā from Mathurā show a bare-chested, voluptuous and flamboyantly dressed goddess with a warrior’s band criss-crossing her torso, a draped lower garment, an elaborate headdress with a knot in the middle, a dot in the middle of the forehead, holding a trident and brandishing many arms. (p.27) But the lion, sun and moon and possibly even the wreath of victory are incorporated from the Bactrian model of Nana into the local Mathuran style. Nana’s sun and moon symbols held in either hand in these Mathurā icons of the buffalo-slaying scene are even recalled by later literature in Sanskrit on Durgā as characteristic symbols of her power: a verse from the 9thcentury Kashmirian epic poem the Haravijaya describing Durgā’s horrific eschatological apparition Kālarātri poetically refers to the sun and the moon held in the hands of this goddess Page 19 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Introduction at the time of destruction as they rise and set behind the Udaya and Asta mountains, and compares them to jewelled balls with which she appears to be playing a game.68 The sun and moon also appear in later iconography: an image from Kashmir represents her in Nana-esque fashion, seated on the lion-throne with both legs assertively placed firmly on the ground, holding the sun and moon in her top left and right hands, an icon in which traces of the Kuṣāṇa protoCaṇḍikā have evidently lingered.69 It is not unusual that the earliest visual forms of Durgā, which would influence all later ones, would draw their artistic vocabulary from beyond the subcontinent. Religious syncretism was a standard feature of Kuṣāṇa culture. Though faithful to their Central Asian identity, depicting themselves in characteristic Central Asian attire in Mathurā iconography with boots and tunic,70 theirs was an empire of diversity built on an interaction of cultures from the Central Asian kingdoms to the west. Spanning the region between Bihar and Bactria, Sindh and Kashmir, with access to Sassania and the Bactrian–Hellenistic world, their vast empire formed a linking corridor between the West and India through which the carriage of ideas and goods was facilitated by trade, diplomatic missions and conquest. Florus, for instance, reports ambassadors from India in Rome at the time of the Emperor Trajan, and mercantile contacts based on trading silk.71 Kuṣāṇa coinage imitated Roman denarii, while sculpture from Gandhāra harmonized Hellenistic motifs to portray Indian figures such as the Buddha.72 Kuṣāṇa Bactria furnishes us with ample evidence of how Greek religious ideas interacted with Indian ones—for instance, coins of the Bactrian king Eucratides depict the presiding goddess of the town of Kāpiśa, enthroned in Greek fashion but accompanied by images of an elephant and a caitya.73 The Kuṣāṇas, coming into contact with the Bactrian Greeks and the Iranians, imported into India from Central Asia and the Greek cultures of that region the religious icons of those places (p. 28) and in turn introduced Indian symbolism to the West—Ummā (Sanskrit: Umā), for instance, is one of the Indian deities named in a Kuṣāṇa inscription from Rabatak as one of the most important gods whose worship was to be undertaken at the dynastic shrine at Bactria.74 Iranian deities worshipped by the Kuṣāṇas were correlated by them to Indian gods: in an intercalated gloss on top of lines 9–10 of the inscription from Rabatak, Mahāsena and Viśākha are mentioned, and the line identifies them as counterparts of the Bactrian Sroshard—‘who in Indian is called Mahāsena and is called Viśākha’.75 It is in keeping with this spirit of assimilation that Kuṣāṇa religious policy, particularly under Kaniṣka I, tended not to displace the traditional pantheon of family divinities whenever they came in contact with a new culture, but rather to substitute them with their local equivalents. This was a clever political strategy, for it ensured that, by being seen to adhere to indigenous cults, they blended into the disparate environments they brought under their rule. So under Kaniṣka I’s rule the old Hellenistic pantheon portrayed as family divinities on his coins were substituted by their Iranian counterparts on the second issue of coins minted under his reign: Hephaistos, Helios, Selene and Artemis are replaced in the second series by Miiro (Mithra) for the sun divinity Helios, Mao for the moon divinity Selene, Aosho for Hephaistos, and Nana for the warrior-goddess Artemis.76 Besides Nana’s elements, there are other foreign iconographic influences absorbed by the Kuṣāṇa proto-Caṇḍikā. For instance, there are clear and remarkable resonances with the depictions of the Near Eastern warrior-hero Mithras (Mithra: Iranian), as indeed first noticed by the art historian Srinivasan, who had analysed these parallels, as well as other Central Asian influences, such as the reverse animal head, in the iconography of the Kuṣāṇa Mahiṣāsuramardinī. Mithras, a martial deity, had a well-defined presence in the art of the Near East and Bactria, popularly conceptualized as the heroic slayer of a bull. The myth is extant in a number of carved stone reliefs across the ancient Roman and Hellenistic Near East depicting the Page 20 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Introduction god, a handsome and youthful warrior in the act of slaughtering the bull, a scene known as his tauroctony (bull-killing scene) in Roman art. For instance, reliefs and paintings from six monuments from the 2nd–3rd century show Mithras killing the bull with his sword pierced on one shoulder, his free arm forcefully wrenching the head back and one knee trampling down the bull’s body.77 Mithras images (p.29) have also been found in Bactria, in Khalchayan, one of the Kuṣāṇa mansions.78 It is particularly the feature of gripping the animal and suffocating it, in certain Central Asian Mithraic images of the tauroctony scene, such as one found in Syria,79 that finds a parallel in the way the Mathurā goddess is rendered killing the buffalo, as well as the presence of the Hellenistic wreath and the sun and the moon discs in such Mithras images as a relief found in Dura.80 That the Kuṣāṇa Durgā synthesized into her visual depictions Mithras’ tauroctony is not improbable, for Mithras was a deity well known to the Kuṣāṇas and revered by them, appearing, named Miiro, among the list of deities they considered the dynastic gods of their devakula in the Rabatak inscription.81 In that inscription it is mentioned that his image, in conjunction with Nana’s and those of the other gods, was ordered by Kaniṣka to be established at the sanctuary.82 He is also well represented on Kuṣāṇa coins minted in Bactria, named there as Mithra, which has led Mithraic scholars, such as Humbach and Macdowall, to conclude that he was one of their most popular deities.83 Mithra also appears on the decorative façade of the palace at Khalchayan, as noted previously, and, as asserted by Srinivasan, in conjunction with Nana in three of Kaniṣka’s coins.84 If, then, the material evidence of Durgā’s cult goes back to the 2nd century (and perhaps, as the art historian Härtel suggests, further to the Kṣatrapa empire in the 1st century), why should we begin our discussion with the Guptas? The answer is that all our descriptive material, which enables us to draw a detailed portrait of her cult, starts from this period. In the absence of any written material from the Kuṣāṇas, any intricate discussion regarding cultic practices and belief systems before the Guptas remains conjectural. It is from the Gupta period that Durgā’s deep and abiding connection with the creation of civilization begins to be widely manifested in culture. In pragmatic terms, this connection was articulated as her control over crises, over any death-giving situation. In fact, she came to represent Death itself. We can start clearly perceiving how this link with crisis was refined and deepened in ritual practice and mythology from this time.

(p.30) Why a Goddess? Why was it that masculine deities did not have as close a connection with rulership as the goddess? The answer to this lies in Durgā’s embodiment of Death, for there was a very particular understanding of it. The goddess’s power over Death was fundamentally her power over civilizational crises. She controlled and represented the forms of crises—the utpāta, pīḍā and upadrava endangering kingdoms—that threatened the very structures of civilization. While male gods, such as Śiva or Yama, could represent death at a metaphysical level, they were held to stand apart from civilizational enterprise and the stresses entailed by it. Sanskrit doctrine is remarkably revealing about the processes that spur civilizational expansion, describing political structure, policy, military action and the establishment of civic spaces. Whenever these elements are described, there is simultaneously articulated a need to counter their end. No other deity save the goddess becomes the symbol of that civilizational end and, by representing it, she was thought to be its master too. When swords needed empowering, armies the promise of victory, kings authorization, wealth restoration, fortresses and other civic spaces sanctification, merchant ships or any commercial enterprise protection, when in fact the cultural need to master the death of collectivity became urgent and the paraphernalia of civilization required the assurance of continuity, the worship of the goddess, the heart and soul of civilization, was Page 21 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Introduction taught. It is not any male deity of death but the war-goddess who was shown to rescue a king in times of state difficulty and calamity in a myriad legends (for instance, in the Devīmāhātmya and in Śāktized versions of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana), a theme which was echoed and reechoed.in art and poetry, and affirmed in court ceremonies before any ambitious and potentially dangerous yātrā. Durgā represented the death implicit in the exertions of civilization. This double link with death and civilization had implications for the notion of power she embodied from her earliest incarnation in culture. This was power that was raw, elemental, ineluctably annihilative, but simultaneously the harbinger of new life and thereby of new social orders, systems and hierarchies. Civilization is the meaningful aggregation of culture in the face of uncontainable nihilism. It is self-perpetuating only while it is constantly aware of, and threatened by, its great nemesis, a sense of looming disaster. In this sense no civilization is possible without a confrontation of the threat of an ever-present end. As a symbol of civilization, Durgā incorporated the notion of nihilism, of the ever-present end, and provided a mode for its resolution. She stood for the anxieties latent in building and keeping civilization. It is for this reason that Durgā was thought both to control and to embody dangerous (p.31) situations potent in state expansion. As a belief, this grew firmly embedded in the ideology of Indian kingship and could not be occluded. However, it is difficult at first to see how and why the link to the crises of civilization grew indelible in the case of Durgā and goddesses associated with her, given that traditionally goddesses fulfilled, at least according to Brahmanical literature, a negligible role in Indian kingship. From the general picture of Vedic warrior-culture painted by the epics and the Purāṇas (our oldest sources for Indic kingship), it would seem that goddess worship had no place in the heroic ethos of the 2nd to 6th centuries. The kṣatriya genealogies as presented in these works, in which the old heroic races of the Solar and Lunar lines displayed the power and glory of their heritage, offer us no evidence that those races worshipped śaktis for power.85 On the other hand, iconographic evidence of the goddess Śrī, the bringer of luck to kings, appears from as early as the 2nd century BCE, suggesting that the belief in a goddess of sovereignty existed from a very early period in Indian culture. Apart from images, this is affirmed by passages in the Śatapathabrāhmaṇa (11.4.3.1–20) and Baudhāyanagṛhyapariśiṣṭasūtra (1.2), in which Śrī is explicitly associated with royal power. However, in general, Vedic kingship was not warriorgoddess-centric, nor did it in fact cater towards a social need to minimize crises—seldom do we find demon-slaying goddesses who equally dispel dangers with alacrity, though there are many demon-slaying gods in Vedic literature. Nevertheless, the pre-existence of the cult of Śrī within Indian sovereignty formed a ready basis into which Durgā, and the demon-slaying, chaotic attributes that she brought with her, could be absorbed (in fact they are turned into one goddess in a description in the 7th-century Harṣacarita). But while the characteristic of kingship certainly connects the two, they differ in one crucial aspect: while one is a ferocious and independent warrior, the other is a serene, if fickle, consort (the belief was that a king was married to Śrī when he ascended the throne but that she could desert him at any point for another man). As observed before, though, the picture alters when ‘foreign’ lineages from further west of the Indus, notably a lineage tracing its origin to Central Asia, the Kuṣāṇas, began to establish centres of political power in the Gangetic valley, and it is only at this stage that the notion of goddess worship in the domain of imperial kingship acquired a widescale public character in India. They were the first prestigious Indic dynasty to publicly acknowledge heroic goddess worship as the royal faith, asserting in an early inscription from the 2nd century to have been anointed by their family goddess, ‘Queen Nana’.86 Moreover, it seems that the Kuṣāṇas ensured Page 22 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Introduction that a heroic female representing (p.32) the granter of sovereignty was officially established in their sites of worship, for, apart from Nana, other goddesses fulfilling this role from Greek and Iranian theology were installed in dynastic shrines in Bactria—at Surkh Kotal in Bactria, Kaniṣka II had established the Iranian goddess of victory, Oanindo, in 165 after his defeat of the Parthians; at their palace at Khalchayan, the ruler and his consort are depicted in a sculpture with the Greek goddess of victory, Nike; while at Ayrtam, Huveṣka had established the Iranian goddess of royal power, Ardoxṣo, in 165.87 Worshipping a female divinity who represented heroic power and glory was clearly important to the Kuṣāṇas. The dynasty’s reverence of a victorygoddess continued even when they crossed the mountains of Afghanistan into India, under Kaniṣka. In his north Indian capital, Mathurā, the later Kuṣāṇa king, nurtured, as we have seen, the artistic production of some of the earliest images carved on stone of Durgā in her buffaloslaying form, Mahiṣāsuramardinī, and these images point to what must have been a flourishing cult—though we do not yet know whether the Kuṣāṇas were personally dedicated to her as they must have been to the Bactrian goddesses. In the absence of a precedent in mainland India other than Śrī, from whom Durgā differed in her bellicose nature, it is tempting to explain the sudden emergence of the latter’s iconography from this time in the following way: the idea of goddesses having a political dimension was more germane to Iranian and Greek religious beliefs, the deities embodying which the Kuṣāṇas revered, and it is in deference to this family tradition of royal goddess worship, and particularly, as we shall see below, to Tyche-worship, that images of our proto-Caṇḍikā began to be sponsored in Mathurā. The Kuṣāṇas with their link to the Hellenistic world were acquainted with the popular practice of worshipping Tyche, the city-goddess or nagaradevatā, widespread in the Hellenistic Near East, and their proclaimed faith in Nana could have been a result of this respected practice. We know that the concept of Tyche was imported into Gandhāran Bactria, falling within Kuṣāṇa lands, for such deities appear in depictions of the Buddha’s life, especially those of the Great Departure.88 In Afghanistan, the Kuṣāṇas popularized the idea of the female deity who defends polities—Tyche was assimilated with the Iranian Ardoxṣo, whose elements were then incorporated into the Gandhāran iconography of Śrī,89 and clearly an equivalence in, among other things, the defensive aspect of each of these goddesses was understood. It is possible that the practice of worshipping city-goddesses for allaying civilizational crises implanted roots into culture south of Gandhāra, spreading among Indian polities in the Gangetic plains and further south in the form of worshipping a (p.33) female nagaradevatā. This may in turn have contributed to the emergence of Durgā in this period, for she, at least from Gupta times, was regarded as protecting communities and fortresses. Little can be inferred about how Durgā was worshipped as a city-goddess to remove dangers in a public setting during the Kuṣāṇa period, although the fact that she is depicted in a Vaiṣṇava style in her sculptures, and is to be found primarily in Mathurā, a place associated with Kṛṣṇa, suggests that she was cognate with the danger-dispelling goddess of Sleep, Nidrā, Kṛṣṇa’s sister, and may have been worshipped according to Nidrā’s cultic tradition even at this period (a suggestion I discuss further in Chapter 1). But the answer to our question may be more readily attainable if we probe further into the nature of Durgā’s charisma for Indian culture at that period. We must remember that this was a charisma that was so powerful that it viscerally affected the agents of civilization, who found in her the acme of all that civilization was thought to consist of. Indeed, Sanskrit poetry frequently pays tribute to her triumphal role, which articulates in no uncertain terms the triumph not just of the goddess and kingship but of civilization itself. In her dual capacity as Mother and Warrior, the śakti was a source both of fecundity and of military success, representing thereby a dual idea Page 23 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Introduction of rulership in which the king represented both the provider and the slayer. That the model Indic king was an amalgam of both figures was a widespread belief testified to in such sources as the Raghuvaṃśa 1.1–32 and the legend of king Pṛthu as the Earth-Milker.90 But in modelling such an image within herself, the goddess was not a mirror image of the king but rather his desirable and aspirational other. Embodied as a beautiful, bountiful woman, the other was made into something that was sexually desired. Power in the figure of the goddess was profoundly about sex—any verse on Durgā in Sanskrit will make this obvious—and the forms of conciliation ritualized during the Navarātra seem to me to be substitutes for sexual encounters between king and goddess. We do not know to what extent women players in the narrative of early Indian state expansion identified with this idea of political charisma. But the implication gleaned from esoteric Śākta theology, particularly the writings of Abhinavagupta, is that the experience of power-as-the-goddess could have been different for a ruling woman in early India. In such a case, the goddess was not a differentiated image of power (as she was in the case of a man) but power cognate with the personhood of the human queen. But there was a third side to her charisma, a side that required initiation into a secret order of knowledge: magic. In her occultic and highly dangerous aspect, her most ancient core as we shall see, the śakti represented the source (p.34) of magical powers (siddhis) unobtainable from anyone else. The king favoured by a particularly potent goddess was therefore also one who could obtain such siddhis from her, and cultivate magical kingship. These powers are vividly described in the narrative literature of the age, such as the Kathāsaritsāgara, to be flying, magical swords and equivalence with the celestial Vidyādharas. At its most basic level, we can understand the potentially occultic nature of the relationship between rājā and devī to be something similar to that between a sādhaka, a seeker of power, and his iṣṭadevatā, the chosen deity who, upon esoteric propitiation, would bestow those powers. The sādhaka must take certain risks in confronting the magic-bearing though dangerous side of the devī, confrontations, for instance, often described in literature, with beings of the cremation ground and the spirit world; but in doing so he proves his fitness and heroic potential to her and thereby metamorphoses into a carrier of special gifts and knowledge, a warrior-magus. This essentially Tantric belief when made public could serve a political purpose in projecting royal power as nothing less than a model of sacred omnipotence. And sometimes kings would do so. In an inscription on a pillar in Bhilsā/Vidīśā, the Paramāra ruler Naravarman (c.1094–1110) ascribed to Carcikā—an eschatological goddess who, cognate with Durgā-Kālarātri, was said to manifest her cadaverous and ravenous self at the destruction of a kalpa—his sovereignty (dharādhipatyam), acquired merely by thinking of her (smaraṇamātrakṛtaprasādāt). At the same time he also confessed that when he had finished worshipping her as was customary, she granted him khecaratvam (the magical ability to fly), the essential attainment (rasasiddhi) advocated by esoteric Tantric texts. Naravarman also boasted that ‘simply by means of [Carcikā’s] grace, he had acquired fitness to [conduct] worldly affairs’.91 By making a magical claim, Naravarman was articulating the charisma of a magical, transcendent form of kingship. He was publicly acknowledging the belief in the goddess as the sacred source of that aura.92 One sees this special relationship (p.35) between king and the occultic goddess omnipresent in kāvya. In the Yaśastilakacampū, king Māridatta worships at Mahānavamī the deity Caṇḍamārī, like Carcikā another wild and ambivalent goddess in command of the yoginīs, in order to obtain the magical sword of the Vidyādharas that would grant him the power of flight.93 Like the Tāntrika desirous of the sword of a Vidyādhara, he has to brave chilling dangers, encountering an onslaught of crazed yoginīs in her shrine. In the medieval world-view, the most alluring form of kingship paralleled the Tantric experience of power and transcendence through danger. It Page 24 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Introduction held mastery over sorcery and the occult, and in this respect a goddess’s grace and specialized skill in constituting magical kingship were considered equal to none. Political power saw itself as a worldly mirror of esoteric theological power, and the agent enabling this union could only be a goddess and not a male deity.

One or Many? Given then, as we have seen, the emergence of so many distinct and related historical threads in the identity of the sovereign goddess, the question of one or many naturally arises. Did the court of a king worship one goddess throughout its history or several different goddesses? The medieval understanding of a goddess’s being was essentially paradoxical. If one were to imagine an 11th-century royal goddess as a cluster of intersecting circles, each circle would represent a particular and unique goddess—for instance, one would be a tribal clan-goddess, another the Rājyalakṣmī/Śrī, a third Durgā (as we know her in epic and Purāṇic literature), a fourth perhaps a Tantric deity. Through a process of assimilation they were viewed enmeshed into one cohesive figure. Each facet, distinctive in her own right, could be, and usually was, worshipped separately, but also infused in a Supreme identity, what one can think of as a highly concentrated Energy source (this escalation in identity occurred, for instance, through the medium of ritual at the Navarātra). One may well read into this understanding a politics of gender: the permeability of all such divinities demonstrating the generalization and diminishment of the feminine identity into one undefined whole. On the other hand, it would be anachronistic to do so. The hold and longevity of goddess worship was possible in part due to this very scope and range in identity: because the state was required to represent a number of different affiliations and beliefs, the royal deity evolved different facets in order to encompass as wide a range of subjects. Throughout history a tutelary goddess’s visible identities remained many and in constant flux, shifting and proliferating from tribal stone, stake (p.36) or mound of earth, to village tree, several anthropomorphic images (mūrti), yantra, amulet, sword and ultimately the syllables of a mantra. What mattered to the practitioner was the belief that she represented the clan’s power regardless of her variety, that there was a constant animistic potency inhabiting these substrates. The Dimasa tutelary goddess, for instance, had no fewer than three unique identities by the 16th century—the first being the tribal ancestral spirit Kacai Kati, the second the Sanskritic Raṇacaṇḍī in the palace-shrine, the third the royal sword held in the hand of the king—and in these, potentially infinite, forms she was held to disseminate her essence. This sense of continuity and pervasiveness lay at the heart of a goddess’s success in political practice.

Structure of the Book In the following chapters I describe the stages that tell the story of Durgā from the 3rd to the 12th centuries as she transformed from a wild, antinomian deity to a respectable, classical symbol of kingship. Within these stages, sectarian appropriations, by Vaiṣṇavism, Śaivism, Tantric Buddhism, Jainism and Brahmanism, unfold. These stages coincided with a particular historical setting: the transition from empire to autonomous kingdoms. In Part I (Chapters 1 to 4) I discuss how an archetypical cult of the single Durgā acquired prestige from obscure origins between the 3rd and 5th centuries, while empire under the Guptas was in its heyday. I locate myself first in the 3rd century to examine the roots of the single goddess Durgā in the black-hued, yellow-robed, peacock-feather crested Vaiṣṇava goddess of Death, Time and Sleep, Nidrā-Kālarātri, and examine her cult of averting dangers in that period. Next I assess how this early, marginal form was assimilated and transformed by Śaivism from the 5th century onwards, in which Durgā eventually acquired co-identity with Pārvatī, Śiva’s

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Introduction consort. Her dark complexion is explained as Pārvatī’s rejected black skin. In the third chapter, we find how Durgā began to replace Skanda as a symbol of imperialism as she began to represent local goddesses thought to control land, something Skanda could not. Śaiva mythology employed narrative devices and concepts used to integrate Skanda into its fold to incorporate Durgā and to grant her a critical place within the Śaiva pantheon. This period coincided with the end of the Gupta empire, during which other lineages asserted themselves on the political map. The goddess, now a cohesive deity, began to appear as a political metaphor in their propaganda, replacing Skanda. The Cālukya emperors, for example, begin to prioritize her over their other favoured lineage god, Skanda. To what extent can the link between the rise of (p.37) the goddess cult and that of independent lineages be understood through patterns of commerce integral to the civilization process? In the fourth chapter I turn more specifically to the period between the 6th and 12th centuries, the period when heroic Śāktism attained maturity, to assess the forms of patronage established by these lineages to support the worship of the goddess. In Part II (Chapter 5), I turn to how the cult transformed against the backdrop of these upcoming lineages, into a symbol of particularity by absorbing other similar deities important to specific lineages. This part encapsulates the 6th and 12th centuries, when the political map of India represented a heterogeneous order of entrepreneurial lineages. Here I untangle the distinctively coloured threads of smaller local figures enmeshed with Durgā in her symbolic form of this cohesive social backdrop. I present as case studies the stories of six locally popular goddesses who were synthesized with Durgā—Bhīmā, Nana, Kaṇṭeśvarī of the Caulukyas, Māneśvarī of the Mallas, Āśāpurī of the Cāhamānas and Danteśvarī of the Nāgas and Kākatīyas of the Bastar Raj. These aid us in evaluating the intricacies of individual goddess-cults and their continuity through dynastic shifts up to the 12th century. I turn to further tales of clan-goddesses, in which heroic Śāktism is seen as the theology sanctifying a king, assessing the tropes and motifs whereby this sanctification and its concomitant concepts of power are evoked. First I locate a period and a locus when and where Brahmanical discourse, silent on local goddesses, began to contain such deities and the heterogeneous practices many represented, and assess accordingly the genealogical part of the Sahyādrikhaṇda, a Purāṇic work, as an example of this containment. Next I study the legend of Kāmateśvarī, a story that was employed by the princely state of Cooch-Behar in explaining the divine right of its rulers, assessing this in parallel with Rajput ideologies and narratives, where similar narrative structures and figurative devices centring on the goddess and the king are employed. In the third and final part of the book (Chapters 6 and 7), I examine the beliefs and symbolic systems evoked by the cult to make itself meaningful to its adherents in the early medieval period, arguing that these beliefs created a myth of imperial kingship for independent rulers to cultivate. Fundamental in creating this myth was the performance of the Navarātra, the festival of the Nine Nights, which was intertwined with Durgā’s cult. I will deal with how the cult functioned in creating the spectacle of ‘public religion’ through a reconstruction of this ritual in which the goddess was worshipped by a ruler in the month of Āśvina. A detailed exposition of the modus operandi of the Nine Nights shows us how the religion of the goddess was spectacularly brought to life in an event of grand theatre and solemnized before its participants, the king and the entire community. The development of the Nine Nights from a (p.38) fringe, Vaiṣṇava ceremony in the month of Kṛṣṇa’s birth under the Guptas, to a ritual supplanting the established autumnal Brahmanical ceremonies of kingship and finally into a crucial rite in Indian culture for consolidating royal power, formed a crucial motivation for the expansion of Durgā’s cult.

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Introduction Among beliefs of heroic Śāktism, there was firstly the belief that a goddess had granted investiture to a king, secondly the belief that a king defeated in battle would regain power through a goddess, and thirdly the belief that a goddess was to be worshipped in times of war. These are expressed among various examples of literature from poetry to inscriptions, in versions of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata that include scenes with Durgā aiding Rama and the Pāṇḍava brothers, thereby showcasing her role in aiding the deserving hero. I then turn to visual symbols whereby the mythic relationship between king and goddess was expressed in the medieval city, the swords, crests, amulets, and the array of abstract motifs whereby the goddess’s presence and energy in the life of the king and his subjects was made manifest to citizens. If one were to inhabit a medieval Indian kingdom, it would be important to celebrate the investiture of political power. Links with the śakti, in all her forms, would be demonstrated in ways palpable for its citizens. Rites giving shape and meaning to her connection with the king were seasonally repeated so as to ensure the continuance of this relationship with the divine. Various forms of the goddess, located at separate shrines, would be seen as interrelated parts or grades of an all-pervasive energetic force-field emanating from the palace (such as in the sacred geography of the Kathmandu valley). There were first symbols of punishment believed to atrophy rivals and grant victory in battle. From resplendent chariotconcourses headed by the deity, the erection of victory-bestowing flags, to the ornate ceremonies of the royal sword charged by the being of the goddess—the repertoire of triumphal rituals was complex and their magical significance in overcoming enemies and threat was deeply embedded in the cultural life of a kingdom. Next there were symbols of defence, whereby a kingdom girded itself from attack. In these too, the ability of goddesses to protect citizens was reflected, from villages to citadels, in shrines from which they guarded their domains. The fortress emerged in this period as the most important defensive structure. All medieval kingdoms were organized around strategically located forts, the reservoir of food and military supplies, as well as centres for forging alliances and conducting diplomatic exchange. It was seen as necessary to protect a medieval fortress with a goddess-shrine at a propitious location, whence her authority radiated through all inhabitants. In all these ways, through legend, sovereign lineages and symbolic objects, the investiture of the deity in the world of men was substantiated. Notes: (1) Mahiṣāsura, the buffalo-demon. (2) The translation is reproduced, with slight changes, from Sarkar (2013: 432). (3) The Allahabad pillar inscription, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum (CII) 3, pp. 10–17. For the inscriptions of local chieftains, see Chapter 1, p. 43. (4) Russell & Lal (1916: vol. 4, 421–2). (5) These include works on the content and significance of the rite of the devī (Ostor 1980: 53– 117; Kane 1994; Einoo 1999; Rodrigues 2003, etc.), cults of local goddesses (Jansen 1995), the sociological phenomenon of the goddess tradition as a whole (Kinsley 1987) or on Śākta liturgical canons (Coburn 1984; Mackenzie-Brown 1990). (6) Stein (1983).

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Introduction (7) Allen (1975: 17). (8) Ibid., p. 16. (9) Levy & Rajopadhyaya (1992: 234–6); Slusser (1998: vol. 1, 318); Shrestha (2008: 239–45). (10) Shrestha (2008: 241). (11) Levy & Rajopadhyaya (1992: 237). (12) Allen (1975: 15). (13) Nicholas (2013: 6–7). (14) Sarkar (2012). (15) Baldissera (1996); Sanderson (2007). (16) Sanderson (2009). (17) Granoff (2004: 138). (18) Bakker (2004: 4). (19) Ibid. (20) EI 30, pp. 274 ff. Kulke (1978: 34). The king is described as stambheśvarīpādabhakta. (21) EI 28.20, p. 111 (Sircar). For the Dehuris see Rath (2009: 86). The priests at her shrine today are both male and female and from tribes, while those at her shrine in Aska in Ganjam district are Śūdras (Rath 2009: 86–8). (22) A discussion of their possible origin in Sogdia as a tribe who followed the Hūṇas into India and eventually settled in Orissa is to be found in Satyasray (1937: 44–50). See also Kulke (1978: 35). (23) According to Sircar, this tribe traces its origins to a city called Kedālaka that sounds very similar to the capital Kodālaka of the imperial Śulkīs (EI 28.20, pp. 111–12). (24) EI 14, pp. 110–20. (25) See Chapter 6, p. 179. (26) Some other prominent tribal clans who were goddess-worshippers from possibly a very early period were the Mlecchas, worshippers of Kāmākhyā, the Dimasas, worshippers of Kacai Kati; the Bhars of Bundelkhand, worshippers of Maniya Devī and Kālikā; the Raj Gonds of Nagpur, worshippers of Banjari Mata and Vanadevi; the Śakta Athia Chadār tribe (so named because of their worship of Devī on Aṣṭamī); the Chotanagpur Oraons, votaries of Anna Kuāri; and the Bhonsles of Satara, devotees of Tuḷjā Bhavānī (see Shin 2010: 7–8; Russell & Lal 1916: vol. 4, 312; Crooke 1896: vol. 2, 9, 80, 176; Russell & Lal 1916: vol. 2.2, 181–2; vol. 4, 312, 442; Sharma 2005: 316–17). (27) Kulke (1995: 234–6). Page 28 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Introduction (28) The same argument is made by Kulke (1978) in his analysis of early state formation in Orissa (see especially pp. 32–6). Here he argues that many of the Orissan kings, such as the Bhaumas of Jajpur and the Śulkīs, were descendants of tribal chiefs (34–8). (29) Kulke (1995: 239, 244). (30) See especially Eschmann et al. (1978) on the foundation of the religious edifice of Orissan kingdoms from a tribal base. She indicates that in the process of this transformation, village goddesses (grāmadevīs) of tribes who exerted great regional influence often evolved into royal goddesses with an established temple cult. In this way particular regional goddesses were assimilated in the form of the state goddess (Devī/Durgā), whose main shrine was patronized by the king. (31) With reference to the Orissan deities Maṇināgeśvarī, kuladevī of the kings of Raṇpur in Central Orissa, has a bronze image in the shape of Durgā and a Brahmanical temple near the capital. But her archaic aniconic cult image inside the temple is a stone, still worshipped by tribal priests and to which were later added accompanying icons of Cāmuṇdā and Tārā (Kulke 1978: 34). The temple of the goddesses Tārā Tariṇa in southern Orissa houses two stones, the archaic tribal manifestation of the goddesses, which are daily ‘anthropomorphized’ by temple priests through the drawing of eyes and the bestowing of vermilion. The original aboriginal deity is mythicized by being given a Śākta legend. In the case of Tārā Tāriṇī there is a myth explaining her temple as a Śākta piṭha, a site of power for the goddess (Eschmann et al. 1978: 91). (32) The scenario of state formation suggested by Kulke can be further supported if we look at the development of east Indian kingdoms. The histories of minor eastern polities such as Cachar, Barabhum and Orissan kingships can be traced back to goddess-worshipping tribal polities. Their historical double life was displayed through the ritual processes and imagery of these goddesses, as in the case of Bargabhīmā. During the Navarātra, a collusion of both political structures unfolded in communal ritual enactments. See in particular Sinha (1962), Kulke (1978; 1995), Eschmann et al. (1978), Bhattacharjee (1987) and Mallebrein (1999). In his examination of the tribal kingdom of Barabhum (Purulia, West Bengal) Sinha (1962) points out the importance of Koṭeśvarī, the ancient tribal goddess of the Bhumij tribe, in integrating the tribe with the new Hinduized core of the kingdom. The shrine of Koṭeśvarī located in the sacred grove of the Bhumij at Bhuni was visited by the king, who also worshipped the deity privately as his kuladevī. Durgā Pūjā was performed for the goddess both by the king and the members of the tribe, at which time Koṭeśvarī achieved her archetypical unity with Durgā: ‘There was a widespread belief in Barabhum that the raja ruled on behalf of … Koṭeśvarī and as such the raja shared in the divinity. The human congregation in Barabhum was thus bound by a moral order of shared sacred ideas and sentiments with the raja as the pivot’ (Sinha 1962: 319). In this regard, see also Durga & Reddy (1992) and Mallebrein (1999). Similarly, another east Indian goddess has a historical double life. The royal cult of Raṇacaṇdī in the Dimasa kingdom of Cachar in Assam grew out of the veneration of a tribal clan goddess of the Dimasas and related tribes known as Kacai Kati (flesh-eater) (Bhattacharjee 1987). She was martial in character, held to be the protectress of the tribe and the bestower of victory in war. With their rise to power and eventual classicization, the originally Tibeto-Burmese Dimasa royal lineages continued to venerate this goddess whom they projected, through the apparatus of the Sanskritized state, as a fierce form of Durgā known as Raṇacaṇdi (Bellicose Caṇḍī). Legendary traditions associated her with the conferral of a sword upon the king Nirbhayanārāyaṇa. Bhattacharjee (1987: 181) summarizes as follows: ‘Raṇacaṇḍi appeared in a dream to Nirbhoyanarayana and told him to meet her next day

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Introduction at the riverside. The raja waited there for a long time and then observed a snake swimming in the river. He became aware that the goddess had assumed that form for the meeting and stretching out his hand, took hold of the tail. The snake turned into a sword in his hand, which he carried home. That night Raṇacaṇḍi again appeared to him and told him that he did wrong in not seizing the snake by the neck. However the sword would be the good luck of the state and the state would prosper as long as it was preserved with care.’ Indian Antiquary, 4: 114–15 gives a different version (reference provided by Alexis Sanderson). After he took the sword, Nirbhayanārāyaṇa failed to worship it with animal sacrifice and thus angered Raṇacaṇḍī, who placed a curse on the line. A new ruler thereafter ascended the throne who worshipped her properly, that is to say with paśubali. This legend only serves to underline the power the goddess held: she could at will make or break a dynasty’s fortune. (33) On the cohesive symbolism of the goddess, see in particular Chakrabarti (2001). With attention to late medieval eastern India, Chakrabarti argues that the Purāṇas, particularly those he calls the Bengal Purāṇas (the Kālikā, the Devī, the Bṛhaddharma and the Devībhāgavata), ‘sought to incorporate local goddesses within the brahmanical fold’ through an idea of an omnipotent-force Śakti combining dialectal oppositions. The result is the creation of ‘a divinity which encompassed a whole range of images, emotions, and loyalties’ (185). This meant that tribal aspects of the goddess became integrated with Brahmanical attributes, so that the figure of the goddess and her cult ‘operates at several levels, while binding divergent castes, sects and other interest groups together’ (202). (34) Price (1984: 248). (35) As in the following verse from Vidyakara’s Subhāṣitaratnakoṣa, where the fame of kings is said to be whiter than the Mandākinī’s waves: te pīyūṣamayūkhaśekharaśiraḥsaṃdānamandākinīkallolapratimallakīrtilaharīlāvaṇ.yaliptāmbarāḥ | sarvakṣatrabhujoṣmaśatanakalāduḥśīladoḥśālino vaṃśe tasya babhūvur adbhutaguṇā dhārādharitribhujaḥ || Subhāṣitaratnakoṣa, 1569, attributed to Murāri. (36) jayā tvaṃ vijayā tvaṃ ca saṃgrāme vijayapradā | Mahabharata 4.5.31cd; devy uvāca | svalpair ahobhir nṛpate svaṃ rājyaṃ prāpsyate bhavān | hatvā ripūn askhalitaṃ tava tatra bhaviṣyati || Devīmāhātmya 13.13b–14a. (37) durgāt tārayase durge.tat tvaṃ durgā smṛtā janaiḥ (Mahābhārata 4.5.31d.40); durgāsi durgabhavasāgaranaur asangā (Devīmāhātmya 4.10b); durge smṛtā harasi bhītim aśeṣa jantoḥ (ibid., 4.19a); durgāyai durgapārāyai (ibid., 5.10a); durgā durgatināśinī (ibid., 9.29b). (38) I am grateful to Elizabeth Tucker for identifying the Ṛg Veda Khila passages. (39) They are introduced with the comment: athāniṣṭaparihārārthatvena japyā mantrā ucyante. (40) jātavedase sunavāma somaṃ, etc. (41) Harṣacarita, Ucchvāsa 8, p. 126, l. 4; Kādambarī, pp. 30–1; Gaüḍavaho 336; Haravijaya 47.41; Kathāsaritsagara 4.2.88ab. (42) Harṣacarita, p. 126, l. 4.

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Introduction (43) To some extent, such an unease may have been prompted by a ‘freed’ (this will be clear in Chapter 2) and powerful female deity, who controls death and danger. It may also have arisen from the fact that in Vaiṣṇavism, in Śaivism and mainstream Brahmanism, Durgā was still to some extent an intruder (as we shall see in the course of her development). (44) śāradi caṇḍikāpūjā trividhā parigīyate | sāttvikī japayajñādyair naivedyaiś ca nirāmiṣaiḥ | […] rājasī balidānena naivedyaiḥ ṣamiṣais tathā | surāmāṃṣādyupahārair japayajñair vinā tu yā | vinā mantrais tāmasī syāt kirātānāṃca sammatā | Bhaviṣyapurāṇa, cited in Puruṣārthacintamaṇi, p. 80. For the reflection of this view in the Skandapurāṇa and smārta literature, see Kane (1994: 158). (45) Discussed in greater detail in Chapter 7, pp. 232–3. (46) Durgāpūjāviveka, p. 33; Durgotsavaviveka, p. 24; Durgābhaktitaraṅginī, p. 207; Durgāpūjātattva summarized in Sarkar (2012: 387). (47) Bhaviṣyapurāṇa cited in Kṛtyaratnākara (p. 357): svamāṃsarudhirair dattair devī tuṣyati vai bhṛśam | […] sahasraṃ tṛptim ayāti svadeharudhireṇa tu | tarpitā vidhivad durgā bhittvā bāhārujaṅghake | nāreṇa śirasā virā pūjitā vidhivan nṛpa | tṛpta bhaved bhṛśaṃ durgā varṣāṇāṃ lakṣam eva ca | evaṃ nānāmlecchagaṇaiḥ pūjyate sarvadasyubhiḥ | aṅgavaṅgakaliṅgaiś ca kinnarair barbaraiḥ śakaiḥ | māsi cāśvayuje śuklā navamī yā narādhipa | yat | tasyāṃ kriyate vira naraih snānādikaṃ prabho tat sarvam akṣayaṃ teṣāṃtad vai siddhikaraṃtatha. The line aṅgavaṅgakaliṅgaiś ca kinnarair barbaraiḥ śakaiḥ is also cited in Lakṣmīdhara’s Kṛtyakalpataru, p. 410, ll. 4–5 and in Śūlapāṇi’s Durgotsavaviveka, p. 2 in a different verse. Alexis Sanderson kindly indicated to me in May 2011 references in the Mahabharata which show that there was no consensus on the Varvaras’ area of prominence. In those citations they are sometimes said to be from the north, the east, the south and even from the west. (48) Sanderson (1995: 16–18; 2009: 249). (49) For smārta literature on the Durgā Pūja, see Sarkar (2012: 328–37). (50) See Chapter 7, p. 249 n. 130, for the teachings of the Bhaviṣyapurāṇa and the smārta Viṣṇubhaṭṭa Āṭhavaḷe concerning the vegetarian Navarātra for brahmans. Elements from orthodox Brahmanism began to dominate in the Navarātra in medieval Bengal. (51) For a more detailed analysis see Sarkar (2012: 349). (52) Kinsley (1987: 106). (53) For the Mewari rites for instance, see Tod (1920: vol. 2, 464–8). (54) For an eyewitness account of the Navarātra festival in Dumraon in Bihar, see Gupta & Gombrich (1986: 135–6). (55) For an eyewitness account of the Navarātra in Viṣṇupur and the presence of the king, see Ostor (1980). (56) See Brakel and Headley quoted in Sanderson (2007: 290 n. 188). (57) Inden (2006: 129–30); Kulke & Rothermund (1986: 109–16).

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Introduction (58) For a carefully substantiated analysis of the state under the Marathas and the prevalent culture of militarism and plundering, see Gordon (1994), in which he describes a social process generic to central India. (59) I borrow the word from the Maratha historian Stewart Gordon. (60) See Chapter 5, pp. 157–60, for the Nāgas in Bastar; see Chapter 4, pp. 120–1, for the Pālas’ Śāktism at a period when they were campaigning further westwards; see Chapter 6, pp. 187–8, for Viṣṇuvardhana Cālukya’s worship of Śakti; see Chapter 7, pp. 235–6, for the Maithilas’ Śāktism at the time of Caṇḍeśvara. (61) South Indian Inscriptions (SII) 2.1.7. See also SII 2.1.2, 2.1.6 and 2.4.79 for similar inventories of jewels, and also land-grants and other gifts, presented to Durgā in the Coḷa domain by the same donor, sister of Rājarāja. (62) Srinivasan (1997: 282). (63) Srinivasan (1997: pls 20.23 and 20.24). Compare this with the images of the standing goddess that are unbroken: ibid., pls 20.21 and 20.1, also pictured in Ghose (2006: 112, fig. 2.2). The broken Mat figurine is identical to the lower torso of these whole images. However, the crouching lion, instead of facing right as in the other images, faces left. The Mat image is therefore one and the same as the standing proto-Caṇḍikā of Mathurā. (64) Nana is discussed again in Chapter 5, pp. 142–4. (65) Srinivasan (1997: pl. 20.18). (66) Ibid., pl. 20.15. (67) Ibid., pl. 20.23 and Ghose (2006: 112, fig. 2.2). (68) astodayādrinamitonnamitārkacandravistīrṇabimbamaṇikandukakīrṇahastā | cikrīḍitha tvam iha caṇḍi kumārabhāvam ātasthuṣī bhuvanavismayanīyamūrtiḥ || Haravijaya, 47.23. (69) Pal (1975: 230–1): this image was first drawn to my attention by Alexis Sanderson. (70) Statue of Kaniṣka pictured in Puri (1994: 256). (71) Ibid., p. 255. (72) Ibid., p. 256. (73) Harmatta (1994: 314). (74) Sims-Williams (1998: 82, ll. 9–10). (75) Sims-Williams (2004: 56, l. 10). (76) Macdowall (1975: 148–9); Harmatta (1994: 321). (77) For a list of eight Mithraic monuments containing depictions of the tauroctony see Roll (1977: 54–6). For plates of the tauroctony see for example Kotwal & Boyd (1977: pls VI–XI) and Journal of Mithraic Studies (1977), 2.1: pls I–XVII. Page 32 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Introduction (78) Harmatta (1994: 317); Srinivasan (1997: 300). (79) Srinivasan (1997: 299). (80) Ibid. and n. 92. For an analysis of the Mithraeum at Dura, see Cumont (1975). (81) Sims-Williams (1998: 81, l. 10). (82) Ibid., l. 11. (83) Humbach (1975: 136); Macdowall (1975: 149); Harmatta (1994: 317); Srinivasan (1997: 300). (84) Srinivasan (1997: 300). (85) For analyses of the classical epic and Purāṇic genealogies see Pargiter (1910; 1997). (86) See Chapter 5, pp. 142–4. (87) Harmatta (1994: 317 (Nike), 325 (Oanindo and Ardoxṣo)). (88) Facenna (1962: vol. 3, pl. CDL, no. 3506), 1st century CE. (89) Srinivasan (2010). (90) For a discussion of the latter myth, see Bailey (1981). (91) yasyāḥ prasādamātreṇa lebhe saṃsārayogyatām, CII 7.3.36, ll. 17–19. (92) CII 7.2.26; Mittal (1979: 178–9). For a photograph of the pillar see http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/File:Naravarman_PP.jpg (accessed 25.05.2011). The phrase as it appears in the inscription, śrikhecaratvarasasiddhipadasya labdhiḥ, presents difficulties, but the point that inscription appears to be making is that Carcikā granted the king the highest occult attainment according to the Vidyāpīṭha texts. Alexis Sanderson notes in this regard (pers. comm.): ‘The term khecaratvam is very commonly used to denote the goal of practice in such Vidyāpīṭha texts as the Picumata and the scriptures of the Kālīkula. The term rasasiddhiḥ is less common … it is also found, in some early texts of the cult of Tripurasundarī, to mean the highest siddhiḥ, that which is the source of all the others, in a classification in which there are ten siddhis, namely the usual eight (aṇimādayaḥ), rasasiddhiḥ, and mokṣasiddhiḥ; see Jayaratha, Vāmakeśīvarimatavivaran.a, KSTS edn, pp. 73–4. I also find it odd that the inscription would refer to the attainment of a goal which is two siddhis, i.e. khecaratvam and rasasiddhiḥ, especially when … they are so different in character. I therefore prefer to read this as an explanation of what this mysterious rasasiddhiḥ is, namely khecaratvam. For the centrality of the attainment of khecaratvam in the Picumata etc. see e.g. Picumata 1.31.’ (93) Yaśastilakacampū, pp. 26–9.

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century)

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) Bihani Sarkar

DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.003.0002

Abstract and Keywords Assessing early Vaiṣṇava, epic, ritualistic and literary sources and iconographic evidence, this chapter discusses how an archetypical cult of an early Durgā, the form of the goddess prior to her absorption of other identities, acquired prestige from obscure origins between the 3rd and 5th centuries, while empire under the Guptas was in its heyday. Beginning in the 3rd century, the chapter examines the roots of Durgā in the black-hued, yellow-robed, ghost-encircled, liquour-loving, peacock-feather crested Vaiṣṇava goddess of Death, Time and Sleep, Nidrā-MāyāKālarātri-Kālī and examines her cult of averting dangers in that period. Within Vaiṣṇava thought, Kālarātri-Nidrā is Viṣṇu's yogic sleep and creative, active magical power (māyā) embodied, the great night of aeonic destruction too, while in her earthly form, she is Kṛṣṇa's savior from Kaṃsa, the intercessory salvific sister Nidrā born on the dark Navamī, who puts beings to sleep and is also responsible for their deaths at the end of their lifetimes. This goddess, who was also worshipped in Cambodia and Indonesia, her belief systems and her ritual worship with buffalo sacrifice on Navamī, the Dark Ninth of Śrāvaṇa, provided the idea-matrix—the classical archetype—for Durgā's later characterizations and ritual modifications. Keywords:   Kālī, Kālarātri, Nidrā, Harivaṃśa, Durgā, Vindhyavāsinī

Śikhaṇḍe khaṇḍenduḥ śaśidinakarau karṇayugale gale tārāhāras taralam uḍucakraṃ ca kucayoḥ |

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) taḍit kāñcī saṃdhyāsicayaracitā kāli tad ayaṃ tavākalpaḥ kalpavyuparamavidheyo vijayate || Saduktikarṇāmṛta, p. 36 A sliver of the moon upon your crest, Borne by your ears the moon and sun, Upon your throat, a strand of stars, And on your breasts the trembling constellations. The lightning is the girdle on your hip Inlaid into your raiment of the Dawn. This, your attire, O Kālī, ordained When the Universe shall cease, triumphs. In this chapter I wish to isolate the first mature phase of Durgā’s historical development that provides us with detailed articulations in the earliest literature in Sanskrit about a form of this goddess which is singular rather than assimilative of other forms and which we may consider as original. This is Nidrā (Sleep), also known as Kālarātri (Black Night, also the word for the Night of Universal Destruction), Rātri (Night) and Kālī (the Black Lady), who is the sister of Viṣṇu’s incarnation (avatāra) Krṣṇa. Having drug-like properties, Nidrā steals consciousness, saving those in trouble without their knowledge, even if this means risking her life. Vaiṣṇava literature regards her ability to possess beings and to put them into a swoon as a therapeutic characteristic (p.42) that removes afflictions. Just as Kṛṣṇa her brother is known as Mohana, the ‘Bewilderer’, who stirs up passion in cowherdesses and causes them to lose awareness of body and mind in the madness of love, Nidrā is known as Mahāmāyā, the ‘Great Enchantment’, who similarly bewilders by arousing a state of altered consciousness in the form of a trance or a dream seen to be akin to love. However, if she wills, she can cause this essentially restorative state to tip over into death, the ultimate expression of her power over consciousness and the perception of phenomena. Since she can bestow the endless darkness of the final sleep, Death, she is viewed as the controller and the eater of Time, for she is responsible for the termination of the hours and minutes that the cosmos passes through. The tension between sleep (restoring) and death (destroying), between compassion and affliction, between the noble deity whose powers are under control and the unbridled deity in whom violence can go unchecked, present deep within her nature, travelled into the later Durgā and remained a salient feature of how she was understood in whatever tradition she was absorbed into. The effect of these paradoxes is a perception of what I would call a total deity, in whom opposites are manifest in relation to each other and yet reconciled.

The Guptas and the āṭavika Kingdoms: Empire and the Goddess The setting for the emergence of this goddess was the Gupta empire (see Map 1). Under the Guptas, the first written descriptions of a goddess fundamentally political in conception emerges. Her conception as a deity of disorder tied to the implacable elements is deeply at odds with the contained symbols of power such as Viṣṇu officially advocated by the imperial Guptas. And yet, just as the Gupta kings realized the importance of including the newly assertive tribal kingdoms on the imperial hinterlands whose voices emerge in records from this time, religion under their rule too confronted the image of this wild goddess percolating through the episodic edges of Gupta-era literature. However, as in the imperial periphery, the inclusion of the goddess remained cautious. The presence of Durgā, or Nidrā as she was known in this period in the Vaiṣṇava narrative the Harivaṃśa, which acquired its final shape under Gupta rulership, shows Page 2 of 24 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) that she was beginning to acquire a place within a classical, imperially sponsored sect. Yet, as she is conceived in the Vaiṣṇava beliefs that held sway under the Guptas, she is a minor—if charismatic—character, an adjunct to Viṣṇu and Kṛṣṇa. In general the Guptas distanced themselves from the goddess-cult. Others, though, on the margins supported it. Small tribal chieftains began to make donations to the cults of female (p.43) deities popular in their regions. Under Samudragupta, a feudatory Bhuluṇḍa is said to have erected two shrines to the Mātṛs, deities associated with safeguarding communal spaces, and to have granted several villages as permanent endowments in the tribal region of Valkhā, now in Madhya Pradesh (see Table 1, pp. 22–3 above). Two other Gupta vassals, the Parivrājaka chieftain Saṃkṣobha, and the ruler of Uccakalpa, Śarvanātha (see Table 1), made three donations to a goddess called Piṣṭapurikā.1 The grants included a village for the maintenance of her shrine in Mānapura (possibly modern Manpur) and for making propitiatory offerings (bali), oblations of rice, barley and pulse cooked with butter and milk (caru) and an oblation equivalent to the Soma sacrifice (sattra), and were made to individuals whose families were connected with the performance of the ritual duties of the shrine.2 This has something important to tell us about the status of goddess worship under the Guptas and indeed about lineages who were keenly Brahmanical: heroic Śāktism was very much a peripheral religion or incorporated within state-sponsored Vaiṣṇavism. Such lack of status was owed in part perhaps to the absence of goddesses in the Vedic religion, of which the Guptas were keen to be seen as promoters. The Vedas, the earliest known religious texts of the brāhmaṇās, hardly ever discuss the worship of sovereign goddesses. However, their overall silence is a reflection of either ignorance on their part or the exclusion of these deities—their bāhyatā—from the canonical Aryan religion. What does become clear, though, is that under the Guptas Durgā’s function in calming danger grew established in culture, relayed as it was in mythology and litanies to be chanted in rituals. Enmeshed within the conception of a deity of sleep and death are aspects connected to the creation and safeguarding of civilization. In fact the trope of a man caught in the calamities of civilization appears as an image in Nidrā’s literature, which would acquire expansive form in later liturgical materials of the goddess. (p.44)

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) Nidrā’s Story Many of the early written sources describing Durgā place her in a Śaiva context. The 7th-century author Bāṇa describes her in the Caṇḍiśataka, a compilation of verses in the sragdharā metre, as the other half of Śiva’s consort, Pārvatī, who, just after defeating the buffalo-demon Mahiṣa in a bloody encounter, runs into the open arms of her loving husband Śiva when mortified by the excessive praise of the gods. Bāṇa exploits the full range of comic possibilities latent in the apparent contrast between Pārvatī the devoted wife and Durgā the rumbustious buffalo-killer, turning this poem of devotion into a deeply humorous work. Śiva is Map 1. Goddess-sites receiving patronage, described as an amused and somewhat 2nd–4th centuries (the borders shown according to current political map). bemused witness to his wife rushing about spattered in blood on the battlefield. What is historically striking about the Caṇḍīśataka is that it provides us (p.45) with a complex character study of the dualism inherent and celebrated in the Śaiva conception of Durgā. However, this dualism, though resulting in an intriguing paradoxical personality, is the product of a historical process whereby two different deities coalesced. This process is difficult to see in the Caṇḍiśataka, in which Durgā and Pārvatī are tightly merged into a single figure. Such is also the case with early epigraphy. Durgā is paired with Śiva as Pārvatī in the earliest known inscription recording patronage to her. Anantavarman Maukhari, the son of the Maukhari Śārdūlavarman, whose seat was possibly in the Gayā region (for the Barābar and Nāgārjunī Hills were where the early Maukhari inscriptions have been found),3 established in the first half of the 6th century an image of Kātyāyanī (another name for Durgā), along with that of Śiva, in the Gopikā Cave in the Nāgārjunī Hills.4 Villages were also granted as permanent endowment to the same goddess. Nevertheless, it is evident that even though an independent deity in her own right, by the late 6th century Durgā was largely considered Śiva’s śakti incarnate, the wrathful, black half of fairskinned Pārvatī, whose cult images were established alongside those of Śiva’s. On the other hand, the earliest written source about this goddess is not a work of devotion to Śiva, but one to Viṣṇu. This is the Harivaṃśa, the appenndix to the Mahābhārata, which is held to have acquired its full shape between 100 and 350 CE. (For arguments about the date see pp. 111–12 n. 30.) The importance of this source as one of the earliest records of Durgā’s mythology was first pointed out by Yuko Yokochi (2004), who showed a continuity between Nidrā in that tale and Kauśikī, Durgā’s earliest attested Śaiva form, in the old Skandapurāṇa (c. 6th century), a work of broadly Śaiva affiliation. Among continuities, both goddesses were called Kauśikī, were associated with the Vindhya mountains in central India, and were said to have slain the demon brothers Śumbha and Niśumbha. It may be added to Yokochi’s argument that among a litany of names applied to Nidrā in the Harivaṃśa, the names Prabhā, Dhṛti, Saṃdhyā and Mati from that litany appear in a list of Kauśikī’s names in the Skandapurāṇa (vol. III, 60.39), thereby suggesting that an importation of names and not just of epithets had also occurred. Yokochi added weight to the conclusion implicit in Charlotte Schmid’s original article suggestively Page 4 of 24 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) entitled ‘Mahiṣāsuramardinī: A Vaiṣṇava Goddess?’ (Schmid 2002). In Couture & Schmid (2001) André Couture discussed the passages concerning Nidrā in the Harivaṃśa and pointed out the ambiguity of her role—that she (p.46) could just as well be Kṛṣṇa’s spouse as his sister—but no conclusions were drawn in that article about the evolution of this goddess into Durgā. I would like to refocus on Nidrā by positioning her within the issue of Durgā’s Vaiṣṇava heritage. In Vaiṣṇava literature the goddess’s role is peripheral rather than central, appearing in three small interludes. She only becomes a fundamental deity within Śaiva literature, where she is seen as an inalienable aspect of the great god Śiva himself. Nevertheless, aspects that are described in those interludes are striking enough to persist in later Śaiva reconfigurations of her character, demonstrating the essential unity of these two goddesses to the practitioners of both traditions. This is why it is crucial to assess this early form, in order to understand how and why it developed in the way it did in later Śākta Purāṇic myths such as the Devīmāhātmya, in which Durgā as Nidrā (Yoganidrā in that work) has a prominent role in the first part, wherein, lauded by Brahmā, she awakens Viṣṇu and causes him to slay two demons, Madhu and Kaiṭabha (Devīmāhātmya, Adhyaya 1). In the Harivaṃśa (HV) Durgā appears as Kṛṣṇa’s dark-skinned virginal ‘sister’5 Nidrā, whose larger cosmic counterpart is Kālarātri, Kālī or Māyā. Whatever the dispute over her status as wife or sister in northern and southern legendary traditions, a consanguinity binds the two deities, as Nidrā is, like Kṛṣṇa, Viṣṇu’s child, born from his very being (mayotsṛṣṭā, HV 47.26c/ śarīrajām, HV 48.10c). She is, as indicated by her name, Viṣṇu’s sleep personified, responsible for keeping him in a swoon while he reclines on the snake Śeśa (HV 40.34). In a passage building up to Krṣṇa’s birth, Viṣṇu’s thought, while working out a method for killing his foe Kaṃsa, the earthly descendant of Kālanemi his foe in heaven, enters the subterranean waters of the netherworld, possesses six foetuses of Dānavas in the form of dreams, and extracts the ‘Deities of their Vital Breath’ (prāṇeśvarān). He then gives them to Nidrā to implant safely into Devakī’s womb while she is asleep (HV 47.25). So while Viṣṇu is connected to consciousness and mental processes, she is connected to his activity of creation unfolding covertly in beings while they are unconscious through her power. Through the instruments of these interrelated mental activities of thought, dreaming and sleep, both are shown to suffuse the inner worlds of beings, to extract quintessences, and thereby to create and preserve new life and universal order. Later, during the birth of Kṛṣṇa’s brother Balarāma, she possesses the sleeping Rohiṇī and removes Balarāma from her womb. However, none of this is apparent to Rohiṇī, who sees the birth of her child occur in a dream. In this way Nidrā is also hallucinatory in power, a (p.47) divine trickster, seizing the consciousness of humans while doing her task silently. In the later mythology of the Devīmāhātmya, her hallucinatory aspect would be further developed: Nidrā personifies both Viṣṇu’s meditative sleep, called yoganidrā, and his māyā, a delusory state like dreaming, which is held in the narration of the first deed (carita) of the Devīmāhātmya to be our experience of bound existence in saṃsāra. Since she subjects creatures to this state, plunging them, as the Devīmāhātmya says, into a tunnel of delusion (mohagarte), she is called Mahāmāyā, ‘Extraordinary Illusion’. According to the doctrine of the Devīmāhātmya, mankind is inexorably trapped in māyā, and recognition of this state of entrapment and consequent worship of its cause, the goddess, would lead to liberation. However, in the Harivaṃśa, the conceptual leap from real sleep to a cognitive state of erroneous knowledge characterizing mortal existence has not yet been made, although Rohiṇī’s sleep while Balarāma is extracted from her could have provided the imagistic germ for the Devīmāhātmya’s soteriology. What is very prominently established by the Harivaṃśa’s narrative, though, and

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) therefore will reappear in subsequent conceptions, is Nidrā’s link to the safe passage of life on earth through active intercession. The legend of her birth runs thus. Kaṃsa, the king of Mathurā, is told that he will be killed by the god Viṣṇu, who will be born on earth as the eighth embryo (garbha) of a couple, Devakī and Vasudeva. Kaṃsa then intends to slay all of Vasudeva’s children. In order to protect the baby Kṛṣṇa from the murderous intentions of his uncle Kaṃsa, Viṣṇu makes a prophecy in chapter 47 of the Harivaṃśa. He asks the goddess Sleep to go to Devakī, and to fuse her body with six stolen Dānava embryos, all of which, when born, will be subsequently slain by Kaṃsa. The seventh child born in the seventh month should be transported by Nidrā to Vasudeva’s second wife, Rohiṇī, and thereby saved. This child, a boy, will be called Saṃkarṣaṇa (Extraction) because Nidrā will induce the sleeping Rohiṇī to have a miscarriage and extract him from her womb. He will become Kṛṣṇa’s elder brother. In the eighth month, Devakī will fall pregnant with an eighth child, this time Viṣṇu himself as Kṛṣṇa. While she is pregnant, Nidrā, in the form of an embryo bearing the ninth portion of Viṣṇu, is to enter the womb of a cowherd’s wife, Yaśodā. At midnight on the cusp of Aṣṭamī, the Eighth lunar day, and Navamī, the Ninth lunar day, during the deepest part of the night in the dark half of this month when the moon is waning, Kṛṣṇa will be born in Mathurā. Almost at that very hour on Navamī, in the cowherd’s settlement, Yaśodā will give birth to his sister, Nidrā. But there will be an exchange: Nidrā will go to Devakī while Kṛṣṇa will be transferred to Yaśodā. Kaṃsa, deluded about this exchange, will grab Kṛṣṇa’s sister by her feet and dash her against a rock (śilā). (p.48) Leaping from his hands, she will fly to heaven and will find a permanent place there. In return for saving the life of Viṣṇu’s portion (aṃśā), she will become a queen among all the gods. Of Nidrā’s appearance, Viṣṇu says: ‘Blue-black like Viṣṇu in complexion, with a face like that of Saṃkarṣaṇa, you have enormous arms, like mine on earth. Bearing aloft a trident, a sword with a gold handle, a chalice filled to the brim with liquor and a flawless lotus, you are adorned in a linen robe blue in colour with an upper garment yellow in hue. You are brilliant with a necklace on your breast, the light of which is that of the moon. You are beautiful with your two ears fully adorned with celestial hoops. You are resplendent with a face that rivals the moon. You are adorned with a crown binding your hair having three discuses, arms like iron beams that are †…† as fully expanded hoods of serpents, a lofty ensign from the tailfeathers of a peacock and with a dazzling armlet [also] from peacock feathers. Surrounded by hordes of fearsome ghosts, you shall follow my command. Adopting a vow of celibacy, you will attain the highest heaven, and there Indra of a hundred eyes will unite you with the gods by [performing] a rite of consecration as commanded by me. At that very place, Indra-Vāsava will adopt you as his sister, and because of the lineage of Kuśika [to which he belongs], you will become Kauśikī, a maiden from the Kuśika lineage. He will give you a permanent home in the Vindhya, eminent among mountains. You will beautify the earth in a thousand sites. You will slay two dānavas, Sumbha and Nisumbha,6 who roam on mountains, after they have grown devoted to me. You will wander the three worlds, and [will appear] on earth when entreated with true feeling. O one of mighty fortune, you will grant boons and be able to adopt any form you please. Attended by ghosts, you will always crave offerings of flesh. You will receive worship on the Ninth lunar day (Navamī) with animal sacrifice. Nothing †concerning sons or wealth† will be unobtainable for those men who, knowledgeable about my power, bow to you. You are the supreme recourse for men who are buried in caves, drowned in a great sea, or obstructed by brigands. You are Siddhi

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) (Success), Śrī (Fortune), Dhṛti (Forbearance), Kīrti (Fame), Hrī (Bashfulness), Vidyā (Learning), Saṃnati (Compliance), Mati (Determination), Saṃdhyā (Dusk), Rātri (Night), Prabhā (Radiance), Nidrā (Sleep), Kālarātri (Black Night). When worshipped you will dispel bondage, terrible death, loss of sons, loss of wealth, danger from illness and death for the sake of mankind. Tricking Kaṃsa, you alone will enjoy the universe.’7 (p.49) All that is prophesied by Viṣṇu is described to take place in the following chapter. When Kaṃsa raised the baby Nidrā to dash her against the rock: She leapt up into the sky when she had been shaken and pounded upon the rock-surface. And abandoning the body of a newly born infant, she suddenly escaped, penetrating the sky, in a wondrous garland and unguents, the hair on her head flying loose. And she became a perpetual celestial maiden, sung praises by the gods. She wore blue and yellow robes. Her breasts were like the protruding forehead of an elephant. Her thighs were as sprawling as a chariot. Her face was as the moon. She had four arms. Her complexion was as bright as lightning. Her eyes were like newly rising suns. She had the cry of a thundercloud. Her breasts were full of milk just as the goddess of the Dusk possesses rain-filled clouds containing thunder. In the middle of a night seized with darkness, swarming with throngs of ghosts, she cast terror as she danced cackling, flashing inauspiciously. Filled with wrath, she quaffed eminent liquor in the sky. She bellowed with mighty laughter, and in her anger, addressed Kaṃsa: ‘Kaṃsa, O Kaṃsa! Since after hurling me up you had suddenly cast me down on a rock [and] executed me in order to end my life, I, at the time of your death, shall cleave you with my hands while you are being dragged by enemies and drink your warm blood.’ Having spoken terrible words, the goddess accompanied by her retinue went to her heavenly abode following a path of her choice.8 We hear the goddess speak in Sanskrit after having drunk liquor, threatening to rip Kaṃsa apart and feast on him. This dramatic crux, in which she articulates her blood-loving yet just personhood, foreshadows the climax of Mahiṣa’s death in the Devīmāhātmya, in which, eyes reddened with alcohol, (p.50) Durgā utters a very similar threat to the buffalo-demon (Devīmāhātmya, 3.33)—surely the mirroring cannot be coincidental. The composers of this later myth, though on the whole positioning the goddess in a largely Śaiva conceptual world, were no doubt aware of that initial moment in Vaiṣṇava mythology when Nidrā had, filling the sky with her hordes, spoken and manifested the sublime terror of her nature to Kaṃsa, the prefiguration of Mahiṣa. Both are similar interludes and a direct mythological thread connects them. Later in the Harivaṃśa, when the adult Kṛṣṇa returns to Dvārakā with his brother after defeating the king of Prāgjyotiṣa, they are said to be saluted at court by their mothers, Rohiṇī and Devakī, and all who had gathered there, after which they take their place on both sides of their sister Ekānaṃśā, who, the Harivaṃśa reminds us, was born at the same time as Kṛṣṇa, and ‘because of whom he slew Kaṃsa with his accomplices’. The myth tells us of her Amazonian qualities: housed in the home of the Vrṣṇis, Kṛṣṇa’s clan, Ekānaṃśā ‘was raised like a son, a yogakanyā indomitable in saving the life of Keśava’ (HV 96.13). As identified by Couture, Schmid and Yokochi, this is the same goddess Nidrā cast in her earthly role as the Vrṣṇi princess in the Krṣṇānarrative. The image of the three siblings standing in the assembly hall of Dvārakā is represented in Kusaṇa-era stelae,9 and their higher cosmic mirror is, as also Couture and Schmid argue, the triad of Viṣṇu, Śeṣā (who is embodied by Balarāma) and Nidrā-Kālarātri.

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) From Sleep to Death to the Madness of Love If we look further back into the Harivaṃśa, we find the primordial essence of Nidrā conceived as Kālī, an eschatological goddess ringed by thunderous clouds—clouds keep appearing in this goddess’s imagery—in an episode in which Viṣṇu protects the gods in heaven from destruction by demons. When Vṛtra had been slain, the Harivaṃśa says, heaven was once again overcome by dānavas. When the gods appeal to Vinṣṇu, a moment of apocalypse is manifest: clouds cover the sky and planets (HV 32.13), the vault of heaven thunders with winds, lightning flashes, terrible omens prevail. In the darkness nothing could be seen. Then ‘the goddess Death/Time in embodied form (kālī rūpiṇī) entered surrounded by the clouds of the end [of the universe]’. Viṣṇu disperses these masses of clouds with his hands, and nothing more is said of Kālī. A very similar episode appears in Aśvaghoṣa’s Buddhacarita, possibly a far earlier work than the complete Harivaṃśa, in the canto describing the Buddha’s encounter with Māra, who is cast as the bewildering love-god (p.51) Kāma. Among Māra’s hordes tormenting the Buddha, ‘ā woman black as a cloud [quoting Johnston’s translation] with a skull in her hand (strī meghakālī kapālahastā) wandered about there unrestrainedly and did not remain still with the intention of deluding the great seer’s heart (kartuṃ maharṣeḥ … cittamohaṃ) and resembling the intelligence of a man of inconstant mind wandering uncertainly among the various sacred traditions’.10 Can Aśvaghoṣā be thinking of the sense-stealer Nidrā? And can the Harivaṃśa in its conceptualization of Kālī, Nidrā’s maximal incarnation as Death/Time, be influenced in some way by this female deluder who appears and disappears enigmatically? Delusion is seen to be the madness of disquieting love in this Buddhist text, whereas in the Vaiṣṇava conception it is the disquiet of saṃṣāric existence itself. Both, though, were thought to be powerful forces, afflictive in nature, that cloud rational judgement, and a black-hued woman, the symbol of entrancement and love (moha/māyā), roaming at will is seen to be intimately connected with their manifestation in the body and in the mind. In fact, Love and deified Sleep are often connected in early poetry. In the Vāsavadattā the late Gupta prose writer Subandhu refers to Nidrā in descriptions of lovers experiencing intense visions of their beloved and thereby being unable to sleep. In one, embodied Sleep, ‘served for long’ (cirasevitayā) by the hero Kandarpaketu, Subandhu remarks ironically, is said to have left Kandarpaketu ‘as if in jealousy’ while he was drinking, it seemed, his love Vāsavadattā with his eyes wide open in passion. In another, Vāsavadattā, falling into a fever of love having seen Kandarpaketu in a dream, appeals to the ‘Goddess Sleep’ (bhagavati nidre) to have mercy on her.11 To Subandhu, Sleep is a goddess. Lady Sleep provides the simulacrum (māyā) of one’s love where real love cannot be experienced (Kandarpaketu and Vāsavadattā first dream about each other before they meet in the flesh), as she also torments by withholding a peaceful cessation of thoughts of love. She is the dark, skull-adorned chaos of our uncontrollable subconscious, the inner eye beholding images when the external eye has shut. But unlike in the Buddhacarita, she—the deity of Death and indeed Love—reappears this time as a swoon a few chapters later in the Harivaṃśa, when Viṣṇu has defeated the demons and their leader Kālanemi, entered his abode and taken his seat on the snake Śeṣa. Viṣṇu then sleeps, for he awakens only at creation and when dānavas need to be slain, and the myth introduces and eulogizes his divine slumber, whom we had encountered earlier as a vision of the end of Time: (p.52) She who is indeed [his] secret magic (gahvari māyā) is present on earth as Sleep (nidreti jagati sthitā). She, Kālarātri, the terrifying Night of Aeonic Destruction grows suddenly warlike for kings. Her body is Night, the doorway to darkness, the destroyer of day. This terrible [body] removes half the life of all living beings on earth. When entered

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) by her, no one, as they yawn again and again, is able to withstand her, as if drowning in a great sea. On earth she is born [by day] from food or born somehow from exertion. [But] Sleep by night (naiśā nidrā) is ordinary (laukikī) for all beings. And generally, at the end of sleep, she dissipates for beings on earth. When creatures arrive at their hour of death, she violently destroys life. Even among the gods, none apart from Nārāyanā bore her. She is born from Viṣṇu’s body, his Magical power (māyā), the companion of none but AllDestroying Death. She can be glimpsed in Nārāyaṇa’s mouth with her lotus-like eyes. The enchantress enjoys people for a short time. [Sleep] who acts for the benefit of mankind in this way, who is devoted to her husband, is to be adopted through the path of Kṛṣṇa, which must be served like a husband. Then Viṣṇu the Eternal slept, put into a swoon by that Nidrā on his resting place, causing the universe to be cast into a trance [by her].12 This trance-inducing Nidrā, who as Kālī also embodies the hour of war and is thereby said to be important for kings, is in this earlier part of the Harivaṃśa intimately connected to Viṣṇu. Being his sleep, his magical power and his activity embodied, she lacks personhood and remains something of a poeticized abstraction. It is only in the episode of Kṛṣṇa’s myth, particularly in Viṣṇu’s prophecy and in Ekānaṃśā’s figuration, that we get a sense of a fleshed-out personality, who specifically represents heroic self-sacrifice and rulership. Yet, apart from these noble warrior-qualities, she is also very dangerous, requiring propitiation through blood offerings on the sacred day of her birth, the black Navamī, and being surrounded at all times by ghosts. She flies and shifts shape as she wills, a characteristic of witches (yoginīs) in Indian tradition. She is associated with the unpredictability and mystery of the night and its dangers, with in fact the total blackness of final annihilation. Whether in heaven or on earth, she is born in the darkest hour of the night (in heaven during the night before Kālanemi’s war, on earth during the midnight heralding Navamī), and it is the time of her birth, the blue-black colouring of her (p. 53) other half Viṣṇu, Death, as well as the suggestion of what is unilluminated and thus imperceptible, that her names meaning ‘sleep’, ‘magic’ and ‘night’ evoke. She is, in other words, the presiding deity of Death and its momentary lesser reflection Sleep, both of whose colour is black because in both states consciousness of the external world has subsided. In this way this early form of Durgā interlinks what are seen by the Vaiṣṇavas as three successively heightened grades of each other, Sleep, Death and Time—the last of which is, after all, measured by death— in her nature. At the corporeal level of existence she is anti-consciousness, while at the incorporeal level she is the keeper of Time for the entire universe. Yet at the same time that she is the darkness, which is the absence of sensation, she is also full of the light of creative magic and pulsing consciousness on awakening, compared to clouds at Dusk in which lightning sometimes flashes. These paradoxes—dark and radiant; death-giving and life-restoring—will remain within the conception of the goddess for a very long period. But their roots lie here in this mythology, where they seem to me to serve a purpose in doubly faceting the nature of the lead character. There is a hint just below the surface of the myth that ambiguities that could not be realized in Kṛṣṇa, the hero of the Harivaṃśa, are displaced in the person of his wild younger sister. Indeed, the same strategy of doubling by displacement is utilized in later Śaiva myths of Nidrā’s genesis, in which Pārvatī effuses her unwanted dark-complexioned self in the person of the bellicose Kālī, also referred to by Nidrā’s clan-derived epithet Kauśikī (because, the alternative Śaiva explanation goes, she is formed from Pārvatī’s kos´ā or outer sheath). In both cases, genetic undesirables are safely disembodied in the form of the ‘Other’.

From Sleep to Death to Durgā

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) There are several indices of Nidrā’s popularity which show that her conceptualization overlapped with the way Durgā was celebrated in hymns and worshipped. To begin with I shall discuss three early and important sources in which the development of Nidrā into Durgā can be clearly seen. The Eulogy to Durgā (durgāstava) in the Mahābhārata The passages from the Harivaṃśa on Nidrā-Kālarātri are recalled in traditions of the Mahābhārata (Mbh) transmitted in a wide spread of the Northern manuscripts.13 Here the goddess is shown to intervene in the fate of the Pāṇdava (p.54) princes who have lost their kingdom. In Book 4 (Virāṭaparvan) of the Mahābhārata, on their way to the kingdom of Virāṭa, king Yudhiṣṭhira sings a hymn to Durgā, and when appeased she appears and promises to help tide him over his difficult period, grants him weapons and promises victory in the forthcoming battle with the Kurus. In this way, the outcome of the great Mahābhārata battle is shown to be the effect of the goddess’s favour. According to the editors of the Poona critical edition, this episode is an interpolation. They therefore include the hymn in an appendix rather than in the main text. Of this hymn seven versions are presented, which differ only in a few words but remain congruent in terms of overall content. The editors’ assumption that this was inserted into the Mahābhārata seems to be well founded, as entire phrases from the Harivaṃśa passage we have just examined (p. 49 above) are repeated in this interpolation, demonstrating that this episode was composed after the time of the Harivaṃśa. And because of the presence of these evocative phrases, it is also clear that the Harivaṃśa’s conception of Nidrā lies in the background of this hymn about a deity here introduced to us explicitly in the beginning as Durgā (yudhiṣṭhiraḥ stunoti/astuvan/stūyamānas manasā devīṃ… durgāṃ), and was popular, either directly or indirectly through citations, in the Deccan regions where these manuscripts circulated. Like the original Nidrā this hymn conceives of the goddess Durgā as the daughter of Yaśodā, ‘who put Kaṃsa to flight’ (kaṃsavidrāvaṇakarīm), who ‘goes to the sky when hurled upon a rock-face’ (śilātaṭavinikṣiptām ākāśaṃ prati gāminīm). Direct quotations from the Harivaṃśa are indicated in the following parentheses. She is four-armed (Mbh 4 App. I, 4D,14 13a = Harivaṃśa/HV 48.30); wears armlets of peacock tail-feathers and a peacock feather as a crest on her hair (Mbh 4 App. I, 4D 14 = HV 47.44, 26 = HV 47.43); her complexion is dark like Kṛṣṇa’s while her face is that of her older brother Balarāma, her arms are huge (Mbh 4 App. I, 4D, 17, 18 = HV 47.39); she adopts a vow of celibacy (Mbh 4 App. I, 4D, 27 = HV 47.45); her visage rivals the moon (Mbh 4 App. I, 4D, 22 = HV 48.30); she adores alcohol and flesh (Mbh 4 App. I, 4D, 34 = HV 47.51a); among her names Siddhi (Success), Śrī (Fortune), Dhṛti (Forbearance), Kīrti (Fame), Hrī (Bashfulness), Vidyā (Learning), Saṃnati (Compliance), Mati (Determination), Saṃdhyā (Dusk), Rātri (Night), Prabhā (Radiance), Nidrā (Sleep) are mentioned (Mbh 4 App. I, 4D, 45 = HV 47.54); she is the ‘highest path for men who are buried in caves, drowned in a great sea, or obstructed by brigands’ (Mbh 4 App. I, 4D, 40–1 = HV 47.53– 4); she removes ‘bondage, terrible death, loss of sons, loss of wealth, danger from illness and death for the sake of mankind’ (Mbh 4 App. (p.55) I, 4D, 46–7 = HV 47.55). Her appearance in this hymn, though, is slightly different. She carries a cup and a lotus, a bell, a noose, a bow and a discus in one variant, and in another a trident, a discus, a sword and a mace. In addition, she is said to have a girdle (śroṇisūtra) ‘like a curving snake’ wrapped around her voluptuous hips, whereby her legs resemble Mandara the mountain encircled by snakes. In a powerful verse that appears in the very centre of this hymn in all versions, the goddess is invoked as Kālī, and Mahākālī, the heart and soul of Nidrā in the Harivaṃśa.

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) The hymn describes itself as ‘having its source in various hymns’, an accurate little selfdescription given the echoes of the Harivaṃśa in it. What it shows is that the portion of the Harivaṃśa telling us about Nidrā proliferated through textual and probably oral transmission, turning into an independent exhortation perhaps sung to the goddess at temples and festivals. And though there may have been a single archetypical text, it is due to its being recollected by recitation in a wide geographical area covering, according to the provenance of their textual vehicles, Devanāgari manuscripts including the ‘vulgate’ version commented on by Nīlakaṇṭha from central and western India, that minor variations such as there are appear between the seven versions. A second hymn to Durgā appears later in the Mahābhārata in the Bhīṣmaparvan (Mbh 6.22.6 ff., published in Mbh 6 App. I, 1, pp. 710–11), also regarded as an interpolation by the editors, appearing largely in Bengali manuscript and transcripts of the older Kashmirian version, and included accordingly in their appendix. Unlike the first hymn, the text of the primarily eastern and Kashmiri stava is fairly uniform in all manuscripts recording it. During the Mahābhārata battle, Arjuna is given a hymn to recite to Durgā by Kṛṣṇa. On reciting this, the goddess appears to him and grants him fearlessness in battle. As in the other hymn, here too Durgā, thus named by Kṛṣṇa to Arjuna, is principally evoked in her archaic form Nidrā: she is invoked by Arjuna as ‘bearing a peacock-tail crest’ (śikhipicchadhvajadhare), as ‘Kṛṣṇa’s sister’ (gopendrasānuje) Kālī, Bhadrakālī, Mahākālī, Kāpālī, Kauśikī, Tāriṇī, Caṇḍā, ‘born in the lineage of the cowherd Nanda’ (nandagopakulodbhave), ‘attired in yellow robes’ (pītavāsini), ‘adorned in various jewels’ (nānābharaṇabhūṣite), ‘deep brown [in complexion]’ (kṛṣṇapiṅgale), and as the ‘highest sleep [Death] for beings’ (mahānidrā ca dehinām). At the same time, she is said to be Caṇḍī Kātyāyanī, ‘always fond of the blood of buffaloes’ (mahiṣāsṛkpriye nityaṃ), ‘fond of battles’ (raṇapriye) and an ‘accomplished commander of armies’ (siddhasenāni), epithets typically associated with Durgā.15 When she appears before Arjuna, she is said to ‘stand before Kṛṣṇa’ (govindasyāgrataḥsthitā), a further manifestation of her Vaiṣṇava identity as Kṛṣṇa’s kinswoman. Here too we find that Nidrā’s description, evoked even in the second hymn in (p. 56) the Mahābhārata, grew essential for the understanding of the later Durgā, and that both were essentially a single deity. An important feature of Nidrā that filters through into these later hymns from her old conception is her control over moments of crisis. When a man is in danger the goddess protects: such is the clear message of the Harivaṃśa, and such too of its later reworking in the Mahābhārata. These dangers are then described, and in the Harivaṃśa the dangers enumerated are being buried in deep caves, submerged in the middle of oceans or attacked by robbers. All of these are repeated, almost verbatim, in the seven versions of the first hymn in the Mahābhārata, as just seen. In the second hymn, a more expansive set of dangers is described in a set of verses advertising the hymn for recitation among devotees (ibid., ll. 42–9). Lists of crises, such as the one in the Harivaṃśa, are a standard feature of descriptions of Durgā (we have a long one in the Devīmāhātmya, and others appear in the Devīpurāṇa, and Navarātra ritual descriptions), and because such a list, however sparse but no less specific, appears in the first myth of the goddess, the connection between herself and situations potentially leading to death must have been an immensely powerful one to endure as an essential aspect of her nature, despite other new inflections she may have taken on. They go back in essence to the vision of Kālarātri who manifested herself at the hour of Viṣṇu’s battle with Kālanemi, the time of greatest universal danger. Since the goddess in her essential form controls Death, appearing at a heavenly level in the battle between gods and demons and on earth at the time when all creatures die, as the

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) Harivaṃśa tells us, she was held to control deadly situations, particularly war. Her appearance at the time of sleep is a lesser manifestation of her link to Death. Recollections in Early Śaiva Mythology and Classical Poetry in Sanskrit and Prakrit Though it is difficult to ascertain the date of composition of the hymn in the Mahābhārata (likely, however, to have been sometime in the 4th century), the relative antiquity of the goddess Sleep’s identification with Durgā can be inferred from early Śaiva mythology and poetry reflecting a Śaiva theological orientation, in which Nidrā is recalled even in the framework of the comparatively new and more dominant conception of Durgā as Pārvatī’s bellicose aspect. The earliest of these Śaiva recollections can be found in the old Skandapurāṇa in Viṣṇu’s hymn to Pārvatī. Here in the middle of the hymn Pārvatī is eulogized as Durgā,16 and while no names are named, it is clear that (p.57) the former goddess is by now a doubled personality, incorporating the warrior-goddess because she is said to be astride a lion, Durgā’s vehicle, while slaying demons in battle, aglow with the inner light of heroic power. The poet then evokes Nidrā within the same context. Pārvatī, he says, ‘had adopted a different body, having discarded her infant’s [form], which was like a mass of all energies made into one’ (old Skandapurāṇa, 6.53). The reference is obliquely made, buried within a broadly Śaiva understanding of the goddess as mother-warrior, but nevertheless the myth of Nidrā’s attempted murder by Kaṃsa and its concomitant images of her ascent into the sky and her parallelism with sudden flashes of lightning had evidently not been forgotten. It leads the composer of the Skandapurāṇa to reflect on paradoxes: ‘Though she is alit, she may be discerned with ease; though she is peaceful, she is filled with violence; though young, she bears the universe; though delicate, she is of well-formed limbs.’ Nor had it been forgotten by important classical poets from the post-Gupta period. Bāā in the Caṇḍīśataka recalls the myth of Kaṃsa’s destruction and the flight to heaven in verse 25, while the Prakrit poet Bappaï, a contemporary of Bhavabhūti from the 8th century, recalls the Vaiṣṇava goddess in seven verses in the Gaüḍavaho (296, 297, 308, 316, 326, 334, 337), while praising the Vindhya-dwelling Durgā and her temple and, in one particularly elegant example of transposition (296), describes the goddess to be present ‘in the form of Nidrā’ (niddārūveṇā) in men’s eyes when they have just awoken, comparing the redness of drowsy eyes to the red lac of the goddess’s foot. Bappaï recalls too Nidrā’s essential form as Kālī (297), her personification of the Night both in its earthly state and in its cosmic state of destruction, and her connection with gloomy monsoon skies interspersed with lightning. But her manifestation at that time is said to be caused by Mahiṣa’s death—lightning tearing through black clouds is imagined as the goddess ‘tawny in passion’ killing the black mass of the buffalo. He too ends his hymn with a paradox:

rūaṃciya ṇavara karāladāruṇaṃ kālarattilīlāe | hiyayaṃ puṇa te karuṇāraseṇa sai vacchalaṃcea || 337 The form of Kālarātri’s play [of death] alone is magnificent in its fearsomeness. However, your heart O Goddess is loving with the nectar of compassion.

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) (p.58) The Rite of Durgā during the Lunar Day of Navamī in the Dark Phase of the Month of Kṛṣṇa’s Birth The myth of Nidrā’s birth, which as we have seen places importance on a black night and the number nine (she was born on the Ninth day as the ninth portion of Viṣṇu), was to be reflected and commemorated in ritual practice connected to royal empowerment, in which both aspects figure prominently. Both the Harivaṃśa and our Mahābhārata hymn say that Kālarātri will be propitiated on Navamī with animal sacrifice. Although the practice of worshipping Durgā during the bright phase of the military month of Āśvina grew popular from the 15th century (when it was codified in ritual manuals), the earlier, more ubiquitous tradition was to begin her festival, the Navarātra, on the Navamī of the dark half of the month of Śrāvaṇā or Bhādra preceding Āśvina, depending on which lunar calendar was followed. The latter tradition in Bhādra was widely popularized in Bengal in the 12th century, and is in fact still advocated by modern ritual manuals such as the Bengali Purohitadarpaṇā. On this lunar day during a month when the monsoons are still in full spate and the sky is filled with clouds—the perfect setting for Nidrā’s manifestation—Durgā’s ritual awakening (bodhana) in a bilva tree occurs on the Navamī while the moon is waning. This tradition is clearly in accordance with the Harivaṃśa’s prescription that the worship is to take place particularly on the dark Ninth (kṛṣṇanavamī) of the month of Kṛṣṇa’s birth. The appearance of the lunar asterism Ārdrā and the zodiac sign of Kanyā (Virgo) at dawn during this month are emphasized by descriptions of the goddess’s festival as especially important, given that the former was associated with destructive acts, hence war, and the latter with the goddess’s maidenhood.17 The 11th-century (p.59) Bengali jurist and religious formulator Jīmūtavāhana cites many Purāṇic passages in his work on the dharmaśāstra, the Kālaviveka, that teach that the goddess is to be worshipped during the dark Navamī in Bhādra, the month in Bengal when Kṛṣṇa’s birthday, Janmāṣṭamī, takes place, by being ritually awoken with songs and the playing of musical instruments (Bhagavatīpurāṇa cited in the Kālaviveka, p. 30). In certain parts of Bengal, at least as late as the 19th century, the initiation of the goddess’s worship coincided with Janmāṣṭamī, when her substrate, a sandalwood paste anointed split bamboo framework, is given to the person responsible for preparing the final image.18 The Shrine of Vindhyavāsinī Literature enables us to identify Nidrā’s cult centre as one of the earliest and most important popularly associated with Durgā. According to the 7th-century author Daṇḍin in his Daśakumāracarita, there were two important shrines to the goddess Durgā at the time, one in the Vindhya region and another in the town of Dāmalipta in the kingdom of the Suhmas on the eastern coast of India, which, now known as Tamluk in West Bengal, still attracts throngs of followers. The earlier and more important of these, as told to us by Daṇḍin, is the one in the Vindhya mountain. If we recall the early mythology just discussed, this mountain range is associated with Nidrā, for it is the caves of this mountain that the Harivaṃśa19 identifies as the goddess’s home, granted to her by Indra after her destruction of the malefactor Kaṃsa and the asuras Śumbha and Niśumbha. Writing at a time later than the 4th century, authors of Sanskrit literature describe her mountain shrine in great detail in numerous (p.60) literary accounts.20 The Kashmirian historian Kalhaṇa in his Rājataraṅgiṇī, describes the Vindhya temple as the abode of the goddess Bhramaravāsinī, also known as Bhrāmarī, an ominous form of Durgā. The shrine was infested by swarms of ferocious bees commanded by this goddess. The swarms made the path to her shrine particularly arduous for devotees. Writing in the aftermath of the Devīmāhātmya, wherein the bee-goddess Bhrāmarī is described, Kalhaṇa has Nidrā already enmeshed with other deities and their legends, but what is important is that her shrine in the Vindhya mountains had endured in prominence in his time. It may well be that his and the poetic descriptions of other authors were inspired by an actual goddess site in the early medieval Page 13 of 24 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) period, and this might have been the Vindhyavāsinī temple at Mirzapur, which still remains a prominent pilgrimage destination. A claim is also made in the Gaüḍavaho that Yaśovarman, an important ruler of Kanyakubja (c.725–52), sought the blessings of Kauśikī at this shrine before his eastward campaign towards Gauḍa.21 Bappaï suggests that the goddess’s cult at this period had become a Tantric one: human sacrifices are implied by the poet to have occurred there,22 while his hymn eulogizes Kauśikī in her terrible power-bestowing aspects, as Bhairavī,23 Mahiṣāsuramardinī24 and the bone-adorned, skull-bearing Kālarātri.25 The cremation ground is evoked in one simile as the beloved haunt of this deity—she is said to roam her shrine, crowded with white geese, as if in her ‘fondness for a skull-strewn śmaśāna’.26 At the same time as she was a Tantric deity associated with the occult, Kauśikī was a war-goddess: she is, for instance, said in the hymn to cause herds of war elephants (vāraṇaghaḍāo) to flee even from afar simply by.being recalled in the (p.61) battlefield (v. 288). So too in all other literary accounts the association of the Vindhya temple is with a wilder, more lethal form of Durgā (Kālī/Cāmuṇḍā/ Kālarātri/Rajanī/Nidrā/Kauśikī) who embodies martial abilities in their most heightened form and grants military powers. As we shall see further, the Tantric aspect, evoked in the names Bhairavī and Cāmuṇḍā, was later superimposed on Kauśikī when she was incorporated into Śaivism, but her war-loving, dangerous form requiring regular placation is indeed original, an inalienable aspect of Nidrā. No doubt this primary martial aspect, linked to ghosts and propitiation, articulated from the earliest Vaiṣṇava texts, made the transition into the Śaiva Tantric tradition smoother, because its characteristics blended easily with the antinomian imagery of the Śaiva cremation ground. The votaries of the fierce goddess are envisioned as heroes: the Gaüḍavaho, for instance, describes the visitors to her shrine as Śabara warriors who would leave behind their swords to the deity as ritual offerings.27 Parallel verses also appear in the later 9th-century poem the Haravijaya, where the same image is evoked, and this poem, though not an independent witness, supports the scenario presented by the Gaüḍavaho.28 Only the very brave, it was thought, could win the favours of such an irascible deity, whose magical powers were both protective and darkly ambivalent. Although the literature we have just summarized is retrospective, there are indeed aspects that one can safely identify as continuations of an older stratum of Durgā’s development, given their appearance in the Harivaṃśa. Though the cremation ground, the bone adornments and Śaiva names were new, her prominence for worship by kings during war reached back to the Gupta period. Iconography I will now link the descriptive passages we have been studying with images. Nidrā’s descriptions fit sculptures of Durgā from south India which exhibit Vaiṣṇava characteristics and are often called Viṣṇu-Durgās.29 The earliest of these are from the Pallava period (7th century) from the rock-cut caves in (p.62) Mahābalipuram.30 Durgā is standing either on an open lotus or on the head of a buffalo. She has four or more arms. She wears a crown with a band running round her forehead and a detailed crest with an ‘eye’ in the centre that resembles a peacock feather, several necklaces, with one long one dangling on her breast, a strip of cloth over her chest, from the top and bottom of which her breasts protrude, a garment over her hips, a girdle twice encircling her thighs below the garment and knotted on the sides with long ribbon-like strips hanging down to her ankles, hooped pendant earrings, thick anklets, and bracelets. She is young and beautiful with full breasts and hips.31 When more than four-armed, the figures hold a trident, a sword, a bow, a shield and a bell.32 An eight-armed form of this kind is represented in a dynamic depiction of the scene of battle with Mahiṣa in a cave façade in Mahābalipuram.33 Here we see her about to shoot, in a gesture reminiscent of the first verse of the great erotic poet Amaruka’s Śataka. The same goddess as the one in the Pallava reliefs appears in the later Coḷā era (c. 9th century), inside the compounds of Śiva temples, and the style of depiction Page 14 of 24 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) carries forward the older Pallava pattern. The deity in both sets of images can be identified as the early Vaiṣṇava Durgā in her aspect as Kṛṣṇa’s sister. All of them have characteristics of Nidrā described in her hymns: the trident and the peacock-feathered crest, the hip-girdle, the upper and lower garment, the prominent anklets and round earrings. The number of arms, like Nidrā’s, is four (or eight). They have other features, recognizably linked to Viṣṇu, such as the bell, discus, sword, conch shell and bow. In this respect the figures accord more closely with the idea of Nidrā as it had evolved in the Mahābhārata hymn from the Harivaṃśa. Even the girdle encircles in a snake-like manner, as the Mahābhārata envisages. Kṛṣṇa’s sister travelled to Southeast Asia as well, to Java and Cambodia. An example of her fourarmed form standing on the head of the buffalo-demon is represented in a remarkably elegant sandstone image from the late 7th to early 8th century from southern Cambodia (now kept at the National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh).34 She is modestly dressed and unadorned in comparison to the Indian Nidrā, with no jewellery, a plain crown with no crest, and only a lower garment. The buffalo is represented in the form of a small horned head at the base of the feet. The positioning is clearly resonant of the Pallava and Coḷā images of Nidrā similarly standing, (p.63) with a placid expression, on Mahiṣa’s head, and she remains, despite the lack of ornamentation, a beautiful and full-bodied deity, as conceived in Vaiṣṇava mythology. That Durgā in early medieval Cambodia represented a Vaiṣṇava deity can be further supported. A Cambodian inscription, etched on one side of a four-faced stela, records that the commissioner, by connection a man of status as he was the uncle of the chief queen of Rājendravarman of Angkor, had installed (atiṣṭhipat) ‘the body of Kātyāyinī’ (kātyāyinītanuṃ) in Bhīmapura (bhīmapure). The icon is in fact part of a set of several images of deities that the donor had installed in different sites. The first mentioned in the inscription is that of Lakṣmī (l. 13); the second is a group of four images of Viṣṇu called the ‘purifiers of his lineage’ (kulapāvanīḥ) that he had installed in his birthplace (janmabhūmāv) (l. 14); the third is of Kātyāyinī (ll. 15–16); the fourth and fifth of Śiva and the Indra (17–19); and the sixth of a sleeping Viṣṇu reclining in water (tanuṃ … yoganidrāluṃ … jalaśāyinam) (l. 20). About Katyāyinī’s image in Bhīmapura, the inscription further goes on to state that the icon of the goddess’s body was ‘ā Vaiṣṇava image’ (vaiṣṇavīṃ pratimāṃ), of ‘infinite splendour’ (bhūyo bhūrivibhāṃ) and that it was kept in the ‘temple of Aśmasaronātha’ (aśmasaronāthasya sadmani).35 Kātyāyanī, no doubt intended by Kātyāyinī, is a well-attested name of Durgā cited as early as Amara’s Nāmaliṅgānuśāsana. This must surely indicate a sculpture of Nidrā, Durgā as Viṣṇu’s cosmic Sleep, fashioned as something similar to the sandstone sculpture. Given that he had mostly established Vaiṣṇava images, the donor must surely have been devoted to Viṣṇu, and his conception of Durgā drew also from the same sectarian outlook. In Java, Durgā’s statuary, of which seventy-three fully preserved examples have been found, exhibits several characteristically Vaiṣṇava attributes: the most numerous among the statues have either eight or four arms, what we find enumerated visà-vis Nidrā’s descriptions, while among weapons she carries the cakra, the discus, and the śaṅkha, the conch shell, both typical of Viṣṇu’s attributes and named in the Mahābhārata hymn.36 These images have antecedents in the 3rd and 4th centuries, which have been the objects of extensive art-historical study.37 The early sculptural sites of a goddess slaying a buffalo from the Gupta period (2nd to 6th centuries) are from Udayagiri, Vidīśā and Sindursi in Madhya Pradesh, in which they appear in a Vaiṣṇava iconographical setting, accompanying images of Viṣṇu’s avatāras of Trivikrama the Dwarf, Narasiṃha the Man-lion and Varāha the (p.64) Boar.38 The settings in which they have been found, along with stylistic parallels with the iconography of Kṛṣṇa, have led to speculation by art historians that Durgā was linked to the avatāras of Viṣṇu Page 15 of 24 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) before she was appropriated by Śaivism and Śaiva texts in the 7th century.39 Now that we can link the early mythology in Sanskrit more specifically to the art, we can say that the buffaloslaying goddess of these Vaiṣṇava sites depicts the goddess in her most ancient form as NidrāKālarātri, who slays demons and malevolent beings in order to save the child Kṛṣṇa. Among the attributes in Gupta-era icons studied by Schmid, the garland of flowers, a popular Vaiṣṇava image associated with Kṛṣṇa, the sword and the trident are consistent with the description in the Harivaṃśa, while the bow accords with the iconography of Nidrā reflected in the Mahābhārata. However, the sculptures of Nidrā have an even earlier archetype in the Kuṣāṇa period (2nd century). Charlotte Schmid had argued that Kuṣāṇa-era sculptures of a goddess slaying the buffalo, representing Durgā’s most famous myth as the buffalo-demon slayer, pointed to the prevalence of this goddess within the context of the Kuṣāṇa-era cult of Kṛṣṇa in the Mathurā region. Her reasons were as follows. Sculptures in human form were only found in Vaiṣṇava iconography from the period, whereas Śaiva icons tended to be only of the phallus (liṅgas). Only Vaiṣṇava sculptures in the Mathurā region depicted narrative situations. A correlative to the buffalo-slaying goddess images is the slaughter of the horse-demon Keśin by Kṛṣṇa. Among other arguments, the similarity in dimensions of the stelae on which the goddess and Kṛṣṇa images are carved, the multiplicity of arms, the imagery of the garland and the sword among others led her to state that ‘we are thus inclined to classify the ancient representations of Mahiṣāsuramardinī, a goddess of obscure origins, not in the Śaiva cultural field, but in the movement of Kṛṣṇaism in its early stages’.40 These early figures influenced the sculptural depictions of the goddess in the Gupta period, and a line of artistic continuity links them. We do not have any expansive written works from that period, but the popularity of the god Kṛṣṇa, with his brother Balarāma-Saṃkarṣaṇa, under the Kuṣāṇas and even before is attested by coins from Afghanistan from the reign of Agathocles (185 BCE),41 from the time of Huviṣka and that of Vasudeva. These bear images of either of the two gods on the obverse accompanied by their name in Greek letters. A stone pillar from Besnagar dating to the 2nd century BCE has an inscription declaring that the ambassador of the Greek king Antialkides, Heliodorus, was a bhāgavata, a follower of (p.65) Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa.42 From the Kuṣāṇa period appear stone stelae (around four have been found) representing the siblings Kṛṣṇa, Balarāma and their sister Ekānaṃśā (or Nidrā in her cosmic aspect).43 It has been well established by scholars that the cult of Kṛṣṇa flourished in the Mathurā region, reaching north-westwards into the Indo-Greek terrains of Bactria in the last centuries before the birth of Christ and in the first century after. I would like to propose here, though somewhat cautiously, that the demon-slaying goddess found in the Mathurā site is in fact the goddess Nidrā-Kālarātri, Kṛṣṇa’s sister. If we look again at the sculptures of the buffalo-demon slayer from the period we find, among the four implements outlined in the Harivaṃśa, the trident and the sword. We have the necklace dangling on the breast and the anklets prominently shown. The minimum number of arms is four. We also have the omnipresence of the raised garland, a typical feature of early Vaiṣṇava iconography. There is moreover a clear stylistic continuity between some depictions (for example Srinivasan 1997: pl. 20.11) and the Gupta-era Mahiṣāsuramardinī of Cave 17 at Udayagiri, which is depicted accompanied by images of Viṣṇu’s avatāras. In other words, a link can be established between the Harivaṃśa’s description of Nidrā-Kālarātri and the image of the Kuṣāṇa warrior-goddess. n.

Nidrā’s Worship How would Nidrā be worshipped in a heroic context? Besides sword-offerings, further examples of the forms of ritual homage that would have been performed by warriors for the goddess appear in art and literature. A description in Bāṇa’s Kādambarī portrays a Śabara king

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) worshipping the goddess of the Vindhyas with blood from his body: he is, eulogizes Bāṇa, ‘adorned by a pair of arms whose shoulders were repeatedly scarred with the imprint of a sharp sword in order to offer his blood to Caṇḍikā’.44 Caṇḍikā is another, albeit later, Śaiva name for the goddess. Such practices of inflicting wounds on oneself to placate the goddess were identified by Purāṇic and literary traditions as warrior-rituals undertaken by heroes and outcastes, as extreme and admirable tests demonstrating heroic ability.45 Pallava-era rock-reliefs of Nidrā from Mahābalipuram show two kinds of self-sacrifice performed by warriors (p.66) ranged around the goddess’s feet.46 On her right a warrior lifting up his hair prepares to cut his head. On her left a warrior cuts his thigh. We will see that in ritual manuals of the Navarātra the offering of a human head, as well as blood from a king’s arms or thighs, are praised as the best kinds of offering made to the goddess. In the Devīmāhātmya (13.9ab) king Suratha offered her flowers smeared with this blood. Such warrior-practices are connected to Nidrā’s self-sacrifice in the myth of the Harivaṃśa. She offered her own body, to be violently smashed against a rock, in order to save the life of her brother. In this respect Nidrā’s sacrifice is the highest form of heroism that a warrior can demonstrate. Other practices associated with warriors are said to have occurred at the Vindhyan shrine: the Gaüḍavaho suggests that the ritual of selling human flesh by a warrior for the attainment of heroic powers occurred inside the temple precincts, underlining this point with a particularly gory image of trees hung with shreds of such flesh.47 The Vindhyan cult of Nidrā in serving a strong martial purpose may have included, given its uniform depiction in literature as a horrific place, the performance of antinomian rituals for enhanced—rather than ordinary—military attainments. Among all these rituals, though, buffalo sacrifice formed the most important ritual offering to propitiate the goddess: in his Harṣacarita, Bāṇā suggests that out-caste Śabara warrior-kings would perform buffalo sacrifice for Kālarātri on Navamī (p. 126, l. 4). The buffalo sacrifice remains important even today and in offering buffalo blood the hero acquires extraordinary powers while an entire community is safeguarded from dangers. That Nidrā was propitiated up to the 9th century, notably in aggressive magic to stultify and put to sleep enemies, is made evident in an interesting charm for a magic mohana (delusory) powder found in an unpublished Nepalese manuscript in Maithili script. The colophon to that work, called Prayogacūḍāmaṇi (‘The Crest-Jewel of Ritual Use’), says that it was composed by a Dāmodaragupta, Śaiva preceptor and minister to a king, Devapāla. ‘On the Black Lunar Day of the Dead (the fourteenth day of the dark fortnight), on a Tuesday’, the spell says, the powder, made of the ashes of a yoginī recently died combined with her bones, mixed with powdered pumpkin and empowered repeatedly with the spell of the goddess in an auspicious site, when scattered at the entrance to an enemy’s dwelling, ‘causes [that] mighty, (p.67) heart-stealing Slumber [of Death]’. The spell to be used in the empowerment ritual invokes a form of Durgā called Caṇḍakātyāyanī, but she is specifically referred to as Nidrā as her swoon-giving properties are what the spell requires. The powders, when enchanted by the spell forty-nine times, will acquire the ability of deluding an enemy, says the recipe. The spell is written as follows:

oṃ namo rudrāya namaś caṇḍakātyāyani durgādevi durgastriye nidre nidre nidrāpaya nidrāpaya, kuru/turu, kuru/turu, rudra ājñāpayati svāhā.

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) Oṃ Homage to Rudra. Homage [to you] O Caṇḍakātyāyanī, Goddess Durgā, Durgastrī, The Lady of Crises, O Nidrā, Nidrā, Put to Sleep! Put to Sleep! Rudra commands [you] Svāhā! 48

A further important mode of worship was pleasing the deity through singing or reciting a hymn of praise. Words in themselves are offerings to the goddess. Well-crafted and imbued with appropriate meaning, they were believed to have a real effect in conciliating the goddess, and acquiring from her desired rewards. Hymns can be an impassioned and direct form of communication between man and goddess and are in very many cases, particularly within the literary tradition, polished and sophisticated compositions that can be appreciated as much for the aesthetic pleasure they provide as for their depth of religious belief. Even the earliest description of Nidrā found in the Harivaṃśa is eulogistic in tone, although articulated as a prophecy by Viṣṇu, and it did, as we have seen, percolate into later hymns circulated within the body of the epics. The role of recitation grew paramount in the worship of the goddess during the autumnal traditions of her festival, when her myth, the Devīmāhātmya, is recited as the liturgical text accompanying practice. Within every hymn the goddess’s names play an important role. These litanies in particular create a powerful incantatory effect, summoning up the entirety of the goddess’s power before her worshipper. We find these lists of names appearing not just in the Harivaṃśa but also in the old (p.68) Skandapurāṇa (60.38–42) and in practically all later examples of mythological literature concerning the goddess. One might argue, in the voice of the social anthropologist, that such names denote separate deities, and the litany itself is an instrument of fusion. However, these names do not play only an instrumentalist role in the history of the goddess, serving to bring together different traditions into one (though in later cases, as we shall see, they can). Rather they should be understood as essential aspects of the hymn as liturgy, which is to say something that is to be orally performed and which is intimately connected with establishing the nature of the deity. The role of names is to expand on the latter: by magnifying the nature of the deity, we are presented with her all-encompassing form. The two principal characteristics of the goddess around which worship is choreographed and centred are her paradoxical nature and her connection to danger. These emanate from within the earliest Vaiṣṇava mythologies, and mean that her rituals of adoration must be placatory in nature. Each element of the ritual, from flower offerings to hymn to the offering of blood whether animal or human, is a gift to calm and win over the passionate nature of the deity. In this sense, the relationship between warrior and goddess becomes like that of wooer and the wooed, and a hero must cajole and give himself to the desired in order to coax her to be with him, though in this case the act of intimacy is not sexual but is replaced and perhaps even substituted by the goddess’s possession of the hero and her granting material benefits other than her body. The ritual becomes the elaborately dramatized performance of the mortal hero’s courtship of his divine and sexually unattainable lover, and his winning heroic power, which comes to him at the end of the ritual, conceals and becomes a metaphor for a winning of sexual virility. The idea of worship as something that wins over a powerful but essentially hostile being has an old source of origin in India. Appeasing the deity in order to control an uncontrollable external situation is a feature of very old Indian religious cults, going back to the Ṛgveda, which were enactments of a truce between man and powers that were thought to control volatile nature.49 Such a truce could only be achieved when something that they craved was offered to those powers. Nidrā had control over crises. When appeased by animal sacrifice and alcohol, the gifts offered to her by men, she could ameliorate critical situations—and indeed these wishes are articulated by men in hymns to her, and later when her ritual acquired a uniform shape, in the statement of intentions, what is known as the saṃkalpa, initiating any offering made during her Page 18 of 24 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) worship. In this respect she resembles the deity of another ancient propitiatory cult, the early Skanda of medical literature, worshipped (p.69) from the Kuṣāṇa to the Gupta period, as someone who controlled disease and the health of children. The worship of Skanda was believed to safeguard children. The cult of Kṛṣṇa in the period of the Harivaṃśa tapped into popular propitiatory cults of its time by providing a transactional form of worship through the wild goddess called Kṛṣṇa’s sister whose nature was grounded in ambiguity and danger. However, the danger she represents and which lies at the heart of the violence required of a good warrior is associated with the power of nature. In the Harivaṃśa two images of terror are pitted against each other. While Kaṃsa is the self-driven, merciless child-killer and in this respect represents unlawful or undharmic danger, which is inimical and ominous, the goddess’s terror is associated with the elements, namely the star-spangled night sky, lightning and rainclouds, which are essentially part of universal order and recurring cycles. Like nature in the majestic and powerful form of the monsoon thundershower, during the presence of which she is to be worshipped, the goddess is thought to be beautiful in appearance, altruistic in nature and therefore salvific in purpose. Her power is thereby cast as ethical and luminously cleansing (for it emanates light), whereas Kaṃsa’s is not. The central trope exploited by the myth of Kaṃsa is the unabated death of newborn children, and there cannot be a more horrific focus of this trope than the image of Kaṃsa lifting the infant Nidrā to be dashed upon the rock, recounted time and again by poets: next to this the goddess’s exuberant though frightening vision of her wild dance in the sky is a welcome antithesis, whereby that great fear within the myth is therapeutically brought to an end and the life of Viṣṇu’s descendants, of other children and of the universe is shown to continue. The idea of welcome terror and ethical, even life-affirming, violence—for Kālarātri destroys in order for something new to be born—would remain a stable part of her conception throughout the development of her cult, for it lies at the very heart of what it meant to be an ideal king. Notes: (1) CII 3.25.15b; 3.29.19a; 3.31.20. (2) Little, though, can be inferred as to whether the goddess’s cult was a heroic one, that is to say, was linked to the power of a warrior, particularly a king, and of a community (as the cults of the Mātṛs and Mahiṣāsuramardinī certainly were). The argument of certain scholars (Fleet, and Willis largely following him) would suggest that it was—the deity was a Vaiṣṇava goddess, a regional form of the imperial devī of the Andhra town of Piṣṭapura (modern Pīṭhapuram), mentioned in the Allahabad inscription of Samudragupta as one of the Gupta cities in the Deccan (CII 3, p. 113 n. 2; Willis 2009: 89). If she was indeed established as the protectress of Mānapura as she might have been of Piṣṭapura, then the deity was clearly one with a strong Tyche/ nagaradevatā-aspect that would have been viewed as protective of the community, and her cult would have attracted warriors. (3) CII 3.48–50. (4) CII 3.50. See also Yokochi (2004: 142) and Falk (2006: 257). The inscription recording the donation is in the doorway of the Gopikā cave in the Nāgārjunī Hills. According to N. G. Majumdar (Indian Antiquary, 56: 127) the script used in these inscriptions is older than that used in Iśānavarman’s Harahā inscription of 554. Anantavarman also established an image of Devi (Pārvatī) with Śiva in another cave in the Nāgārjunī Hills (CII 3.49).

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) (5) I put sister in quotation marks because she is also, in southern versions of Kṛṣṇa’s legend going back to the 5th century, Kṛṣṇa’s wife (Couture & Schmid 2001: 184). (6) The older forms in the Harivaṃśa and the old Skandapurāṇa of the more ubiquitous Śumbha and Niśumbha use the dental s rather than the palatal ś, which is a later development. (7) macchavīsadṛśī kṛṣṇa saṃkarṣaṇasamānanā | bibhratī vipulān bāhūn mama bāhūpamān bhuvi || triśikhaṃ śūlam udyamya khaḍgaṃ ca kanakatsarum | pātrīṃ ca pūrṇāṃ madhunaḥ paṅkajaṃ. ca sunirmalam || vasānā mecakaṃ kṣaumaṃ pītenottaravāsasā | śaśiraśmiprakāśena hāreṇorasi rājitā || divyakuṇḍalapūrṇābhyāṃ śravaṇābhyāṃ vibhūṣitā | candrasāpatnyabhūtena tvaṃ mukhena virājitā || mukuṭena tricakreṇa keśavabandhena śobhitā | bhujagābhoga†nirghoṣair† bāhubhiḥ parighopamaiḥ || dhvajena mayūrāṇām ucchṛtena samīpataḥ | aṇgajena mayūrāṇām aṅgadena ca bhāsvatā || kīrṇā bhūtagaṇair ghorair mannideśānuvartinī | kaumāraṃ vratam āsthāya tridivam. tvam. gamiṣyasi || tatra tvaṃ śatadṛk śakro matpradiṣṭena karmaṇā | abhiṣekeṇa divyena daivataiḥ saha yokṣyate | tatraiva tvaṃ bhaginyarthaṃ grahiṣyati sa vāsavaḥ || kuśikasya tu gotreṇa kauśikī tvaṃ bhaviṣyasi | sa te vindhye nagaśreṣṭhe sthānaṃ dāsyati śāsvatam || tataḥ sumbhanisumbhau ca dānavau nagacāriṇau | tau ca kṛtvā manasi māṃ ṣānugau nāśayiṣyasi || trailokyacāriṇī sā tvam. bhuvi satyopayācitā | bhaviṣyasi mahābhāge varadā kāmarupiṇī || kṛtānuyātrā bhūtais tvam. nityaṃ māṃsabalipriyā | tithau navamyāṃ pūjāṃ ca prāpsyase sapaśukriyām || ye ca tvam. matprabhāvajñaḥ praṇamiṣyanti mānavaḥ | na teṣāṃ durlabhaṃ kiṃcit putrato dhanato ’pi vā || kāntāreṣv avasannānāṃ magnānāṃ ca mahārṇave | dasyubhir vā niruddhānāṃ tvam. gatiḥ m. paramā nṛṇām || tvam. siddhiḥ śrīr dhṛtiḥ kīrtir hrīr vidyā saṃnatir matiḥ | saṃdhyā rātriḥ prabhā m. nidrā kālarātris tathaiva ca || nṛṇāṃ bandhaṃ vadhaṃ ghoraṃ putranāśaṃ dhanakṣayam | vyādhimṛtyubhayaṃ caiva pūjitā śamayiṣyasi || mohayitvā ca tam. kaṃsam ekā tvaṃ bhokṣyase jagat | svavṛddhyartham ahaṃ caiva kariṣye kaṃsaghātanam || Harivaṃśa, 47.39–56 (rājitā] conj. Sanderson (also supported by three MSS recorded in the apparatus to the critical edition), virājatā edn). (8) ṣāvadhūtā śilāpṛsthe’niṣpiṣṭā divam utpatat || hitvā garbhatanuṃ cāpi sahasā muktamūrdhajā | jagāmākāśam āviśya divyasraganulepanā | kanyaiva cābhavan nityaṃ divyā devair abhiṣṭutā || nīlapītāmbaradharā gajakumbhopamastanī | rathavistīrṇajaghānā candravaktrā caturbhujā || vidyudvispaṣṭavarṇābhā bālārkasadṛśekṣaṇā | payodharasvanavatī saṃdhyeva sapayodharā || ṣā vai niśi tamograste babhau bhūtagaṇākule | nṛtyatī hasatī caiva viparītena bhāsvatī || vihāyagatā raudrā papau pānam anuttamam | jahāsa ca mahāhāsaṃ kaṃsaṃ ca ruṣitābravīt || kaṃsa kaṃsa vināśāya yad aham. ghātitā m. tvayā | sahasā ca samutkṣipya śilāyāṃ vinipātitā || tasmāt tavāntakāle’haṃ kṛṣyamāṇasya śatruṇā | pāṭayitvā karair deham uṣṇaṃ pāsyāmi śoṇitam || evam uktvā vacaṃ ghoraṃ sā yatheṣṭena vartmanā | khaṃ ṣā devālayaṃ devī sagaṇā vicacāra ha || Harivaṃśa, 48.28ef–36. (9) Couture & Schmid (2001: 181 ff.). (10) Buddhacarita, 13.49, Part 1, p. 153; Part 2 (translation), p. 197. (11) Gray (1913: p. 153, l. 168; p. 168, l. 159). (12) yā hy eṣā gahvari māyā nidreti jagati sthitā | akasmād dveṣiṇī ghorā kālarātrir mahīkṣitām || asyās tanus tamodvārā niśā divasanāśinī | jīvitārdhaharī ghorā sarvaprāṇabhṛtāṃ bhuvi || naitayā kaścid āviṣṭo jṛmbhamāṇo muhur muhuḥ | śaktaḥ prasahituṃ vegaṃ mañjann iva mahārṇave || annajā bhuvi martyānāṃ śramajā vā kathaṃcana | naiśā bhavati lokasya nidrā sarvasya laukikī || Page 20 of 24 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) svapnānte kṣīyate hy eṣā prāyaśo bhuvi dehinām | mṛtyukāle ca bhūtānāṃ prāṇān nāśayate bhṛśam || deveṣv api dadhāraināṃ nānyo nārāyaṇād ṛte | sakhī sarvaharasyaiṣā māyā viṣṇuśarīrajā || saiṣā nārāyaṇamukhe dṛṣṭā kamalalocanā | lokān alpena kālena bhajate bhūtamohinī || evam eṣā hitārthāya lokānāṃ kṛṣṇavartmanā | dhriyate sevanīyena patineva pativratā || sa tayā nidrayā channas tasmin nārāyaṇāśrame | śete sma hi tadā viṣṇur mohayañ jagad avyayaḥ || Harivaṃśa, 40.26–34 (niśā divasanāśinī] corr. Acharya, niśādivasanāśinī edn). (13) It is possible that the episodes with Durgā belong to the 4th century onwards, with the one discussed just below going back to the early part of that period. The conjecture was made by John Brockington (pers. comm., 2 March 2017). (14) Citing from one of the versions, the Vulgate called ‘D’ by the editors. For more on the manuscripts see pp. 188–90. (15) Mbh 6 App. I, 1, ll. 7–21. (16) bhāsi siṃhaṃ samārūḍhā calatpiṅgalakesaram | dīptā prabheva sāvitrī merumūrdhānam āsthitā || jighāṃsatī raṇe daityān śaraughair bhāsy ajihmagaiḥ | raver mūrtis tamāṃsīva vikirantī gabhastibhiḥ || paraśuṃ śitam udgṛhya devadānavasaṃyuge | bhrājase devi saṃkruddhā pāṭayantīva rodasī || atha sā śaiśavaṃ hitvā m. tanum anyāṃ samādade | ekīkṛtām ivākāśe saṃhatiṃ sarvatejasām | dīptām api sukhālokāṃ śāntām api savibhramām | bālām api jagaddhātrīṃ tanvīm api susaṃhatām || old Skandapurāṃā, 60.49–53 (p. 347 of Bhattarai’s edition). (17) The Durgāpūjāviveka of Jīmūtavāhana cites the following passage from a Bhagavatīpurāṇa (attributed to the Liṅgapurāṇa in Durgāpūjātattva) (Durgāpūjāviveka, p. 30): kanyāyāṃ kṛṣṇapakṣe tu pūjayitvārdrabhe divā | navamyāṃ bodhayed devīṃ gītavāditraniḥsvanaiḥ || śuklapakṣe caturthyāṃ tu devīkeśavimocanam | prātar eva tu pañcamyāṃ snāpayet suśubhair jalaiḥ || He then explains this verse as follows: kanyāyāṃ cāndrabhādrīyakanyāsambandhikṛṣṇapakṣe ity arthaḥ | amalimlucabhādrapadakṛṣṇapakṣasya kanyāsaṃbandhāv abhicārāt | na tu kanyākṣaṇa eva devīprabodhaniyamaḥ | kṛṣṇapakṣīyadaśamyādiṣu kanyāsaṃkrāntau tatpūrvabhūtāyām eva navamyāṃ devīprabodhasya niyatatvāt m. | na ca kanyāśeṣapakṣanavamyām eva kasmān na tat kriyate | iti vācyam | This is accepted even in modern times as evidenced in the Bengali introduction to Durgāpūjātattva, p. 38.—On enumerating the seven kalpas of the Durgāpūjā, the editor Satīś Candra Siddhāntabhūṣaṇ describes the kalpa beginning on a Navamī as follows: bhādramāser kṛṣṇapakṣīya navamīr nām bodhanavamī vā bodhananavamī | ei dine devīr bodhan karite hay baliyā ihār nām bodhanavamī | navamyādi kalpe navamīte pūrvvāhne bodhan kariyā mahānavamī paryanta pūjā karite hay | bodhaner pūrvve kalpārambher saṃkalpa karite hay | ihāte kṛṣṇādicāndramās vivecanā karite hay baliyā saṃkalpe āśvīnmās ullekh karite hay | ‘The name of the Ninth lunar day of the dark quarter of the month of Bhādra is Bodhanavamī or Bodhananavamī, the Navamī of the goddess’s Awakening. On this day, because one has to perform the awakening of the goddess, it is called Bodhananavamī. During a ritual sequence beginning with Navamī, having performed the Awakening at dawn on Navamī, one has to worship till Mahānavamī [the Navamī in the bright quarter of Āśvina]. Before the awakening, one has to take the formal oath to begin the ritual sequence. Here in order to take into account a lunar month beginning with a dark phase, one has to mention [instead of Bhādra] the month of Āśvina in the Oath.’—True enough, Raghunandana Bhaṭṭācārya, in describing in his manual the Durgāpūjātattva from the 15th century, the words of the oath for worship beginning on the dark Ninth, mentions Āśvina, not Bhādra, as follows: atha navamy ādi kalpaḥ | paurṇamāsy Page 21 of 24 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) antāśvinakṛṣṇapakṣe ārdrānakṣatrayuktanavamyān tithau kevalāyāṃ vā pūrvvāhne divārdrabhe vā, ubhayadine yugmādareṇa kṛtyam | tatra ca pūrvvadine kṛtaniyamaḥ paradine kṛtasnānādiḥ gomayopaliptadeśe darbhapāṇir ācānta udaṅmukha upaviṣṭāḥ ‘oṃ svasti na’ ity ādinā brāhmaṇān svasti vācayitvā ‘oṃ sūryaḥ somaḥ’ iti paṭhitvā ‘oṃ tad viṣṇoḥ’ ityādinā viṣṇuṃ smṛtvā ‘oṃ tat sat’ ity uccārya tāmrapātraṃ śuktiśaṣkhapāṣāṇakevalahastakāṃsyaṃ rūpyasīsakalauhamṛnmayetarapātraṃ vā darbhatrayapuṣpaphalatilajalapūrṇaṃ yathopapannaṃ vā ādāya ‘oṃ adyāśvine māsi kṛṣne pakṣe navamyān tithāv ārabhya śukladaśamīṃ yāvat pratyahaṃ amukagotraḥ śrīamukadevaśarmmāatulavibhūtikāmaḥ saṃvatsarasukhaprāptikāmo śrīdurgāprāptikāmo vā vārṣikaśaratkālīnadurgāmahāpūjām ahaṃ kariṣye’ iti saṃkalpya taj jalam aiśānyāṃ kṣipet | Durgāpūjātattva, p. 4. (18) Ghosha (1871: 1), reference kindly supplied by Ralph Nicholas. (19) Harivaṃśa, 65.51 and the later Skandapurāṇa, Adhyāya 34.1–61, Adhyāyas 53–69 (see Skandapurāṇā, vol. III in the Bibliography), narrate Vindhyavāsinī’s tale. (20) 47.11, 47.43, Rājataraṅgiṇī, III.386–431; Stein (1979: vol. 1, 107–10). The relevance Haravijaya, of the Rājataraṅgiṇī legend was first indicated to me by Alexis Sanderson. (21) He apparently sang her a laudatory hymn for victory in his forthcoming battle (Gaüḍavaho, 285–338). The episode occurs in the middle of the king’s yātrā, which he had commenced in a south-easterly direction from Kanyakubja. It remains a matter of speculation whether Yaśovarman had indeed halted at the shrine for prayers, but it is likely that he would have done so, given its convenient position on the route, and its popularity as a sacred place. Given Kauśikī’s reputation as an indomitable warrior, her blessings would have been important to Yaśovarman for military power and fortune in his endeavour. For a reconstruction of the route Yaśovarman had taken during this expedition, see Tripathi (1989: 197–9). (22) visasijjantamahāpasudaṃsanasaṃbhamaparopparārūḍhā | gayaṇe cciya gandhaüḍiṃ kuṇanti tuha kaülaṇārīo || Gaüḍavaho, 319. The use of mahā-in mahāpaśu conveys that the sacrificial victim was human. For a translation see Sanderson (2001: 11 n. 9). There is also mention of offerings of human heads in the previous verse: ambhāragabbhamandappahāo tuha devi dīvamālāo | uvahāramuṇ ḍakesandhayāramūḍhāo va khalanti || Gaüḍavaho, 318. (23) Ibid., 287. (24) Ibid., 286, 305–6, 316, 324. (25) Ibid., 285–338. For the skull see v. 302. (26) sohasi nārāyaṇi raṇiraṇeürārāvamiliahaṃsaüle | bhavaṇammi kavālāvilamasāṇarāeṇa va bhamantī || Gaüḍavaho, 291. (27) Gaüḍavaho, 306; Haravijaya, 47.40 and 41; Kathāsaritsāgara, 7.8.53–225. For a discussion of several other legends in the Kathāsaritsāgara dealing with swords, the esoteric relevance of one of the tales and the association of the Tantric Kālasaṃkarṣaṇī with swords see Sanderson (2007: 290–5). (28) Several verses of the Haravijaya describing the Vindhyan goddess were taken over from the Gaüḍavaho; this borrowing was first noticed by Alexis Sanderson, who pointed out the parallel

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) verses in a personal communication in 2010. For the verse on Śabara worshippers deriving from the Gaüḍavaho, see verse 306. (29) I am grateful to Dominic Goodall, who first told me about the Viṣṇu-Durgā form in south India. He generously shared numerous pictures that he had personally taken, and pointed out the Cambodian inscription mentioned below. (30) For images and analysis see Schmid (2005: 461 ff.). (31) For images see ibid., pp. 524, 526, figs 8 and 11. (32) For an example see ibid., p. 525, fig. 10. (33) For an image see ibid., p. 523, fig. 6. (34) Dalsheimer (2001: 80–1, no. 24). For images of further examples, see Dalsheimer (2001: 60, no. 12; 85, no. 26). (35) Coedès (1964: 9, vv. 17–18, inscr. K.56). The inscription was first drawn to my attention by Dominic Goodall, who kindly shared scans with me and pointed out the specific parts I should be looking at. I am very grateful to him. (36) Santiko (1997: 210–11). (37) Srinivasan (1997: 282–305); Schmid (2002); Yokochi (2004: 133–51); Härtel (2007). (38) Schmid (2002: 150–3). (39) Ibid., p. 153. (40) Ibid., p. 148. (41) Srinivasan (1997: pls 16.6 and 16.7); Samad (2011: 72). (42) Samad (2011: 74). (43) Srinivasan (1997: pl. 16.5); Couture & Schmid (2001: 181). (44) caṇḍikārudhirabalipradānārtham asakṛnniśitaśastrollekhaviṣamitaśikhareṇa […] bhujayugalenopaśobhitam […] | Kādambarī, pp. 30–1. (45) For kings worshipping the goddess by mutilating themselves see Devīmāhātmya, 13.9; Kathāsaritsāgara, 15.1.103; Tilakamañjarī (Dezső 2012); Rāmāyaṇā of Kṛttivāsī, ‘Laṅkākāṇḍa’, pp. 382–9. (46) It is attested in the southern iconography of the warrior-goddess, by images in Mahābalipuram, sculpture from the Coḷa domains and a relief in the Virupūkṣa temple in Paṭṭadakal showing devotees worshipping her in this manner (Dezső 2012). (47) sūenti vīravikkayavikkamam iha jāmiṇīmasāṇesu | avalambiyakuṇavaccheyapāḍalā sāhisāhāo || Gaüḍavaho, 327. The commentator Haripāla adds after his chāyā to the verse: ‘It is

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The Cult of Nidrā-Kālarātri, Goddess of Sleep, Swoon, Death and the Night (c. 3rd to 5th Century) well known in the tradition of the Kaulas that warriors sell human flesh for powers in the cemetery of the goddess’ (ibid.). (48) This manuscript, A 167/15, 21r6–21v4 and A 167/20, fol. 24r5–9, is the discovery of Diwakar Acharya, who is currently editing the work. He generously shared with me the mohana spell to Nidrā, and the colophon, and permitted me to cite his draft edition of that part as follows: kṛṣṇe pretatithau dharātmajadine ya yoginī pañcatāṃ prāptā tadbhavabhūtir asthisahitā cārkāsthicūrṇānvita | kuṣmāṇḍasya rajonvitātha sutarāṃ sadbhūtale mantritā kīrṇā dvāri ripoḥ karoti mahatīṃ nidrāṃ manohāriṇīṃ || 4 m. etena mantreṇa vimohanīyā yogāstrayogair abhimantraṇīyāḥ | pratyekaśāḥ saptakasaptavārān prāpsyanti śaktiṃ paramohanīṃ te | oṃ namo rudrāya namaś caṇḍakātyāyani durgādevi durgastriye nidre 2 nidrāpaya 2 kuru/turu 2 rudra ājñāpayati svāhā || The recipe also requires the powder of the ‘bones of Arka’, which was unclear to Professor Acharya. I am grateful to him for allowing use of this important work prior to his publication of it. (49) Jamison & Brereton (2014: vol. 1, 7–9).

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Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century)

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) Bihani Sarkar

DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.003.0003

Abstract and Keywords By assessing early Śaiva and literary sources, this chapter demonstrates how Kālarātri-NidrāKālī, Durgā's early form, was assimilated and transformed by Śaivism from the 5th century onwards, in which Durgā eventually acquired co-identity with Pārvatī, the consort and inalienable other half of the great god Śiva. Her dark complexion, a genetic feature of the Vaiṣṇava Nidrā, the sister of dark-hued Kṛṣṇa, is explained within this tradition as Pārvatī's rejected black skin, a symbol of mystery and danger, that she removes from her body to acquire a fairer complexion. The emergent goddess is the antonym of Pārvatī, a warrior virgin who, though a protector of Dharma, nevertheless remains potentially dangerous, as her earliest form Nidrā-Kālī. In this way, the Śaiva tradition views attributes of antinomianism, potentially within Pārvatī, to be transferred to Durgā, now known as Caṇḍikā, the Fiery Lady, Pārvatī's unwanted self, thereby enlarging the conception of the latter to a binary deity, who like Śiva, incorporates a gentle as well as a fierce or bhairava aspect. The chapter also argues that the goddess's capital-creating aspect was heightened in Śaivism. Navamī, initially a day when the goddess was said to be born, became crucial as one of the occasions when capital could be most profitably accessed from the goddess. What we find being developed from the earlier conception of the Vaiṣṇava Durgā and acquiring greater sophistication within Śaiva mythological and ritual domains is the ability of her spiritual repertoire to function as a religion for managing times of state crises and for granting largesse and power. Keywords:   Caṇḍikā, old Skandapurāṇa, Pārvatī, Sacute;aivism, Gaurī, Kālī

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Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) vakṣo vyājaiṇarājaḥ sa daśabhir abhinat pāṇijaiḥ prāk surāreḥ pañcaivāstaṃ nayāmo yuvaticaraṇajāḥ śatrum ete vayaṃ tu | ity utpannābhimānair nakhaśaśimaṇibhir jyotsnayā svāṃśumayyā yasyāḥ pāde hatārau hasita iva hariḥ sāstu kālī śriye vaḥ || Caṇḍīśataka, verse 11 Prosperity may Kālī grant to you! At her foot by which the foe was slain Viṣṇu had ridicule poured upon him1 By the moonstones of her nails with moonlight Consisting of those nails’ innate lustre. Pride it seemed grew in them with the thought that ‘He disguised as King of Antelopes2 Long ago had split the enemy’s3 chest With ten claws on his hand. But here we are, just five alone upon a maiden’s foot, [And] we have led the enemy to his end!’ Under the Guptas, Durgā was a deity of the elements and of sleep, a minor goddess, cautiously mentioned in the Harivaṃśa. In a broader sense, this attitude paralleled the Guptas’ perception of the āṭavika kings, peripheral if powerful figures. If Durgā was first granted a place within classical Vaiṣṇavism in the Gupta period, and even in the Kuṣāṇa period as sculpture would suggest, it was not long before she was assimilated by its competing tradition, (p.71) Śaivism. Here she would acquire a more integral identity as Śiva’s consort. Here too she would gain a firm place within the classical ‘centre’, imagined as the very archetype of civilization. The decline of imperial Vaiṣṇavism with the disintegration of the Gupta empire allowed the prominence of other religious traditions, particularly that of the goddess. The great classical tradition in which the civilizational move from empire into heterodox polities, the centralization in other words of marginal actors and their cults, came to be implicitly reflected was Śaivism. Integrated into a tradition in which ideas of liminality played a critical theological role, the goddess, like the newly triumphant entrepreneurial lineage and the emergent ‘outside’, could become a key figure in transregional kingship. Śaiva mythology viewed her as the Other—an undesirable, threatening Pārvatī, whom Śiva’s wife had cast aside in the form of rejected skin and thereby had separated her from her being. Despite initial religious strategies by Śaiva composers to tone down Durgā’s dangerous aspect, this side, thought to control death and thereby to preside over war, prevailed as the defining feature of her personality. This resulted in an interesting historical process that I will discuss below, whereby Pārvatī’s character bifurcated and in the form of Durgā—the Unwanted Self— acquired autonomy from Śiva. The reason I call this process interesting is that the road whereby Durgā finally became Pārvatī was somewhat circuitous: there was an initial confusion about the warrior-goddess’s role while her exact position within the Śaiva hierarchy was being worked out. Sometimes she was considered a gaṇa, sometimes a daughter, sometimes a noble ruler and only sometimes Pārvatī, but by the 7th century the dominant role that would eventually emerge between these three would be the latter, or more precisely an alternative to the latter.

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Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) That such an integration with Pārvatī had become established by the 7th century can be known because it is recorded in an inscription dated 625 from Vasantgadh in Rajasthan (Epigraphia Indica, vol. 9, no. 25). In the benediction to this inscription we can discern that though she is being identified as aspects of Viṣṇu—Yoganidra and Rātri, Vaiṣṇava forms of Durgā more wellknown in the early period—she is simultaneously being identified with Pārvatī attached to Śiva’s body in his aspect as Ardhanārīśvara (the god who is half woman):

(p.72) dhātur yā yoganidrā jalanidhiśayanasyākṛtir viśvayoneḥ kailāsoccāṅgaśṛngaṃ pratiniyatam udāvāsino ’rdhāṅkasaktā |4 yā rātriḥ sarvaloke smṛtir api ca satāṃ yā śrutir brahmagītā sā devī durgameṣu pratidiśatu jagate maṅgalānīha durgā || 1 niyatam atipraṇatiparasyājau yāge kriyāphaleṣv asakṛt | kṣemāryā kṣemakarī vidadhātu śivāni nas satataṃ || 2 She, who is Yoganidrā, the form of the Creator (dhātur) that is the source of the Universe asleep on the [primordial] ocean [Viṣṇu], who adheres [too] to the half-body of the Creator (dhātur) that dwells for good on the highest peak of Mount Kailāsa [Śiva], may that goddess Durgā who is Rātri in all the worlds, and Smṛti among the wise, who is Śruti, the song of Brahmā, bestow felicities to all beings in times of difficulty in this world. In the battlefield, in the sacrifice and most assuredly at all times in the results of the rituals of one wholeheartedly intent on devotion, may Kṣemāryā, the Cause of Wealth, grant us constant blessings. Both sects, in other words, were laying equal claim to her. A further change at this stage of Durgā’s history as revealed in the inscription, through the name of a local embodiment, Kṣemāryā, is an emphasis on her wealth-generating property, a development intimately connected with her becoming Pārvatī, because it was regarded as a manifestation of her aspect as the giving mother. Parallel to her conception as a terrible deity who removes, this contradictory magnanimous quality was enhanced within Śaivism, a quality that, it is natural to suppose, was particularly attractive for rulers and the ambitious because it came into play in rituals generating sources of power such as land and heirs. There was a political effect to this enhancement. The royal (p.73) chaplain, who particularly within Śaivism attained prominence in court in the early medieval period by offering the ruler a range of specialized Śaiva rituals enhancing his royal lustre,5 would offer his monarch rites of worshipping the goddess that would secure assets and gain victory in war, that is to say they would create the sources of power most coveted by monarchs. By amplifying the boon-bestowing character of Durgā, and by claiming that the Śaiva chaplain was the most effective conduit whereby these extraordinary boons could Page 3 of 22 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) flow into the king and thence into the kingdom, Śaivism could increase its dominance within the political sphere, which in fact it did.6

Śiva’s gaṇa Durgā’s elevation from a subordinate into an equal and autonomous counterpart of a major god in the Indian tradition came gradually, as it competed with other conceptions of her role. Prior to attaining equality with Pārvatī, she was incorporated by a group of lesser deities attending Śiva, called his gaṇas. She appears as one of these attendant gaṇas in two sources,..one of which was an early Śaiva source intended for use in Śaiva temples for the benefit of lay devotees, called the Śivadharma.7 She is described in its ‘Chapter on Pacification’ (Śāntyadhyāya), teaching propitiatory invocations to a long list of various members of Śiva’s entourage for counteracting what I would call communal crises, such as untimely deaths, diseases, hostile armies, which affect whole communities and townships. She is also exhorted to cause success in all endeavours. Durgā, referred to by her epithet Mahiṣāsuramardinī, is described as the bestower of magical attainments (sarvasiddhikarī), having a glossy dark colouring (snigdhaśyāmena varṇena), while she slays a huge buffalo (mahāmahiṣamardaṇi). She is said to hold a bow, a discus, a sword and a trident. She is also described as raising her hand in a threatening manner (ātarjanodyatakarā), as destroying all calamities (sarvopadravanāśinī), and as the mother of all auspiciousness (sarvamaṅgalamātā).8 Three elements from her earlier Vaiṣṇava conception had been carried forward within this conception as Śiva and Pārvatī’s attendant: her dark colouring, though deprived of (p.74) its association with the monsoon, her implements, all of which appear in Vaiṣṇava icons of Durgā, as Nidrā-Kālarātri examined previously, and her connection with purifying crises in public collective settings. The second source describing Durgā as a gaṇa—albeit inter alia—is the earliest surviving Śaiva scripture,9 the Niśvāsamukhatattvasaṃhitā, dating to approximately between 450 and 550, and referred to even in 10th-century Cambodian inscriptions. The context for her description is a section on observances to be performed by uninitiated householder devotees of Śiva, without undergoing specialist practices entailed by initiation (Niśvāsamukhatattvasaṃhitā, 3.106cd– 116ab)—also the context in the Śivadharma. The observance for which the goddess is singled out is fasting, a practice that would remain firmly entrenched within the repertoire of worship performed for her in autumn in later tradition, particularly on Mahānavamī. Here then is the earliest reference to fasting on Navamī, which grew important in later times for her autumnal festival. Fasting, the text says, is meant to be performed by those who though uninitiated are intensely devout, and the force of their devotion would be sufficient to bring about certain rewards, though liberation, to be achieved by difficult practice accessed by initiation, is not counted among them. The list of deities for whom fasting has to be performed consecutively from the First to the Tenth lunar days of every lunar month includes: (i) Brahmā, (ii) Agni, (iii) a yakṣa, (iv) Gaṇeśa, (v) the Nāgas, (vi) Skanda, (vii) Āditya/the Sun, (viii) Śaṅkara, (ix) Mahādevī (3.106 cd—116ab), (x) Yama. This ‘Mahādevī’, or the Great Goddess, to be worshipped on Navamī, a day with special significance for Durgā since Vaiṣṇava times, is specified through twelve names: Umā, Kātyāyinī,10 Durgā, Rudrā, Subhadrikā, Kālarātri, Mahāgaurī, Revatī, Bhūtanāyikā, Āryā, Prakṛtirūpā, and the ‘leader of gaṇas’ (gaṇānāñ caiva nāyikā). It..is evident that a large part of this deity’s conception is based on Durgā, since apart from Durgā, three names, Kātyāyanī, Kālarātri and Āryā, are exclusively applied to her in religious literature. She is to be worshipped with perfumes, flowers, various incense, clothes, and ornaments, naivedyas, gifts of bulbs, roots and fruits (kandamūlaphala) and various things to eat. She will then, it is said, grant boons. The

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Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) (p.75) worshipper, after drinking water and eating flowers, must eat saktu (meal), parched grain with wheat, kṛsara, milk, roots, fruits, leaves, vegetables, sesame, sesame oil cakes (tilānāṃ khali) and mung dal, among other foods at other parts of the day. He must fast and worship on Navamī nine successive times. If he worships her for nine Navamīs eating only pepper, if he sleeps on a bed of kuśa grass having eaten the five products of a cow, he will get all he desires. We find reflected in this list of names and prescribed worship an important historical process of reformulation and flux: Śaiva composers have created a different goddess while reconceiving her religious practice to enable the Śaiva officiant to widen the range of empowering rituals on offer for uninitiated Śaivas, particularly rulers. Why rulers? Because the same passage describing the worship of this kaleidoscopic Mahādevī with fasting appears in fact in the Śivadharma previously discussed, a work intended for, among other worshippers, uninitiated monarchs. The identity of the goddess linked to the sacred day of Navamī in earlier Vaiṣṇava literature, whom we had formerly known as Nidrā, is gradually expanding. The ascription of other identities through different names effaces her older identity and creates a new personality. This deity, now an expansive Mahādevī rather than a narrow Rātri or Maya, primarily because she incorporates the highest goddess Pārvatī, referred to as Umā in the text above, is to be worshipped by each of these twelve names for the entire year, during both dark and light phases of the month. We shall turn to the emergent identification with Pārvatī subsequently, because this marks the apex of Durgā’s entrance into the Śaiva world. The last description—‘leader of the gaṇas’—refers to Mahiṣāsuramardinī’s role as an attendant.that we had found in the Śivadharma, and confirms that, though subsumed within parallel conceptions, this was her primary role within early Śaivism. This is despite the fact that her unity with Śiva’s consort was clearly becoming part of popular understanding, because this unity was not held by some important writers from the early period, as we shall see. What is interesting about this slight reference in the Niśvāsamukha is that in it she is called the chief, rather than a minor, gaṇa. Here then is an important.position in the Śaiva hierarchy of gods, a significance that would only subsequently increase in Śaiva belief systems. Given that fasting for Durgā appears both in the Śivadharma, a work meant for popular worship, and also in the Niśvāsamukha within the same context of popular practice based on ardent faith, it is evident that the goddess’s role in the Śaiva sphere, in the period before her unity with Pārvatī had ossified, was prevalent in the area of public Śaiva religious practices meant for everyone. Interestingly, we find that practices involving blood or any form of heroic self-sacrifice, depicted in earlier Vaiṣṇava mythology and iconography, are not described here at all. This means that the worship of the goddess had (p.76) developed since its earliest formulations in Vaiṣṇava literature, in which she remains largely an ominous figure whom the worshipper must appease rather than approach without hesitation. By the time of Śaiva appropriation, the deity had begun to shift from the periphery to the centre, as extreme forms of worship were now being enlarged in scope to include other forms, such as fasting, easier for more people to perform. The emphasis in this early Śaiva literature is on the boon-bestowing, that is to say the capitalcreating, rather than the frightening aspect of the deity that must be warded away through placation. Despite the stark contrast with the Vaiṣṇava form, we find that the importance of Navamī has endured in Śaivism, though now it is extrapolated to all the months from its initial

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Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) religious relevance in the month of Śrāvaṇa, the time of Kṛṣṇa’s birth. In this way the festival was gradually divested of its initial Bhāgavata association by being co-opted by the Śaivas.

Devadevasutā: Śiva’s Dutiful Daughter The uncertain cohesion between Pārvatī and Durgā in prescriptive texts such as the Niśvāsamukhatattva and the Śivadharma was also being worked out in early Śaiva mythology. If Śaiva religious practices for purifying a civic community by warding away inauspicious events along with those practices intended for a considerable class of uninitiated members bent on demonstrating bhakti to Śiva treated Durgā as a gaṇa, then the earliest myth.of the goddess attested in the Śaiva-centric Purāṇic work, the early Skandapurāṇa, viewed her as the child of Śiva and Pārvatī. The content of the old Skandapurāṇa, as reflected in three ancient Nepalese palm-leaf manuscripts forming the earliest historical layer of this voluminous work, dates to around the 6th century. In its legend of her origin, she is said to have arisen magically through Pārvatī’s residual dark skin, which the latter goddess had shed after much penance in a lake in order to acquire a fair complexion (thereby earning the epithet Gaurī, ‘The Fair One’).11 The cause of Pārvatī’s exertions is Śiva’s mockery of her dark complexion. In order to become fair, Pārvatī performs ascetic rigours to propitiate Brahmā, who eventually grants her wish. Delighted at accomplishing her intentions, Pārvatī dives into a pool and rubs off her black skin (kṛṣṇāṃ-kośīṃ) from her body. From this sheath the goddess renowned in the world as Kauśikī arose fully formed and armed, just as the Night arose from the body of Brahmā as he emitted the universe, says the Skandapurāṇa (III.58.8). Young and beautiful with a benign appearance (prasannarūpā), she wore an armlet, bracelets on her eight arms and protective thimbles (godhā) on her (p.77) fingers, an impenetrable armour (kavacaṃ), a quiver filled with arrows, and two garments (ibid., 58.12–14). When this eight-armed goddess, black as a raincloud, the Kālī that Gaurī rejected, prostrated herself before Pārvatī, the latter predicted that she would become renowned, apart from being Kauśikī, ‘by other venerable names having a connection with her qualities and her deeds’ (anyaiś ca nāmabhiḥ ślāghyair guṇakarmābhisaṃśrayaiḥ) (ibid., 58.18). Those who recall her with devotion when present in extreme dangers, she continued, will overcome dangers by her favour (ibid., 58.19). Sages will always praise her with the celestial names of Vareṇyā, Varadā, Durgā, Varā and Sarvārthasādhanī (ibid., 58.20), names, apart from the first, that once again emphasize the amplification of the goddess’s capitalcreating aspect within the Śaiva tradition. She tenderly sniffed Kauśikī’s head, in a gesture often described in Sanskrit of parents showing affection to their children, and told her to go to the Vindhya mountains. In the meantime, two mighty asuras, Sumbha and Nisumbha, defeated Indra, the king of the gods, and established a kingdom on the Vindhya mountain. There their spy Mūka beheld the beautiful goddess performing severe austerities on the mountain peak. Amazed by her beauty, he approached her, foremost among all women (pradhānā sarvayoṣitām), and asked her who she was. Realizing that the hour of death had arrived for Sumbha and Nisumbha, the goddess replied with a double entendre: ‘Know me to be a human maiden who has made her home on this mountain. My father, a learned potter (cakracara) descended from the Atri lineage (ātreya), is dead (svargata). My mother too followed her husband, having left me behind a long time ago when I was a child. At that time, she gave me weapons, and commanded me: “Dwell on this beautiful Vindhya peak and do what is befitting at all times.” Following the words of that noble lady, I live on the best of mountains served by lions, tigers, elephants and deer.’ Mānuṣi can mean a woman who is for the sake of—in other words, serves—mankind, Ātreya is another word for Śiva, cakracara refers to a magical being, and svargata can also mean ‘one who lives in heaven’. The puns of course are lost on the rightly named Mūka (this means dumb and by Page 6 of 22 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) extension stupid in Sanskrit). He reported this vision of a bereft and beautiful lass to his master Sumbha and recommended her as a favourable bride (anurūpā patnī). Sumbha dispatched Mūka to the goddess to bring her back. But when he told her that Sumbha had selected her to be his chief wife, the goddess laughed and replied that only one who defeated her in battle may marry her, and that all demons were as trifling as grass to her. Sumbha, his arrogance injured by this retort, assembled his court with his brother to discuss the matter. They went over her physical charms: she was well formed, had three eyes, a face with fierce teeth, eight arms (once again, a residue of the Vaiṣṇava goddess), dark as a raincloud, a pleasing nose, an attractive voice, at (p. 78) her side there were always various weapons, excellent armour and variegated ornaments, her body was radiant and her light was that of a powerful moon. A demon, Maya, proposed that she was surely an evil spirit (kṛtyā) conjured by the gods in order to defeat the demons. There are enough slender-waisted women for the king, he added, who are conformable (anurūpā) and with whom the king can sport as he wills—enough with this girl! On the conjecture that the goddess was a weapon of the gods, the demons decided to wage war (ibid., 63.1–66), and in full military array approached her. Various omens befell, which caused the demon soldiers to believe that their loss was at hand. Mūka dispatched a messenger to the goddess, who formally offered the payment of war that she had demanded as her price. Accepting the demons’ offer, the goddess resorted to magical ascetic practice (yogam āsthāya) and enlarged in size (vyavardhata). From her limbs, women (pramadāḥ) leapt wearing protective thimbles (baddhagodhāṇgulitrṇāṇāḥ), with weapons (sāyudhaḥ) and of fearsome aspect (bhīmadarśanāḥ). There was Vāyasī surrounded by a crore of crow-faced women, Upakā by owl-faced women, Pracaṇḍā by the lion-faced, Ugrā by the tigerfaced, Jayā by the elephant-faced, Jayantī by the peacock-faced, Jayamānā by the horse-faced, Prabhā by the goose-faced, Prabhāvatī by those with the faces of cakravāka birds, Śivā by the jackal-faced, Saramā by the dog-faced, Vijayā by the falcon-faced, Mṛtyu by the heron-faced, Niyati by those with the faces of diver birds and Aśani by the cockerel-faced. There were also Revatī, Vṛṣadaṃśa, Pūtanā, Kaṭapūtanā, Ālambā, Kiṃnarī, Ṣaṣṭhī, Śakuni, Mukhamaṇḍikā, Alakṣmī, Adhṛti, Lakṣmī, Potakī, Vānarī, Spṛhā and others. These thirty goddesses along with the others formed Durgā’s army. Durgā roused them to war, promising them immortality should they win. Conjuring through yogic powers of meditation a great and beautifully appointed chariot to which lions were yoked and which had a gold ensign emblazoned with a dancing peacock, the goddess ascended it and went forth with her warrior-women. The yogic powers of She-whopossessed-yogic-powers (mahāyogā) also produced chariots appointed with horses, weapons and insignia, stallions, elephants, weapons, armours and musical instruments for battle. Vijayā held the parasol over her head and Sim. hi became her charioteer, while Jayantī and Jayā waved yaktail whisks. Magnificently arrayed and in full military formation, the goddess-army caused the hearts of the demons to tremble with their battle cries and the sound of their war tabors (ibid., 64.1–49). Elephants killed elephants, demons goddesses and goddesses demons, while the ground became unfit to be trod. Seeing their armies destroyed by the goddesses (ibid., Ādhyāya 65) and their elephants killed, Sumbha and Nisumbha entered the battle on two chariots, followed by their soldiers on horseback and more elephants. Learning of their arrival, the goddess impelled forward her (p.79) lion-drawn chariot, stretching her bow to release an arrow, the sound of which caused horses to disperse, dispelled the intoxication of elephants and confused the minds of demons. The arrows released by the demons missed the goddess and fell on the earth. She burnt the army with her flaming arrows as the tongues of a lit fire burn a forest of dry trees. The demon brothers hurled two maces at her, which she destroyed in mid-air. She cut through their armours, killed their horses and their two charioteers and destroyed their emblems. Leaving their chariots, the two kings of Daityas took up swords and leapt into the sky Page 7 of 22 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) that was as blue as a polished sword (vyoma śitāsinīlam). In the cloudless firmament, the goddess chased after them, grabbed their necks and squeezed them to death. Vomiting blood with foam, the two heroes, every joint of their limbs pulverized, their eyes bloodshot, their life departed, fell to the earth (ibid., 66.1–35).

Vimuktāsmīty amanyata: She thought, ‘I am free’ Durgā in this example of early Śaiva mythology is not identical with Pārvatī but is her unwanted, reviled black form of old. In this dark yet inwardly luminous form connected to the amelioration of dangers (durgāni), and indeed to danger itself, just as she had been in the Harivaṃśa, she slays the demon brothers Śumbha and Niśumbha. Her virginity, contrasted with Pārvatī’s fecundity, remains an important characteristic of this conception of the goddess as a dutiful daughter, just as it had been in that of Nidrā. But the manner whereby Śaivism asserts ownership of this Vaiṣṇava image is entirely novel: by using the myth of Durgā’s birth through the forsaken body of Śiva’s consort this tradition conceives of her as Pārvatī’s doppelgänger, in whom characteristics originally innate in Pārvatī are displaced. She is black whereas Pārvatī is now fair; she is single whereas Pārvatī has a consort; she demands blood whereas Pārvatī is an ascetic renouncer of meat (Aparṇā being her famous epithet conveying her ascetic aspect); she is a dangerous warrior capable of war on a truly fearsome scale, able to command untameable women, who embody the corporate nature of her power, whereas Pārvatī is a loving spouse surrounded by her children and attendants. These magical women, said to be dehasambhavāḥ, or born from her body, represent independent local deities. They are even appointed kingdoms all over India to rule by Durgā after her consecration (ibid., 68.1–9), a depiction that at a panIndic scale maps out regional female deity cults, which eventually became identified with the warrior-goddess. With the latter as the central axis, these regional cults are used to plot the chief points of a mythologically represented Śakta ‘empire’. Their ultimate unity, and also allegiance, are with Pārvatī, and (p.80) through her with Śiva. But, significantly, such unity and allegiance are shown indirectly through the intermediate figure of Durgā. What this achieves is again a separation even within a cohesion: their feral, free-roaming, blood-lusting and dangerous characters are identified with Pārvatī’s unwanted self, not with Pārvatī herself, and this results in a subtle distinction from Śiva’s gentle śakti. In other words, archaic Śaiva mythology in working out Durgā’s role envisages a schism between gentle and sexual mother and wild and sexless (though sexually desired) daughter, who proliferates other wild and sexless daughters. Such a schism is also reflected in classical Sanskrit literature from the late Gupta period. In Kālidāsa’s Kumārasambhava, the goddess Kālī, none other than Nidrā-Kauśikī as we have seen from the Harivaṃśa, attends Pārvatī’s wedding retinue on its way to Kailāsa, and it is clear that Kālidāsa knew Kālī to be a member of her entourage, a role depicted in early Śaiva scriptural sources, as just seen. Subandhu in his Vāsavadattā gives us the alternative, rather ominous name Vetālā (in the southern edition Caṇḍa) for Durgā—which means Goddess of Re-animated Corpses—thereby referring to her occultic side, a side Pārvatī is dissociated from, and though linking her with Śiva, does not spell out the exact relationship. What Subandhu is clear about, however, is that Durgā is an important independent deity, evidently with a fearful aspect linked to Death, presiding over the imperial Gupta city of Pāṭaliputra with a temple on the banks of the Gaṅgā, who is a heroic demon-slayer since the myths of Śumbha and Niśumbha and Mahiṣa are both well known to him, even if the link with Śiva is nebulous.12 Though being integrated into the Śaiva pantheon, the later tendency to see Durgā and Pārvatī as one and the same goddess was subordinated to the perception of the former as standing outside the established Śaiva world, on account of her ominous nature, by being hierarchically lower

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Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) than Pārvatī. However, it is worth noting that, despite giving priority to the mother–child separation, the old Skandapurāṇa is nevertheless ambiguous about this distinction. Though Durgā-Kauśikī is Śiva’s daughter in this work, she could just as well be his lover too, and overlaps in these roles glimmer through (p.81) occasionally in the text. Durgā is Pārvatī, who is eternally united in Bhairava’s heart as he is in hers, but she is Pārvatī freed from Śiva. In the 59th chapter, the following telling comment appears. Pārvatī, having installed Kauśikī on the mountain, and having been offered obeisance by all its inhabitants, granted boons to them. The composer then says: ‘Though she was present in her husband’s heart, while her husband was present in her heart, the daughter of the mountain thought that she was free (vimuktāsmīty amanyata).’13 Free, that is, by becoming Durgā. If Pārvatī is always to be contemplated in union with Śiva—just as word and meaning inextricably united, as Kālidāsa explains in the opening verse of the Raghuvaṃśa—then Durgā is Pārvatī contemplated in singularity (though in relation to union). Such is the underlying theology being worked out in nascent form in the old Skandapurāṇa, which would take firmer root in later understanding as embodied in works such as the Caṇḍīśataka. This is why Durgā loses her much-vaunted virginity—the kaumāravrataṃ she is asked to espouse by Indra in the Harivaṃśa—in works such as the Caṇḍīśataka, in which she is clearly shown as Śiva’s loving spouse. One perspective through which the transition from Vaiṣṇava to Śaiva theological models can be viewed, a perspective reflected within the two traditions themselves, is that Durgā is sexualized in the latter through union with Śiva. From a girl she becomes a woman.

Virgin or Mother, Kumārī or Ambikā? The distinction between fierce virgin (kumārī) and fecund mother (ambikā) was blurred in other examples of literature too. Another early source contemporary with (and possibly older) than the old Skandapurāṇa conflates her with Pārvatī, despite the parallel conceptions of her as Pārvatī’s daughter and Pārvatī’s gaṇa. In the authoritative early medieval.lexicon Nāmaliṅgānuśāsana (popularly called the Amarakośa, composed around the 4th century14) Amara names Kālī, Caṇḍikā and Durgā among a list of names for Pārvatī, and it seems that in his understanding, Caṇḍikā was one and the same with Pārvatī.15 The way some of the names are paired as opposites such as gaurī-kālī and caṇḍikā-ambikā temptingly suggests that Amara was thinking of contrasting (p.82) aspects subsumed in one personality. In his understanding, Kālī and Caṇḍikā refer to the same goddess, who forms the other side of Gaurī-Ambikā. Significant are some absences in Amara’s nomenclature: Mahāmāyā and Yoganidrā are not named, and had they been deemed important a scrupulous scholar such as Amara would surely have included them (he was clearly not operating from bias against the Vaiṣṇavas, as Viṣṇu and his associates receive an equally weighty section in his work, and that too preceding Śiva). It is clear that in the religious world Amara inhabited, Vaiṣṇava conceptions of Durgā were already going out of fashion and Durgā and Pārvatī were beginning to be seen as cognate. Moreover, Durgā and Kālī too were cognate as in Vaiṣṇava literature and they were seen as the antithesis to Pārvatī. Śiva’s consort was, to Amara, a synthesizing deity in whom contradictions of a split personality were resolved. Durgā was one aspect of this personality, dark in colouring as in her older Vaiṣṇava conception, but the metaphoric implication of her darkness had now transformed. While previously being dark connected her to black-hued Kṛṣṇa since she was his sister, and also to the monsoon season when she was worshipped, it now indicated a conceptual antithesis to Pārvatī. By suggesting transgression, the opposite quality to that embodied by Pārvatī, the notion of a chief goddess was now enlarged and made harmonious with that of Śiva, who integrated both a ferocious (bhairava) and an auspicious (śiva) side to his personality. The former side played a specific role in Tantric Śakta worship of Bhairava and his consort, which sought to supersede mundane levels of existence through cultivated transgression and transgressive deities. The bifurcation of aspect Page 9 of 22 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) to suit particular contexts of worship would apply also to the case of the goddess’s double aspects as Durgā and as Pārvatī, at least before Durgā would be merged fully within mainstream Śaivism and appear in Purāṇic rituals. What is lost in this process of transference from Vaiṣṇava to Śaiva is Durgā’s hallucinatory role. Nidra disappears almost completely within Śaivism. She is recollected in the later theology promoted by the Devīmāhātmya (1.58ab, 1.59cd, 1.78ab, 5.28ab) which served to compile the two traditions within which the goddess took root much in the way a compendium of short stories or verses would. However, this theology is careful to segregate the two traditions along with names and their associated aspects used by those traditions in relation to her.

Durgā as the Classical Indian Ruler Just as the peripheral character of Durgā is acknowledged, put into images and then accommodated within the familial yet distinct relationship with Pārvatī, another strategy toning down her fierce character of old and (p.83) attributing to her more official imagery of sovereignty is revealed in her myth in the old Skandapurāṇa. This is contained within the abhiṣeka or consecration scene of the goddess after she slays the demon brothers. When the demons were defeated, a grand consecration (abhiṣeka) was held for her on the Vindhya mountain (III.67.1–69). The gods, the Ādityas, the Vasus, the Rudras, the Maruts, the Aśvinī twins, Dharma, Āṅgiras, came to behold her, and in the presence of this illustrious Vedic pantheon, she was acknowledged a legitimate deity. When she wished to see her parents, Śiva and Pārvatī appeared before her. The gods and Kauśikī prostrated themselves at their feet. Śiva prophesied that unconquered among all beings She of Mighty Yogic Powers and of Great Might will wander the worlds vanquishing all, and the gods by her grace will be irreproachable. Men will worship her devotedly with offerings of bali and at all times she will be a boon-bestower (varadā) to her devotees. Pārvatī embraced her and lovingly sniffed her head, foretelling that the goddess would be as loved and worshipped as she was among men and the gods. After bestowing such boons of future glory on her, the divine couple disappeared. With great fanfare and rejoicing among the Directions, the rasas, bhāvas and pleasures of art, the hordes of apsarases and lute-playing gandharvas, she was consecrated. First Viśvakarman, the divine architect, built a sumptuous jewel-embellished throne of gold with a staircase of sapphires. It was borne aloft by four lifelike lions made of rubies. Kauśikī sat on that celestial throne to joyous chanting, wearing two white garments that the wish-fulfilling tree had granted, her two limbs bearing garlands of pearls and adorned by a white garland and unguents. Taking gold urns, filled with herbs and auspicious waters for consecration, a cohort of gods comprising the Ādityas, Kaśyapa, the Rudras, the Guardians of the Directions, Fire, the Foremost among Mountains, the Earth, the Gaṅgā, the Moon, the Maruts, the Aśvinī twins, the Oceans, the Vasus, Lakṣmī, the Juncture, Kīrti (Fame), Sarasvatī, the Kings of Serpents, the Kings of Birds and various eminent lakes sprinkled holy water on the goddess. Holding her sceptre with none but the king of gods, Indra, bearing the parasol behind, fanned by the Guardians of the Directions, she sat resplendent as Empress on the throne, a picture of the paradigmatic ruler, the cakravartin at the centre of all life and divinity. Indra adopted her as his sister, commanding her to protect the entire universe, to favour devotees, to conquer the foes of the gods, to roam the worlds praised by the hordes of Siddhas, a trope familiar to us from the Harivaṃśa, but here given much more representative weight. Then she ascended the blue sky from the summit of the Vindhya mountains. All these narrative techniques depict the legitimation and coming to the fore of a relatively new god of warriors. The symbolism of Indra subordinate to the goddess and willingly relinquishing his former power to her is potent. What we have here is a process (p.84) imaginatively constructed of a formerly dangerous and relatively minor deity of warriors incorporated by the mainstream pantheon of gods, and classical views of kingship embodied, for Page 10 of 22 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) instance, in the images of the unction and enthronement. Not only is she joined to Pārvatī and to Śiva, but also to the Vedic god of war. If Indra was once the king of heaven, it is now, as the old Skandapurāṇa shows us, what in fact the Harivaṃśa had introduced, the goddess. Here were have a supersession of a conceptual kind. A new king, who is for the first time a warriorgoddess, is shown arising in the accepted firmament of godhood. She is no longer the untamed hallucinatory Sleep-Death-Night of the Harivaṃśa but a paragon of the Dharmic ruler. Why and how this process unfolded in reality among early kingdoms will be shown later. However, the shift from periphery to Brahmanical centre is never fully accomplished, as it is for instance with Skanda-Kārttikeya, who loses his dangerous nature once he becomes Kumāra, Śiva’s son.16 In contrast, Durgā never relinquishes her dangerous nature, even when being accommodated as the child. She remains on the periphery while having a visible role within the centre.

Incorporation within the Śaiva Kāpālika Tradition In fact, her peripheral role would be further strengthened in early Śaivism, at the same time as her respectable face as the Brahmanical ruler in the legacy of Indra was being created. Let us return to Amara’s Nāmaliṅgānuśāsana, mentioned above (pp. 81–2). An important development revealed for the first time in this work is the use of new names for the goddess formerly known more widely as Nidrā. Among these is the name Caṇḍikā, the Fiery Lady, which before its appearance in the Devīmāhātmya in the latter part of the 8th century, is almost exclusively used to convey Śaiva forms of Durgā connected to Pārvatī (Amara too cites this as a name for Pārvatī), just as Nidrā or Mahāmāyā would convey to the worshipper Durgā as Viṣṇu’s Sleep/ Enchantment. Durgā as Caṇḍikā, Śiva’s śakti in her fiery nature, would play an important role within Tantric Śākta literature, in which this name is attributed to a goddess with oracular and supernatural properties. In Tantric literature Caṇḍikā acquired two roles, one as a divinatory deity and the other as a deity of the Kāpālika stream of esoteric Śaivism who grants powers to a devotee. The belief linking Caṇḍikā and her attributary forms with divination is attested in the earliest strata of the Vidyāpīṭha Tantric texts.17 Usually a (p.85) mantra summoning Caṇḍikā is given for the sādhaka to recite, whereby an apparition called prasīnā/prasenā/prasannā appears on a reflective surface, on the surface of a sword, on the left thumb smeared with luminescent substances or on water. The substrate is shown to a young girl (dārikā) or a boy (kumāra) who interprets Caṇḍikā’s prognostication about the past, present or future to the practitioner, concerning anything that he wishes to know. Caṇḍikā’s prognosticatory character would be used by rulers for furthering political ambitions, as we shall see when we turn to the later cult of local goddesses identified with her. Kings would claim that major policy-actions such as going to war were authorized and demanded by Caṇḍikā, who had foreseen the fate of the kingdom. The antecedent for this popular function of the goddess lay in the Śaiva Vidyāpīṭha corpus. The second representation appears in poetic literature in which the goddess is depicted in a manner resonant of the Kāpālika tradition, for instance with a skull in her hand (kapālahastā), an observance performed by Kāpālikas. This esoteric tradition requiring initiation into its ranks was a transgressive goddess-oriented form of Śaivism emerging in the Somasiddhāntin branch of the Atimārga. The latter is an ascetic current of Śaiva practice and also its earliest, preTantric manifestation practised by renunciates of the rules of caste-ordered society.18 A later offshoot of the Atimārga, Kāpālika Śaivism required the initiated Śaiva to perform ascetic practices in the cremation ground.19 What differentiates the Kāpālikas as a distinctive branch of the Atimārga is that here, unlike in other forms of the Atimārga, the goddess herself transcends Śiva, and is worshipped as the supreme and independent principle. Among new inflections

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Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) developed by inclusion within this tradition centred in the cremation ground are the attribution of bone adornments to Durgā’s imagery. Such imagery appears extensively, for instance, in the Saduktikarṇāmṛta (pp. 36–7), in the Gaüḍavaho, as has been discussed in the previous chapter, and in the later 11th-century work the Haravijaya, which in fact echoes and thereby cements several ideas from the Gaüḍavaho’s description of the goddess. A verse from this latter work (47.13) makes a concise and powerful introduction to the Kāpālika Durgā that it inherits from its Prakrit predecessor. In this verse, which is part (p.86) of a section in the poem describing Caṇḍikā, the poet Ratnākara asks rhetorically:

āviṣkṛtapralayadurdharakālarātrimūrter udagravikaṭāvayavāntareṣu | paryāptim eti tava saṃhṛtasaptalokalokāsthisaṃbhṛtiśatair api maṇḍanam kim || Upon the hour of the Aeon’s Death when you are manifest as untamed Kālarātri, can all your fearful limbs of giant scale be ever fully decked with ornament even by countless heaps of human bones from the seven worlds that you have annihilated? The fact that the same image of the goddess as that in the Gaüḍavaho is reiterated with even greater breadth and depth of detail indicates that, by the time Ratnākara was writing, the Kāpālika form of Durgā had not disappeared but had become even more firmly rooted in culture. The earlier Vaiṣṇava figure of Kālarātri was associated in this later Śaiva tradition with the ferocity of cosmic annihilation, a time known as the Night of Destruction. She manifests herself during the night an aeon (yuga) is destroyed as a huge form permeating the universe, sucking all creatures into her mouth as she absorbs the universe and its beings so that it may be re-emitted. The earlier Kālarātri thereby became an eschatological figure in Tantric Śaivism. In this form the goddess’s terror-evoking property is amplified: draped in bones and skulls with pieces of flesh clinging to her teeth, she is continuously hungry for blood while her form is haggard and cronelike. In the Gaüḍavaho, this form is said to love the cremation ground, and certain Kāpālika practices such as selling flesh in the cremation ground are linked to her shrine (see Chapter 1). It is interesting to note that previously Kālarātri had been a youthful and beautiful woman in the Vaiṣṇava tradition despite her association with destruction. That the Śaiva Kālarātri’s worship took place in the cremation ground, that she carried a skullbowl and was horrific in nature are vividly described in narratives from early medieval Kashmir. In the Kathāsaritsāgara, a Sanskrit revision by Somadeva (1063–81) of the lost fabular work the Bṛhatkathā, the (p.87) goddess Kālarātri appears several times and is a charismatic presence in the narrative. In one story her temple is located near a cremation ground (5.3.195). She is described as the slayer of a demon, Ruru, who carries a skull-bowl in her hand flowing with the blood of that demon, and is likened to the reflection of the sun at dawn, her mad dance rescuing the universe. The cremation ground is likened to her palace, in which the occult is played out Page 12 of 22 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) and where female deities roam, among whom the goddess is enumerated. In her temple, a dvija Śaktideva is incarcerated to be sacrificed to her. Just like the goddess herself, and the neighbouring śmaśāna, Somadeva describes Durgā’s temple as inducing terror (bhayakṛt), its wide door resembling a gaping mouth which always devours many creatures, its rows of bells projecting like the rows of teeth in the mouth of Death—as if it were to devour the bound Śaktideva as well. In his desperation the captured hero praised Durgā with a hymn in which he asked her to protect him. As soon as this offering was made to her, he saw in a dream a heavenly woman emerge from the sanctum sanctorum, who spoke to him compassionately and said that he would be rescued and that he would find a wife. In another story, in which this goddess is also referred to her by old Vaiṣṇava names of Kālī and Ekānaṃśa in a hymn, a dvija Vīravara sacrificed his son to her (12.11.5–123 and 9.3.86–197),20 and then prepared to offer himself, at which point the goddess grew compassionate, intervened and stopped him from carrying through his intentions. In a further story, Kālarātri, accompanied by ghosts and jackals, manifested herself in a terrific vision to a king and his army. When night fell and the army had encamped on the pass, portents of her famous wrath appeared threatening with dangerous consequences—the northern slopes of Kailāsa were stained red; a black pall hung over the king’s camp; hordes of the goddess’s retinue, ghosts, vetālas, ḍākinīs and jackals prowled menacingly as if, writes Somadeva in an elegant simile, they were the saplings of her anger, her mood put out of joint by the king’s lack of homage.21 This Durgā, whose older Vaiṣṇsava identity as the māyā-causing, sense-removing, occultic Kālarātri, had clearly not been forgotten but was recalled in descriptions of her terrifying nature, is a figure shown to be both sinister and benevolent, who accepts human sacrifice yet protects in compassion, while her sites of worship and her adornments are Tantric. Indeed, as I have argued elsewhere,22 this vision of the dangerous yet benevolent goddess appears time and time again in early medieval kāvya, (p.88) which consistently reflects an understanding of a goddess who is sinister and surrounded by ghosts, yet compassionate and salvific—also her conception in the Harivaṃśa. Kāpālika imagery, practices and a mantra granting the worshipper supernatural powers are also described in another hymn to Caṇḍikā, which appears in the Kulacūḍāmaṇitantra, an east Indian Śākta text, and also in Kṛṣṇānanda Bhaṭṭācāryā’s Tantrasāra, a medieval treatise composed in Bengal. The hymn is in all likelihood a far later composition than Bappaï’s and Ratnākara’s, but its vision of the goddess resonates with that described in the hymns of those other two poets. The anonymous poet of this somewhat florid yet powerful hymn is also a Tantric worshipper, while the poem describes a method of worship that is said to grant a list of supernatural rewards at the end and encodes an incantation containing the essence of the deity for the worshipper to use in meditation. It is evident that this poet/Tantric has in mind a goddess who, rather than being a part of the established Vaidika order, sits on its fringes, and several verses make this abundantly clear:

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Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century)

(p.89) mannindā yadi vāstu te kulapathācārād varaṃ māstu vā, kīrtiḥ keśavakauśikārccanacarī naivāstu matsannidhiḥ | mātar brahmaharismarārihutabhugdaityārisevāspadaṃ śrīmatpādapayojacintanavidhau cittaṃ sadaivāstu naḥ || 4|| […]

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Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) nṛtyatkheṭakacāmarāñcalacalaccakrādyakharvāvarasphāyatsainyaśilīmukhocchaladanalpājihmatāmrāmbudhau | jhañjhāvātavisarpinartitaśiraḥsāṭopaduṣṭāsuratruṭyatkhaṇḍavikhaṇḍitākhila-śakuntakṣutpipāsojjvale || 10 || cañcatkamravirāmakālakalatīvrāsphālasampādakonmādyanmāhiṣatiryagānataśiraḥśṛṅgāntarāle sthale | vasvarṇair vasupatramadhyakalitair vadhvā śrutiṃ23 mātṛbhiḥ sevye cāruraṇāṅgane raṇamudā ghūrṇāyamānāṃ smaret || 11 || ūrdhvādhaḥkramasavyavāmakarayoś cakraṃ daraṃ kartṛkāṃ kheṭaṃ bāṇadhanustriśūlabhayahṛnmudrāṃ dadhānāṃ śivām | śyāmāṃ nīlaghanoccakuntalacayapronnaddhajūṭāṃ skhalad vīrāsphālalasatkarālavadanāṃ ghorāṭṭahāsodbhaṭām || 12 || evaṃ ye tava devi mūrtim anaghāṃ dhyāyanti durgādibhiḥ śakrādyair abhipūjitāṃ parapurakṣobhādikaṃ kurvate | rājyaṃ śatrujayaḥ sadarthadhīṣaṇā kāvyāmṛtādarśanastambhoccāṭanamāraṇādi kṛtināṃ teṣāṃ svayaṃ jāyate || 13 || (p.90) stotraṃ te caraṇāravindayugaladhyānāvadhānān mayā mantroddhārakulopacāracaritaṃ gūḍhopadiṣṭaṃ yadi | ye śṛṇvanti paṭhanti devi tarasā śrīmokṣakāmādayas teṣāṃ hastagatā bhavanti jagatāṃ mātar namas te jayaḥ || 14 || Let me be rebuked for practising your way of the Kula—Fine! Or let me not be rebuked! But never may the fame following the worship of Viṣṇu or Indra come near me! Mother, may my heart forevermore remain [intent] in the contemplation of your sacred lotus-feet, the focus of the attendance of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Śiva, Fire and Indra. [4] […] In the place between the horns of the head of intoxicated Mahiṣa fallen sideways, which produces a terrible agitation and causes the violent and beautiful time of Destruction, that must be served by the Mothers with eight syllables [each] drawn in the centre of eight petals along with the seed syllable of the Vadhū syllable;24 from which [place grows visible] an ocean of red,25 straight, copious, spurting upwards, in which there are increasing [numbers of] arrows of soldiers, a huge awning of moving discuses and such, and the dancing borders of yak-tail whisks and shields; which is ablaze with the hunger and thirst of birds of prey by whom portions of proud and evil Asuras, while being torn asunder, are completely broken into pieces, as the Asuras’ heads, winding about, are made to dance by the clamorous wind; A man must recollect Śivā whirling about in the intoxication of battle in a gorgeous battlefield, bearing, in her right and left hands from top to bottom a discus, a conch shell, a chopper, a shield, a bow and arrow, a trident while making the Abhaya gesture, dark, her matted locks in a lofty heap of tresses high like a black raincloud, her gaping mouth salivating at the convulsions of fallen warriors; fearsome with her wild laughter; [10b–12]

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Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) Goddess, they who visualize your faultless form in this way with [names like] Durgā etc. worshipped even by Indra and others accomplish deeds as the shaking of an enemy’s citadel. Governance, victory over enemies, discernment in correct evaluation, the nectar of poetry, invisibility, paralysis, expelling enemies and the power of magically killing spontaneously arise in experts. [13] (p.91) If they who hear your hymn composed by me with the method for extracting the mantra (mantroddhāra) and the Kula practice by contemplating the visualization of your lotus feet, that was revealed in secret, and if they recite it O Goddess, then riches, liberation, sexual pleasure etc. are quickly in their grasp. Salutations to you Mother of the Universe. You are victorious. [14] The vadhū syllable is in this case either strīṃ or hrīṃ, while the eight-syllable mantra mentioned may be understood as mahiṣamardini svāhā. What we have here described are eight petals in the centre of the dead Mahiṣa’s forehead, on which one must imagine the eight syllables of this mantra. The syllable hrīṃ/strīṃ is to be imagined in the middle of the eight petals. Through the horns, the worshipper imagines a view of a bloody and chaotic battlefield, at the centre of which, spinning about madly, is the violent eight-armed, black-hued goddess. It is evident that the poets Bappaï, Ratnākara, Somadeva and our later Tantric devotee were aware of a Tantric form of Durgā, whom they primarily call Caṇḍikā (Caṇḍī in the case of the later poet), and very often Kālarātri too. If we turn to more cremation ground oriented Tantric literature, we do in fact find a goddess called, among other names, Caṇḍikā, who is to be worshipped by a Tantric practitioner in the śmaśāna (cremation ground), much in the same way that the Kathāsaritsāgara depicts the worship of this goddess. She is also called Caṇḍā Kapālinī (her principal name), Bhairavī, Cāmuṇḍā, Aghorī, Aghoreśvarī or Carcikā,26 and appears as the highest goddess in extremely early Śaiva literature with Kāpālika undertones such as the Brahmayāmala27 and the Tantrasadbhāva.28 Her mantra, the syllabic form of the goddess to be uttered by the practitioner, is hūṃ caṇḍe kapālini svāhā.29 Törzsök contends that this deity was later added to the existing system of the Brahmayāmala,30 because she was a tool to incorporate the non-Tantric, popular cult of the mother-goddesses (Mātṛs), of whom she is said to be a leader in the Brahmayāmala, into the closed, initiatory Tantric system. In other words, this goddess, presented as the supreme goddess of this work, was added later to a pre-existent theological system. In this work, Caṇḍikā is described as a ruler of spirits.31 The 46th and 49th chapters of the Brahmayāmala describe her in the context of attaining supernatural powers in (p.92) the cremation ground,32 and several rituals, most importantly, a mahāmanthana, a rite of churning forbidden substances on top of a corpse, are discussed, whereby such powers from Caṇḍikā may be obtained. In all these the worshipper first transforms himself into Bhairava by performing the initial mahāvrata of the Kāpālikas, and then is said to be possessed by Bhairava and his goddesses, a typical aspect of worship by the Kāpālikas.33 The goddess Caṇḍā Kapālinī then appears before him and grants him magical powers. However, it still remains uncertain whether the Caṇḍikā of poetry was the same as the esoteric Caṇḍā-Kapālinī/Caṇḍikā of this Tantra, though a clear parallelism does exist on the surface. To answer this question satisfactorily would require a thorough probing of primary Tantric sources from the same family of texts, the difficult transmissional history, terminology and complex systems of which preclude their inclusion in the present argument. Some scholars may argue that the name Caṇḍikā was used generally and without distinction for many goddesses, including Tantric ones. Part of this argument is true: Caṇḍikā did indeed grow to be identified with other deities, but these, as I will show, were mostly local goddesses, whose identification with Caṇḍikā authorized them and increased the

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Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) popularity of their cults. However, it is my belief that Caṇḍikā was not simply another face or name for an essentially different Tantric deity, but that she herself acquired a central role within the Tantric sphere during the late Gupta period. It is unclear at the moment what exactly this role was. For the moment, though, that Durgā came to acquire a distinctive and detailed Kāpālika form linked to universal destruction and was known primarily as Kālarātri in that form should be understood on the basis of the poetic literature which I have just now surmised reflects a clear knowledge of and homage to this early Tantric form. What this literature also shows is that along with her fickle characteristic, this deity was worshipped mostly for boons, a quality attractive to rulers and warriors who are shown to brave all odds to placate Kālarātri for great rewards, because her benevolence, when her anger was assuaged, could redeem political fortunes in decline. It is this—what I have called previously the capital-creating property of Kālarātri, which was further heightened within the Śaiva tradition—that made her a symbol for heroic powers in particular. Though the images of the cremation ground were a later addition when Durgā was brought into the Kāpālika sphere approximately between the 5th and 6th centuries, there are two aspects of her Kāpālika conception which we have already encountered, and which were clearly continuations of a much more archaic figuration. The first is her conception as a fierce deity controlling a pantheon of spirit-divinities—this is mentioned in the Harivaṃśa, in which (p.93) Nidrā is said to be surrounded by ghosts, and in which she is said to wander at all times with such beings. It is also depicted in the old Skandapurāṇa: Kauśikī in the old Skandapurāṇa, despite being disguised by the image of the dutiful child who restores Dharmic order to heaven, is presented as a fierce deity attended by such a pantheon during her battle with Śumbha and Niśumbha. The second old feature is Durgā’s ability to fly. Though flying can be a characteristic of female divinities within the Kāpālika currents, Durgā’s ability to fly was in fact older than its manifestation in Kāpālika literature because, as we recall, even in our earliest Vaiṣṇava image in the Harivaṃśa she flies, while in the old Skandapurāṇa she slew the demon brothers in the sky. It could well be that the cult of Durgā with her ferocious retinue was popular from an archaic period. It was first elaborated textually by the Harivaṃśa and then by early Śaiva mythology, before being incorporated into Tantric practice. But while its history was indeed much earlier than its presence in Śaivism, the imagery of the fearsome Durgā with her attendants received greatest elaboration and meaning in esoteric Śaiva practices. Within Tantric Śaivism, the ferocity of the goddess is heightened, rather than toned down. Violent forms of Durgā characterized by cremation-ground imagery—of the kind envisaged in the poetic literature on the Vindhyan goddess—who were considered potent for all power seekers, and especially warriors, were not just the objects of esoteric (Tantric) worship, but were also established in temple cults open to the public. An inscription etched in Vārāṇasī, exhibiting characters typifying those widely used in northern India in the 8th century,34 records the installation of an image, identified in the sixth line as that of Caṇḍī, by a man named Pantha. Of Pantha we know little from the epigraph, except that he had always been virtuous and, though ‘of modest means’ (parilaghuvibhava), deeply dedicated in making the beneficence to the deity without sparing any costs. After having installed the image with what seemed to be great effort, he was still not content and built the goddess a magnificent shrine of stone, adorned with crests and yak-tail whisks. It is the versifier’s mesmeric description of the goddess’s image (mūrti), though, that forms the true highlight of the inscription: he describes the installed Caṇḍī, as ‘horrifying with a ghastly garland of human heads hanging down, her body encircled by slithering snakes with dried morsels of flesh stuck on her axe, revelling in a joyous dance, her eyes rolling about’.35 We thus have clear attestation that (p.94) this wrathful form of the Page 17 of 22 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) goddess, resonant of the Kāpālika form of Durgā described in literature, was indeed worshipped publicly and that too in the holiest and most populous of all Brahmanical cities. In this regard it can be added that the worship of Durgā in this form by invocation into a bel branch was performed during the Eastern Navarātra,36 while most ritual manuals for the recitation of the Devīmāhātmya cite a mantra evoking Cāmuṇḍā—aiṃ hrīṃ klīṃ cāmuṇḍāyai vicce—known as the Navārṇamantra, the Nine-Syllable Charm, as the Base-Mantra of the recitative text.37 If we look further eastwards to Java, where too Durgā commanded a flourishing cult represented by way of seventy-three statues ranging from the 10th to the 15th centuries and an inscription of king Erlangga of 1032, in which he claims to have been victorious in war after worshipping Durgā’s idol,38 we find also the omnipresence of the Kāpālika form of Durgā. This is exhibited in some statues that portray a ferocious fanged version of the goddess and a local Javanese legend from a work called the Calon Arang about the worship of the goddess by a witch for powers. In this legend it is clear—in fact much more vividly so than in any of the early Indian materials— that the Javanese understood Durgā as an occultic and frightening deity: she is said to be attended by spirits, she comes to the witch in a cremation ground, dances about in glee, has a corpse re-animated for her sake and sacrificed as an offering to her, and spreads diseases. In this respect, her fearful dimension, which is Durgā’s chief characteristic during her transition from the Vaiṣṇava into the Śaiva, is also the most compelling feature about her Southeast Asian form. I reproduce the legend below from Santiko (1997: 218–19). Briefly, the story is that Calon Arang, a witch-widow from the village of Girah, has a very beautiful daughter named Ratna Manggali. Because Calon Arang is known as a sorceress, no one dares to ask for her daughter’s hand in marriage, which arouses Calon Arang’s anger. In response she orders her disciples to join her in worshipping Durga in the graveyard at midnight, with the aim of killing everyone in the kingdom by spreading an infectious disease. She succeeds, and many of Erlangga’s subjects die. She is finally stopped by Mpu Bharadah, the lord of the yogis who lives in Lemah Tulis … Calon Arang and her disciples worship Durga twice. The first ritual is performed at night. After Calon Arang has ‘read her book’ (read mantras?) she tells her disciples to join her in the (p.95) graveyard to ask for the blessing of bhaṭāri (goddess) Bhagawati (Durga). They perform a dance during which Durga and her entourage appear and join them in the dance. Calon Arang then requests to be allowed to kill the inhabitants of the realm. Durga gives her permission, but reminds Calon Arang not to kill anyone living in the capital. After taking their leave, Calon Arang and her disciples dance and cause a commotion at a crossroads. The next day many people fall ill and die. In the second ritual Calon Arang is even angrier because she has been attacked by the king’s army. She goes to the graveyard at night to wait on the goddess Durga, ordering all her disciples to dance. She brings a corpse back to life, which she ties to a tree and kills again as an offering to the goddess. The goddess Bhagawati appears and grants all of Calon Arang’s requests, after which ever more people become ill and die, the disease spreading even to the center of the capital.

Conclusion I opened this chapter by saying that Nidrā’s entrance into Śaivism was marked by several shifts in the way her character was perceived. Absorbed into a group of relatively minor attendant deities of the divine pair, Śiva and Pārvatī, elevated to the role of their child who leads the gods, then to Pārvatī herself, she gradually ascends in importance within Śaivism and within the classical pantheon of divinities, so much so that early esoteric Śaiva-Śākta tradition absorbs the Vaiṣṇava form of Durgā known as Kālarātri, heightens her magnificently terrible nature and

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Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) transforms this into a bone-adorned Kāpālika goddess whose death-giving aspect is linked to the demise of the universe and thereby to its rebirth. As a consequence of this absorption, her ritual structure in this period was overlaid with elements of Tantric practice linked to the cremation ground intended for specialist seekers requiring initiation that granted access to supernatural powers and lore. In this way Caṇḍikā developed an esoteric identity accessible to a few who had undergone initiation into a specialists’ creed, but this deity, rather than being hidden in closed rituals, was simultaneously worshipped in temple cults by the public at large. What we find reflected in this array of roles in early Śaivism is that Durgā was neither on the Tantric left nor in the centre, but always positioned somewhere in between and that she can shift allegiances. From a dangerous hallucinatory deity within Vaiṣṇavism, she acquires a flexible character in Śaivism that can fit two apparently opposed contexts, the Dharmic and the a-Dharmic, the public and the private (the sphere within which the a-Dharmic could be cultivated ritually). She also acquired a much more central position in Śaivism, since her mythology was developed more thoroughly than that within Vaiṣṇavism, and the result is that the notion of paradox becomes much (p.96) more central to the Śaiva Caṇḍikā, resulting in a potent and awe-inspiring deity who can unite apparent illogicalities. Throughout shifts in her identity, the tendency within Śaivism was to see her as an outsider—as an unwanted aspect of Pārvatī—despite her complicated overlapping with the chief goddess of the Śaiva tradition. Despite her association with Śiva and Pārvatī remaining unclear, she was well known in the period as an independent heroic slayer of demons, among whom Śumbha and Niśumbha and Mahiṣa were renowned from the Gupta and late Gupta periods, as inferable from Subandhu’s writings. I have also argued that the goddess’s capital-creating aspect was heightened in Śaivism and its effect was to enable the Śaiva chaplain to grant the patron-ruler a wider array of power-bestowing rituals for his profit. Navamī, initially a day when the goddess was said to be born, became crucial as one of the occasions when capital could be most profitably accessed from the goddess. However, in essence the goddess’s religious observance on Navamī continued to be regarded as the day for ameliorating crises and dangers. In other words, what we find being developed from the earlier conception of the Vaiṣṇava Durgā and acquiring greater sophistication within Śaiva mythological and ritual domains is the ability of her spiritual repertoire to function as a religion for managing times of state crises. Her place in the creation of kingship and political structure was more elaborately articulated within this tradition. A large part of this had to do with the declining place of Skanda within Śaivism, and Durgā’s absorption of his imperial symbology. Notes: (1) The colour of laughter is said to be white in Sanskrit, hence the joke. (2) A lion. This refers to Viṣṇu as Nṛsiṃha. (3) The demon Hiraṇyakaśipu. (4) Some syllables of the first pāda of the benediction to the goddess were missing in the original inscription and were restored by Diwakar Acharya in a personal communincation to me. The translation was also corrected by him accordingly. As published in Epigraphia Indica the original is: dhātur yā yoganidrā jalana + + +nasyākṛtir viśvayoneḥ kailāsoccāṅkaśṛngapratiniyatam udāvāsino ’rdhāṅkasaktā | (5) Sanderson (2005). (6) Ibid.

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Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) (7) The significance of this work as one of the early testimonials for Mahiṣāsuramardinī was first pointed out by P. Bisschop at the Early Tantra Workshop, Hamburg, 2010. The importance of the passages from the Śāntyadhyāya of the Śivadharma, in which the goddess and Skanda are discussed in the context of Śiva’s retinue, were first pointed out by him. All quotations from the Śivadharma are from his edition. (8) snigdhaśyāmena varṇena mahāmahiṣamardinī | dhanuścakrapraharaṇā khaḍgapaṭṭisadhāriṇī || 22 ātarjanodyatakarā sarvopadravanāśinī | sarvamaṅgalamātā me śivam āśu prayacchatu || 23. (9) The passage on the goddess in this unedited and relatively unknown scripture and its corresponding parallel in the Śivadharma were first indicated to me by Diwakar Acharya in a personal communication. Subsequently, Nirajan Kafle, who is currently working on a critical edition of the first five chapters of the Niśvāsasamukha from Nepalese manuscripts, generously shared portions of his edition along with his translations, and discussed the goddess’s role in the context of this work. I am deeply indebted to him. We await the submission and future publication of his thesis with eagerness. All citations to the Niśvāsamukhatattva are from his draft edition and interpretations of textual parts are also based on his translation. (10) The spelling-yinī is a peculiarity of this passage. (11) Skandapurāṇa, vol. III, 58.2–31. (12) To quote Gray’s translation again, ‘There [in Kusumapura/Pāṭaliputra], too, dwells the revered Kātyāyanī herself, called Vetālā [Caṃḍā is the reading in the Telugu edition and the Srirangam edition], whose lotus feet are caressed by the garlands on the crests of gods and demons; who is the forest fire of the great woods of Śumbha and Niśumbha; who is the adamantine cliff of the mountain of the great demon Mahiṣa; whose lotus feet are bathed by the river of Jahnu’s daughter falling from the matted locks of Him who holds the Ganges subdued by love’, Vāsavadattā, vol. 2 (trans.), p. 77. The Sanskrit is: yatra ca surāsuramaulimālālālitacaraṇāraviṃdā śumbhaniśum-bhamahāsurabalamahāvanadāvānalajvālā mahiṣamahāsuragirivaravajrasāradhārā praṇayakalahapraṇatadharajaṭājūṭakoṭiskhalitajāhnavījaladhārādhautapādapadmā bhagavatī kātyāyanī (caṃḍā) bhidhānā svayaṃ (nivasati). (13) hṛdaye ’pi sthitā patyuḥ patau hṛdayasaṃsthite | sā vai girīndratanayā vimuktāsmīty amanyata || old Skandapurāṇa, vol. III, 59.8. (14) The period is based on N. G. Sardesai and H. Dutt Sharma’s inference regarding Amarasiṃha’s date. One of the reasons they state to support their inference is the fact that Amara precedes the grammarian Candragomin (c. 5th century) (Nāmaliṅgānuśāsana, Introduction: ix–xi.). (15) umā kātyāyanī gaurī kālī haimavatīśvarī | 1.36 śivā bhavānī rudrāṇī śarvāṇī sarvamaṅgalā | 1.37 aparṇā pārvatī durgā mṛḍānī caṇḍikāmbikā | 1.38 āryā dākṣāyaṇī caiva girijā mainakātmajā | 1.39. (16) For the argument concerning Skanda, see Mann (2003; 2007; 2011). (17) In a paper delivered in the Early Tantra Worshop in Hamburg, S. D. Vasudeva discussed the figure of the goddess-oracle called prasīnā/prasenā/prasannā, in a number of early Śaiva sources (and also pratisenā in Buddhist sources), including the Niśvāsaguhya and the Tantrasadbhāva. Page 20 of 22 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) Since this book went into production, I was made aware that Vasudeva has published his findings as ‘Prasenā, Prasīnā and Prasannā: The Evidence of the Niśvāsaguhya and the Tantrasadbhāva’, Cracow Indological Studies, 16 (2014), 10.12797/CC.16.2013.17.X. For further discussion on prasenā see Smith (2006: 421–3). (18) Sanderson (2009: 49). (19) Ibid., p. 52. (20) For other versions of this story see Maho (2007). (21) saṃdhyāruṇā babhūvuś ca kailāsottarasānavaḥ | sūcayanta ivāsannasaṃgrāmarudhirokṣaṇam || āvṛṇot kaṭakaṃ tasya rājño labdhabalaṃ tamaḥ | guhāgṛhaparābhūtivairam ārdram iva smarat || anarcādurmanaḥkālarātrikrodhāṅkurā iva | babhramur bhūtavetālaḍākinīgaṇapheravaḥ || Kathāsaritsāgara, 15.3.94–6. (22) Sarkar (2013). (23) śrutiṃ] corr. Isaacson, śrutīr edn (Kulacūḍāmaṇitantra). (24) Interpreting śruti, which means ‘sacred teaching’, as another word for a bīja, the seed syllable initiating the mantra, was suggested by H. Isaacson. (25) The compound ending in-tāmrāmbudhau is taken as a bahuvrīhi for sthale. This was suggested by H. Isaacson, and his reason for this was that the poet seems to offer the audience of the poem a rather ingenious perspective of the bloody chaotic battlefield from in between the curling horns, at the centre of which is the maṇḍala. (26) Sanderson (2009: 46); Törzsök (2015: 39–40). (27) Törzsök (2015: 38–9). (28) Ibid., p. 40. (29) Ibid., p. 39. (30) Ibid., p. 41. (31) Ibid., pp. 42–3. (32) Törzsök (2015: 41). (33) Ibid., pp. 41–3. (34) EI 9.8. The palaeographical analysis is P. Daya Ram Sahni’s, editor of the inscription (ibid., p. 60). The inscription was first indicated to me by P. D. Szántó. (35) atrābhūt panthanāmā śiśur api vinayavyāpṛto bhadramūrtir tyāgī dhīraḥ kṛtajñaḥ parilaghuvibhavo’ py ātmavṛttyābhituṣṭaḥ | 3ab […] tenānekavidhānadīkṣaṇaśataiḥ saṃsthāpitārthavyayaiḥ caṇḍī caṇḍanarottamāṅagaracitavyālambimālotkaṭā | sarpatsarpaviveṣṭitāṅgaparaśuvyāviddhaśuṣkāmiṣā līlānṛttarucir vilola[nayanā bhavānyāḥ śubhā] || 4 [saṃsthā]pyāpi na tasya [tuṣṭi]r a[bha]vad yāvad bhavānīgṛhaṃ

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Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s Unwanted Self (c. 5th to 7th Century) suśliṣṭāmalasaṃdhibandhaghaṭitaṃ ghaṇṭāninādojjvalam | ramyam dṛṣṭiharaṃ śilā + + + + + + + + + + + [prārūḍha-]dhvajacāmaraṃ sukṛtinā śreyorthinā kāritam || 5 (EI 9.8) (-vyāpṛ to] conj. Sahni,-vyāpaṭo inscr.). An earlier edition of the inscription was published by Hultzsch (1886: 55– 6). The conjectures by Hultzsch are largely supported by Sahni’s reading. Though reading vilolanayanā, Hultszch does not supply bhavānyāḥ śubhā, as Sahni does. (36) For the worship of Durgā as Cāmuṇḍā during the Navarātra of Mithilā see Chapter 7, pp. 242–3. (37) Diwakar Acharya (pers. comm. 18 October 2015). (38) Santiko (1997: 210, 216).

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Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century)

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century) Bihani Sarkar

DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.003.0004

Abstract and Keywords This chapter assesses how Durgā replaced Skanda as a symbol of imperialism as she began to represent local goddesses thought to control land, something Skanda could not. Śaiva mythology employed narrative devices and concepts used to integrate Skanda into its fold to incorporate Durgā and to grant her a critical place within the Śaiva pantheon. This period coincided with the end of the Gupta empire, during which other lineages asserted themselves on the political map. The goddess, now a cohesive deity, began to appear as a political metaphor in their propaganda, replacing Skanda. The Cālukya emperors, for example, begin to prioritize her over their other favoured lineage god, Skanda. Assessing Cālukya era inscriptions, early Śaiva and epic sources, and later liturgies and mythologies of Durgā, this chapter shows how Skanda's decline provided a cultural vacuum after the end of the Gupta period that was filled by Durgā. Symbols of imperialism, such as the restoration of Dharma from the destabilizing effects of adharma, once formerly associated with Skanda in his imperial, demon-slaying form, began to be transplanted to the goddess. Among these symbols, her increased association with the protective goddesses called the Mātṛs, who are portrayed in early literature and material remains as Skanda's family members, had a political effect in increasing the relevance of her autumnal worship in combating communal crises. Safeguarding a community from death-giving dangers such as drought, cataclysms, earthquakes and the onslaught of harmful demons involved worshipping Durgā in the centre of the Mātṛs whose apotropaic function was well established in the religious literature of the day. The ritual sequence of the festival of Navarātra began to be dominated by the worship of these goddesses during the sacred days of Mahāṣṭamī and Mahānavamī. The result is that while Durgā's power in her earlier Gupta conception as Nidrā was connected with nature, particularly the sky, rainfall, stars and clouds, it is gradually represented through a more official array of symbols connected with military kingship, many initially imagined with Skanda, when the transition into Śaivism occurs. While under the Guptas she had been a liminal symbol, her entrance into Śaivism marked her gradual elevation into the centre, a transition that was firmly cemented when this transplantation onto the bedrock of Skanda's cultural conception occurred.

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Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century) Keywords:   Skanda-Mahāsena, Durgā, Cālukyas, Kauśikī, sapta mātṛ

vaktrāṇaṃ viklavaḥ kiṃ vahasi bata rucaṃ skanda ṣaṇṇāṃ viṣaṇām anyāḥ ṣaṇmātaras te bhava bhava sakalas tvaṃ ṣarirārdhalabdhyā | jihmāṃ hanmy adya kālīm iti samam asubhiḥ kaṇṭhato nirgatā gīr girvāṇārer yayecchāmṛdupadamṛditasyādrijā savatād vaḥ || Caṇḍiśataka, 28 ‘Alas, O you agitated Skanda, Why wear a woebegone expression On your faces six?1 Other mothers six Have you!2 O Bhava,3 reunited be With all your parts by gaining half your form,4 Crooked Kali today I slay’—such words Were squeezed from the throat of the Foe of Gods With his breaths as she crushed him at her will With her tender foot—May that Mountain’s Lass protect. We have seen how a relatively unimportant and even feared Vaiṣṇava goddess of hallucination and swoon with a cult centre in the forested Vindhya region grew in popularity, acquiring temples in the capital of the kingdom of Magadha and in a major port of Bengal by the end of the Gupta period. This (p.98) development was linked to the entrepreneurial nature of state formation, propelled by upcoming ambitious lineages, that was challenging the previous hegemonies of empire. We have also seen that she shifted sectarian allegiances during this time, moving from Vaiṣṇavism to Śaivism, by then the dominant religion in South Asia, able to attract the greatest number of donors to support its officiants and institutions. By the 7th century that shift had become fully achieved and a new mythology and conception of her personality had grown. But what circumstance parallel to these transformations enabled Durgā’s importance as a martial goddess whose worship became imperative for rulers above all? The key historical shift forming the background to Nidrā’s attaining pre-eminence as a martial deity was her replacement of the god Skanda as a symbol of the new social order arising at the end of the Gupta period. As argued by Richard Mann in a series of studies, the demon-slaying boy-soldier Skanda had since the Kuṣāṇa period of the 2nd century, and even before that under the Yaudheya kingship in Pakistan, been a greatly popular military deity, appearing on coins and inscriptions from Bactria. But by the end of the Kuṣāṇa period, his once prestigious cult waned as he was appropriated by Śaivism in a subsidiary position as Śiva’s son and a member of his gaṇa-group.5 Already by the Gupta period the military aspect of his cult constitutive of kingship had gone into decline.

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Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century) From the 4th century, the role and function of a war-deity most in demand for royal religious rituals sanctifying political power began to shift, very gradually, to the goddess. Unlike Skanda’s her cult did not decline; rather it went from strength to strength. In the new political map emerging at that period, local goddesses and their cults became important factors in the formation of regional identities. Durgā was their classical self, their link to a transcendent cultural order and language of imperialism. In this world Skanda had little place. Already on the wane, he could not be as powerful a symbol of cohering dichotomies in the way Durgā could. One reason for this was transparent: Durgā was female, Skanda male. The āṭavika world recreating itself at that moment was one where the feminine divine and its resonance with reproductive power, life and nature held a more vital place than it ever did in the theologies in which Skanda was articulated. In this chapter we will see how Skanda’s decline provided a cultural vacuum after the end of the Gupta period that was filled by Durgā. Symbols of imperialism once formerly associated with Skanda began to be transplanted to the goddess. The result is that while Durgā’s power in her earlier Gupta conception as Nidrā was connected with nature, particularly the sky, rainfall, stars and clouds, it is (p.99) gradually represented through a more official array of symbols connected with military kingship, many initially imagined with Skanda, when the transition into Śaivism occurs. While under the Guptas she had been a liminal symbol, her entrance into Śaivism marked her gradual elevation into the centre, a transition that was firmly cemented when this transplantation onto the bedrock of Skanda’s cultural conception occurred.

The Goddess and the Cālukya Emperors The first great entrepreneurial lineage following the Gupta collapse to have worshipped the goddess during their empire-building enterprise was that of the Cālukyas. The process by which Durgā superseded Skanda can be discerned in inscriptions of this southern royal family. In the south of India Skanda and his attendant female deities known as the Mothers (Mātṛs) appear to have been connected to royal power from an early period, for they are invoked in Kadamba inscriptions as divine protectors. The Vaijayantī (Bānavasī) line (c. 4th to 6th centuries) of the Kadamba family commonly describes itself as having been ‘consecrated and favoured by the Seven Mothers and Skanda’ in copperplates formalizing land-grants to brāhmaṇas.6 Their evocation of the Mātṛs with Skanda suggests that this pairing was very much in vogue. This particular collocation, with almost the same terminology, reappears in the inscriptions of their successors the Cālukyas, along with prestigious lineage-designations traditionally used by the Kadambas, such as the religious title Hāritīputra7 and the patronymic ‘Mānavyasagotra’.8 The Cālukyas were perhaps modelling themselves on the Kadambas and adopting (p.100) their affiliations to dignify their social status, as many clans with political ambitions in medieval India did. However, to the traditional set of two deities the Cālukyas added a third member, Kauśikī: as we have seen, an epithet of Durgā going back to the Harivaṃ śa and the old Skandapurāṇa. This shows that the Cālukyas were now officially naming the goddess along with the other deities as a source of royal authority. This group is consistently invoked by the Bādāmi Cālukyas (550–753) in the majority of their inscriptions, beginning with a very early one issued by Pulakeśin II in 630.9 Here, the Cālukyas claim to have been ‘caused to flourish by Kauśikī’, immediately following this with a claim to ‘have been consecrated to kingship’ by the Seven Mothers and then to have been ‘favoured by the Lord Mahāsena’, the latter two compounds echoing the Kadambas.10 In later inscriptions the Cālukyas expand on Kauśikī’s importance: while describing themselves in the traditional manner as being ‘protected by the Seven Mothers’, they add that they had ‘obtained their kingdom by the grace of Kauśikī’s favour’ (kauśikīvaraprasādalabdharājyāṇām), a variation appearing for instance in grants issued by the Veṅgi Cālukya Vijayasiddhi/Mangi Yuvarāja (682–706), by Amma I (918–25), and also in a Page 3 of 15 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century) copperplate grant of the Western Cālukya sovereign Satyāśraya (999–1008).11 The use of the epithet describing Kauśikī as the principal granter of Cālukyan royal power in Satyāśraya’s grant, which was issued from the western line of the family at Kalyāṇi, indicates that it was a formula used not just by the Bādāmi and the Veṅgi branch, but faithfully evoked by the Cālukyas at all the main seats of their empire. The epithet is slightly different in the western inscription. Rather than a kingdom, it says that the clan ‘obtained such royal emblems as a white umbrella through the grace of Kauśikī’ (kauśikivaraprasādalabdhaśvetātapatrādirājyacihnānām).12 One of the inscriptions issued by Mallapadeva in 1046 details what the imperial emblems granted by Kauśikī to the Western Cālukya line were. These included.a white umbrella (śvetātapatra), a conch shell (śaṅkha), musical instruments that produced the five ‘Mighty Sounds’ (pañcamahāśabda), a row of flags (p.101) (pāliketana), a crest emblazoned with Viṣṇu’s Boar incarnation (vārāhalāñchana), a lance with a peacock-tail (picchakunta), the lionthrone (siṃhāsana), a gateway in the shape of a makara (makaratoraṇa), a gold club (kanakadaṇḍa), and the Gaṅgā and Yamunā rivers.13 In this way, the role of Kauśikī in granting the substances of power in the form of either a kingdom or imperial signage acquires greater visibility in the later inscriptions of the Cālukyas, demonstrating that, wherever they migrated, they legitimized their political rise by invoking this goddess. The Cālukyas had continued the traditional devotion towards the cult of Skanda exhibited by the earlier Kadambas in their inscriptions. However, adding Kauśikī to the older group of Skanda and the sapta mātṛs in so many of their inscriptions and expanding in later inscriptions the ways whereby she was thought to help them succeed, shows that the Cālukyas began to increase their devotion to Kauśikī as time went by and that within the established group she grew to be the more important deity.

The Testimonia of Mythology We can also track the process whereby the shift from Skanda to Durgā occurred in early Śaiva mythology. What makes the shift even more interesting is that initially Śaiva myth-makers used similar mythological techniques to absorb the goddess, as they did with Skanda. Like Skanda when he was absorbed in Ś aivism, Durgā too was portrayed in very early Ś aiva mythology as Śiva’s child, as seen in the previous chapter, who like Skanda is a youthful warrior enthroned by Indra in a consecration ritual attended by all the gods. Immediately after this she slays Mahiṣa, just like Skanda. Of course, her role as Śiva’s child was later forgotten. But this similarity in the early myths demonstrates that during the initial period of her absorption in Śaivism, while her status was still developing and distinctions with her older identity of Nidrā were being worked out, her mythology developed along a similar model to Skanda’s, presumably because her conception lacked a specific form of its own within Śaivism. This is despite the fact that in origin Durgā was a vastly different deity to Skanda, associated as she was with sleep and death (through sleep) rather than the affliction of progeny, which, as argued by Richard Mann, was one of Skanda’s early domains as reflected in Āyurveda. But by the time of the Cālukya inscriptions— the time her supersession of Skanda was complete—that similarity had clearly come to an end, as she had acquired an independent and superior status to the old war-god, and began to be (p. 102) considered his mother in her aspect as Pārvatī (as reflected in the opening verse of the Caṇḍiśataka). In the Āraṇyakaparvan of the Mahābhārata (Book 3 of the critical edition), what is arguably the oldest detailed description of Skanda’s birth and rise to power is given. He is shown as a potentially anarchic god who, despite being a mere stripling-warrior and in spite of his contested and various parentage (Agni’s son in the beginning, laid claim to by the Mothers, then made into Śiva’s heir later on), challenges Dharmic order and Indra’s sovereignty. On his eventual acceptance by the Brahmanical order and his formal adoption by Śiva and Pārvatī, a Page 4 of 15 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century) transformation occurs in the plot—Skanda loses his threatening status as an outsider as Indra joyously consecrates him in a grand ritual of unction (abhiṣeka) to the generalship of the heavenly army (Mahābhārata, 3.216–3.217.25). After this Skanda slays the buffalo-demon Mahiṣa, the first deed (prathamam. … karma) that distinguishes Skanda’s military proficiency after he is sanctified Emperor, and the text presents the death of the buffalo-demon as his signature feat (Mahābhārata, 3.221.76), devoting a lengthy fifty-one verses to its description. In both the Āraṇyakaparvan and the old Skandapurāṇa, a much later work than the Āraṇyakaparvan, the consecration ceremony of Skanda and Durg.ā is similarly evoked. Firstly, it occurs just after Śiva and Pārvatī acknowledge them as their children. Secondly, it is built up and focused on as a solemn and sacred occasion creating a new image of rulership and political order, signifying momentous change from the days of Indra, attended by all the gods and divine beings, marked by chants and the raining of flowers. Skanda’s imagery is described in terms of ornate official Indian kingship. He is seated on an exquisite throne (āsanā); he undergoes the abhiṣeka by being sprinkled with holy water surrounded by all the gods; he bears a resplendent golden parasol (chattra) and a pennant (ketu) emblazoned with the sign of the Cockerel; he is attended by the Rājyasṣri (śriyā juṣṭam); and, as befitting the offspring of Fire, is luminescent, arrayed in armour and vestments of red, ‘flashing fiery red like the inferno ending the aeon’ (bhāti kālāgnir iva lohitaḥ).14 Let us recall (p.103) that similar imagery is applied to Durgā in Śaiva mythology. Like Skanda, she is shown to undergo the unction only once her parents have accepted her as heir-apparent, being anointed with water poured from vases, while paid obeisance by all the gods, notably Indra whose servitude is emphasized; she is depicted at great length, as he is, with the paraphernalia of paradigmatic kingship—seated in full glory on a magnificent chariot or on a jewelled throne (Skandapurāṇa III.67.50–2), surmounted by the royal parasol held in Indra’s hands (ibid., 67.65cd) and surrounded by other royal insignia such as crests and pennants (ibid., 67.49–52). Immediately after the consecration, the war with the buffalo-demon Mahiṣa forms the first act of the goddess’s kingship. Rather than their disruptive qualities, the deities’ representation of order and harmonious resplendence as new rulers is emphasized. Let us also recall that the Harivaṃ śa does not portray her within the setting of official kingship in this way, for there she is a sinister deity hovering on the periphery. The culmination of crisis, empire, civilization and triumph within the goddess is a new feature appearing in Śaivism. Versions of the legends also contain an additional episode shortly following the consecration of the two gods, where they are ceremonially honoured with a large number of weapons, ornaments and other gifts by the gods. In the Āraṇyakaparvan story of Skanda, Viśvakarman is said to have.made him a necklace while Agni gives him the Cockerel pennant. Elsewhere in the Mahābhārata (9.45.41–7) the scene is described in greater detail—each god from Ś iva, to Viṣṇu, to the lesser Gaṇgā and Varuṇa, gifts him some weapon—while other versions of Skanda’s tale similarly narrate this episode at great length. Śiva, Viṣṇu, the Sun, the Moon and the Aśvins n.are said to have granted him pramathas to form his armies, while Garuḍa gave him his peacock, Aruṇa a trident, Bṛhaspati a club, Indra a pearl necklace, Pārvatī vestments, and so forth.15 In the goddess’s case, we are told in the old Skandapurāṇa that Viśvakarman built a hall and n.a throne for her sake. But other renderings such as the Devīmāhātmya devote more attention to the episode of the goddess being granted weapons and ornaments by the gods.16 This sequence is in fact common to the majority of myths about Skanda and Caṇḍikā, getting inflated in what are clearly later versions, as more and more beneficences from other magnanimous deities are catalogued. In both narrative traditions, it serves in extending the heroic imagery of the abhiṣeka and (p.104) honouring in a fitting manner, through the giving of Page 5 of 15 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century) gifts by subordinates, Skanda’s and Durgā’s assumption of power. The most sacred conceptions concerning Indian warrior culture—endowment with divine particles through the unction and being honoured through gifts—thereby crystallize around these two deities. Evidently, Śaiva myth-makers cast the mythology of the goddess in terms of the imagery and function of Skanda’s mythological conception. The effect is that the goddess’s symbolism of rulership, sparser in early Vaiṣṇava mythology, is amplified in the Śaiva tradition once it is made consonant with that of Skanda’s. We have also observed how, in the early mythology of the old Skandapurāṇa, Durgā is shown accompanied by many thousands of anthropomorphic female divinities simply called ‘women’. None of these, though, are identified as the Mothers (Mātṛs). The Mothers, with whom Skanda is traditionally grouped, appearing even in inscriptions, as we have seen, because according to legend he is their adopted son, are not specifically linked to Durgā at the early stage represented in the old Skandapurāṇa. However, in later mythology a part of Durgā’s female retinue is indeed identified as the Seven Mothers, who acquire substantial roles in her later legends and even in her ritual formats, as we shall see in our discussion of the Navarātra. They became inalienably connected to Durgā in her later mythological and ritual history, even as their original association with Skanda began to diminish. Once again this process of transference and taking over can be tracked. Some descriptions of the Mātr.s with the goddess in her early mythology seem to have been derived from original descriptions of Skanda. In the old Skandapurāṇa, the legend of Skanda’s consecration and giftgiving (chapter 164 of Bhattarai’s edition) includes a scene where Kauśikī gifts him Mātṛs born from her body during her battle with demons (ibid., 164.142 ff.). Yuko Yokochi identified the list of the Mātṛs associated with Kauśikī in that passage to be coextensive (with a few exceptions) with another list of the Mātṛs in the Mahābhārata (9.45.3–39) describing Skanda’s attendance by them during his royal unction.17 She concluded that the old Skandapurāṇa had borrowed this passage on the goddess’s Mātṛs from that particular section of the Mahābhārata. In this regard it is interesting to note that certain members described in the epics and medical literature as belonging to Skanda’s comitatus, such as Saramā, Revatī, Pūtanā and Ṣaṣṭhī,18 whose companionship with Skanda is represented in official testimonia and early literature, (p.105) filter through into the early layers of Durgā’s legend in the old Skandapurāṇa,19 in which they are shown as the goddess’s accomplices. Among them, Ṣaṣṭhi’s pairing with Skanda, for instance, enjoyed royal recognition at a very early period, for she appears as a six-headed female in coinage and art from the ancient Yaudheya kingship (in Punjab and Rajasthan) and the Kuṣāṇa empire, in association with Skanda.20 But more than congruences in textual transmission, the conceptual overlaps with Skanda’s companions are what are truly compelling. In this case, we are looking not just at the Mātṛs, who are a specific set, but at a larger, much more amorphous, cluster including the Mothers that is said to circle the two gods in the Mahābhārata and the old Skandapurāṇa. In Skanda’s literature they include Skanda’s twin Viśakha, possessive divinities called grahas (graspers/ planets), youths (kumāras) and maidens (kumārīs), and in Durgā’s literature they can include female beings called yoginīs, pot-bellied, hell-raising pramathas and even headless trunks. These other members of the retinue, collectively called the pariṣad in Skanda’s case and an āvaraṇa in Durgā’s case, can be anthropomorphic (as we have already seen in Durgā’s myths), capricious, free-willed, both benevolent and dangerous, beautiful and ugly, paradoxes that are the sources of their great powers. Their ferocity can be overwhelming: Skanda’s and Durgā’s tales depict orgiastic scenes of blood-lust and mayhem, where they are described as ravenously feasting on

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Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century) the carcasses of the demons after the battle. Most importantly, they are said to be born in the same way: springing, or rather exiting, to life from the bodies of Skanda and Caṇḍikā, in a manner that suggests the immanence of their characteristics in their divine leaders. Just as they are spawned from Skanda’s body (the compound used to describe them is skandasaṃbhavāḥ), they leap forth, in the early strata of the Durgā-myths in the old Skandapurāṇa, from the goddess’s limbs, proliferating with the astonishing energy of a multiplying cell. As a result, the immediate impression created by their battle-descriptions is of continual and confusing metamorphosis, in which forms divine and demonic, animal and human, shift and merge into one another, so that it becomes difficult to distinguish not just godly armies from asura-forces, but also the two war-gods from demons. As the deadly Viśakha jumps out from a wound inflicted on Skanda’s right side by Indra (Mahābhārata, 3.216.10–14) or the graha Skandāpasmāra leaves his body ever hungry for human prey (ibid., 3.219.25), so too Caṇḍika’s fearsome retinue in the old Skandapurāṇa magically effuse from her limbs (gātrebhyaḥ). They are therefore, as we here recall, described as dehasambhavāḥ (Skandapurāṇa, III.68.1b), ‘born from (p.106) [her] body’, which almost mirrors the term used for Skanda’s friends, skandasambhavāḥ. Judging by the many versions of Caṇḍikā’s battle-scenes preserving the trope of the birth of some other self through oneself, the consanguinity of the accomplices and their divine ‘Source’ was essential to their, and the goddess’s, conceptualization, despite their infernal propensities. In this way this image of birth is of unity as well as of separation, of demon and god merged into one. For example, in the Vāmanapurāṇa, Brahmāṇī and Māheśvarī are said to have emerged from Caṇḍika’s mouth, Kaumārī from her throat, Vaiṣṇavī from her arms, Vārāhī from her back, Māhendrī from her breasts, Nārasiṃhī from her chest, as also are two fearsome goddesses other than these Seven Mothers—Caṇḍamārī from her sheath and Kali from her forehead.21 Towards the end of the Devīmāhātmya there is a scene where these goddesses are reabsorbed into Caṇḍikā’s being,22 demonstrating thereby that the conception of them as dehasambhavāh clearly underlay their description also in this later work. Other versions of the legend even describe some of the attendants as having risen from her bellowing laughter, or through her sighs—in the Devīmāhātmya and the Vāmanapurāṇa one may find these intriguing episodes in the Mahiṣa legend, during which animal-headed hordes called her gaṇas are generated from the goddess’s fiery breath (Devīmāhātmya, 2.51–3) or from her laughter Vāmanapurāṇa, 21.18–22), singing and carousing in mad glee as they destroy the Asuras. While she and Skanda himself remain comparatively unthreatening, and perhaps this is a deliberate strategy, their potential for anarchy is transferred (or perhaps safely diverted?) to these bodily exudations, and is represented visually through their animal features. When these beings appear, both deities license them to carry forth unchecked carnage, that, on their own, they are seldom shown to indulge in (indeed, on their own they represent an antithetical aspect—the ethical Dharmic sovereign). Their narratives once these accomplices appear transform into more ambiguous tales in which the divine protagonists are portrayed as being more vicious and deadly than their demonic enemies. However dangerous, and perhaps precisely on account of it (for the greater the danger and risk in these deities, the greater the potential for power and rewards), the mythological tradition of the goddess evidently saw her companions as integral to her portrayal. For, as stated previously, they appear consistently in all her Purāṇic legends. The interplay between symbols of propriety (Dharmic rulership) and impropriety (p.107) Table 2. Common plot elements between the early myths of Skanda and Durgā.

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Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century)

Skanda: Āraṇyakaparvan (4th cent. BCE–1st cent. CE)

Kauśikī: old Skandapurāṇa (c. 6th cent.)

Birth of Śiva’s offspring, the young warrior (3.2.12–221)

Birth of Śiva’s offspring, the young warrior (58.2–31)

Association with the Mothers, who adopt him as their son (3.215.16–20) The first war: contest with Indra (3.215.15; 3.216– The first war: contest with Śumbha17) Niśumbha (64.1–66.27) Skanda generates the comitatus (3.216.10–3.217)

Kauśikī generates the comitatus (64.19– 29)

Consecration by Indra and all the gods (3.218.1– 25)

Blessing by Śiva and Pārvatī (67.19–34)

Blessing by Śiva and Pārvatī (3.218.25c; 3.220.8– 221.1)

Consecration by Indra and all the gods (67.41–70)

Bestowal of Devasenā as consort; Devasenā identified with Ṣaṣṭhī (3.218.47c) Skanda assigns the comitatus their duties

Kauśikī assigns the comitatus their duties

Skanda produces the Grahas to be worshipped by the Skandayāga The first act of kingship: war with Mahiṣa (3.221.50–80)

The first act of kingship: war with Mahiṣa (69.10–21)

(demonic attributes) within the conceptions of Skanda and Durgā results in the central place of paradox, tension, dialectic and ambivalence in the two deities’ portrayals in Ś aiva mythology. In fact the eruption of both deities’ chaotic and frightening propensities, even when they are remodelled as dignified emblems of rulership, is an implicit reflection of their historical roots in popular cults of propitiation, in Nidrā’s case in a cult that controlled temperamental elemental calamities and the dangers of the night. Table 2 shows the parallels in certain mythological components—authorization through adoption and consecration, the subservience of Indra, the position of Mahiṣa’s slaying after the unction, the accompaniment by the Mātṛs and ferocious divinities—which were initially closely associated with Skanda and grew in later times to become inextricably associated with the goddess, demonstrating thereby how she took over Skanda’s mythic conception as his own importance in society as a war-god dwindled. While in the earliest Vaiṣṇava mythology Durgā’s militarism is not sharply drawn—she is, as we recall, a goddess of death manifesting herself with rowdy ghosts in the sky—in later mythology her aspect as the warrior-leader of the heavens in command of an army is portrayed in detail, mimicking scenes such as the royal unction from Skanda’s conception of regality. In other words, she seems (p.108) to have taken over the militarized or official aspect of her character from Skanda. The fact that Indra is said to have made them rulers forms, in my view, the most significant parallel between Skanda and Durgā in their character as the Ruler of Heaven, because it narrativizes a historical process. The descriptions of both deities in their early sources emphasize Indra’s subordination to them—whereas in the Mahabharata Indra engages with Skanda in a competitive battle after which he hands over power to the new warrior, in the Skandapurāṇa he is shown to carry Kauśikī’s chatra, in a gesture of servitude. Through these features of battle and subordination both narratives envisage Skanda and Durgā in the same Page 8 of 15 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century) way—as Indra’s young successor heralding a new order and age in heaven. Their reign, blessed by Indra himself in both traditions, signals a break with the past and the onset of a new religion of kingship. The legend of Indra passing the baton, as it were, to these deities represents two critical transitions in the religious life sanctifying Indian politics: the fading of the old Vedic god of heroic power and his cult and his replacement by newer deities and their mythologies, first by Skanda, then by Durgā, as the key symbols constituting rulership. This indeed is marked in the Skanda legend in the Mahabharata: Skanda and Indra are hostile towards each other in the beginning of the former’s tale, and the ensuing battle between them is profoundly suggestive of a real contest of religion, before they both acknowledge each other’s power, and Indra voluntarily ‘resigns’. Neither is animosity expressed towards Durgā, nor contestation of her sovereignty and, rather than an equal contestor, Indra is a figure of authorization in her legends, demonstrating thereby that, in contrast to his role in Skanda’s conceptions, his symbolic impact had greatly diminished by the time of the legend showing the goddess taking on the role of universal ruler. Nevertheless, the fact that it was necessary to envisage him passing his supremacy on to the goddess indicates the importance of the most traditionally classical symbol of divine kingship, sanctifying—and reinforcing—her as his mythological successor, the new sovereign and champion constituting the substance of royal power. Concerning the Mātṛs, the function they enhance when associated with the goddess is her ability to protect civic spaces, particularly its boundaries, from impending crises. It is particularly in rituals of the Navarātra that were developed to ward away sickness and natural disasters that the Mātṛs are worshipped, along with Durgā, to enhance such protection. This occurs during the āvaraṇapūjā, the worship of Durgā’s circuit of female divinities, among whom the Mātṛs are enumerated. Like Skanda’s pariṣad (assembly), formed also of the Mātṛs, the worship of Caṇḍikā’s āvaraṇa during the sacred day of Mahāṣṭamī is taught to sanctify dangerous crossroads, market-places, (p.109) crowded urban areas and the entrances to a city, all of which they are supposed to haunt.23 It is clear that the greater association of Durgā with the Mātṛs in later times resulted in strengthening the ability of her cult to serve as a religion managing crisis. In fact the reason why their link with Skanda diminished while that with Durgā strengthened appears likely to have been because the goddess’s cult served more and more in the management of crises, an area with special resonance for the Mātṛs, from the late Gupta period. This meant that from being ‘possessors’ (grahas) in Skanda’s tradition, these goddesses are militarized in Caṇḍikā’s mythology, and attributed with the function of protecting kingdoms. For instance, in the old Skandapurāṇa myth of Kauśikī, Ṣaṣṭhī’s role is combative, rather than possessive, and nowhere is she mentioned as six-headed, as depicted in Yaudheya coinage, further indicating that she had departed in many respects from her original conception as an afflictive planetary ‘possessor’. As a member of Durgā’s comitatus, she is primarily a warrior, shown to engage in fierce combat with a demon called Meghasvana with bow and arrow (Skandapurāṇa, III.65.30), and after the battle is awarded vassalage over the lands of Kāśmīra (ibid., 68.6a). With Saramā, there is still an overlap discernible with her primary conception as Skanda’s attendant, for in both versions (Skanda: Mahabharata, 3.219.33; Caṇḍikā-Kauśikī: Skandapurāṇa, III.64.24) she is envisaged leading packs of dogs. However, whereas in the Mahābhārata she is both a warrior and a killer of foetuses, with Durgā she loses the latter aspect and is a deity with a solely martial function. She is said to have fought the demon Mura (Skandapurāṇa, III.65.22, 65.54) with bow, arrow and sword, and in the end Kauśikī assigns her the vassalage of Malaya to govern (ibid., 68.6). In Skanda’s mythology in the Mahābhārata,24 Pūtanā and Revatī are also, like Saramā, described as deities of possession who afflict men and Page 9 of 15 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century) children, but in Caṇḍikā’s literature it is, once again, their military capacity that is highlighted. The old Skandapurāṇa envisages Revatī as having participated in the battle with Sumbha and Nisumbha and then assigned the kingship of Gokarṇa (Skandapurāṇa, III.68.3a), while Pūtanā is given the lands of Suvīra (ibid., 68.7a) to rule. Rather than deities associated with maladies, particularly the death of children in Skanda’s legends, the female accomplice-goddesses of Durgā’s literature are seen to cause the auspicious outcome of warfare and protect the civic domain, especially crowded places, when properly gratified through ritual, as reflected by Śākta Purāṇas such as the influential Eastern Devīpurāṇa, 90.5–7, which advises that: (p.110) In either a city, a village, a town or an agricultural community, the Mothers must be worshipped by those wishing immediate and other-worldly rewards … Propitiated in a household, at a crossroads or at the edge of a market-place, they grant wealth and sons; when [installed] before the eastern and other gates of a city, they grant prosperity, contentment in a kingdom and wealth.25 The same work, in a chapter entitled ‘Pacifying All Calamities’, further ordains placating the Mothers in every home during times of uncontrollable disasters affecting a kingdom, such as forest fires and earthquakes, the visitation of omens (malevolent planets, comets in the sky, a river changing course) and so on (Devīpurāṇa, 55.8).26 These functions are also attributed to them in ritual guides teaching ceremonies of the Navarātra. In rites on Mahāṣṭamī and Mahānavamī, Caṇḍikā and the yoginīs and Mātṛs are supposed to be worshipped collectively, apart from the āvaraṇapūjā, during the ‘Worship of Weapons’ (astrapūjā), and the ‘Worship at Midnight’ (ardharātrapūjā)—all dealt with later in this book—for empowering the king and army and averting inauspiciousness from communities (for these rites see pp. 251–3).

Afterword: The Misleading Mystery of Mahiṣa I would like to end this chapter with a relevant digression concerning Durgā’s arch-nemesis Mahiṣa, who as we have noticed appears sometimes in Skanda’s mythology. In the initial stage of my foray into the subject of the connection between Skanda and Durgā, I stumbled upon a curiosity in the Vāmanapurāṇa. While reading her legends in a number of Purāṇic sources, I found that immediately after Caṇḍikā is shown to triumph over the mighty buffalo-demon Mahiṣa (hence assuming her famous epithet Mahiṣāsuramardinī), he is killed again by Śiva’s son, the great hero Skanda-Mahāsena. The redactors of the Purāṇa had chosen not to explain the wonderful narrative absurdity implicit in this sequence: if the goddess had put Mahiṣa to death (and presumably for good), (p.111) then why the need for a second killing? If one were to place oneself in the position of the medieval bard narrating these tales, or that of an audience listening to his recitation of the work, one could doubtless explain this anomaly as perfectly natural and justified (the marvellous, the supra-logical, nature of the divine, could form one explanation, Mahiṣa’s rebirth another, and so forth). However, from a historian’s perspective, it was clear that two versions of the same myth, one with Skanda, another with Caṇḍikā, were known to the redactors, who had cobbled them together in one source. This, then, provided the impetus for a broader inquiry into connections between the two, and for a while I nursed the hypothesis that Durgā had in fact borrowed the legend of Mahiṣa from Skanda. I now think that, although at the time Durgā was being absorbed in Śaivism, she did in fact evolve in Śaiva mythology in a similar way to Skanda, she did not borrow Mahiṣa’s mythology from Skanda, although the topos of its appearance after the goddess’s unction and its constitution of the goddess’s first heroic task may have been borrowed. This is because Skanda’s legend with Mahiṣa is accidental rather than usual, and the goddess’s association with Mahiṣa was firmly established as far back as the Kuṣaṇa period. The parallel example of the demon Andhaka, who Page 10 of 15 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century) is slain by both Śiva and Cāmuṇḍā, tells us that it was not unusual for the.legendary traditions of India to show one demon being slain multiple times by different gods. Below I offer a more detailed examination. That both deities kill Mahiṣa was noticed previously by two other scholars, Doris Meth Srinivasan in 1997 and Renate Sohnen-Thieme in 2002. Examining the earliest icons of the buffalo-slaying goddess from the Kuṣāṇa period, Srinivasan, an art historian, was drawn to the conclusion that the legend underlying these sculptures (of which we have no written witness) had been influenced by Skanda’s early mythology, as exemplified by the account of him killing Mahiṣa in the Āraṇyakaparvan of the Mahābhārata.27 She was further led to speculate that ‘the Goddess did more than borrow Skanda/Kārttikeya’s story’, going on to suggest that Skanda’s six arms had influenced the number of arms in the goddess’s iconography from the early Kuṣāṇa period.28 However, her supposition that Skanda’s Āraṇyakaparvan tale pre-dates the Mathurā Mahiṣāsuramardini sculptures can be questioned. While it is true that the Āraṇyakaparvan.is named in the oldest parvan list in the Spitzer manuscript,29 a Kuṣāṇa-era palm-leaf, and is considered to contain much ancient material dating perhaps to the 4th century BCE–1st century CE,30 (p.112) there remains the possibility that the tale of Skanda killing Mahiṣa was added later to it, after the period of the goddess-images from Mathurā. On the other hand, a sculpture of a defaced god in Kuṣāṇa attire spearing a buffalo (now kept in Peshawar) has recently come to light, which some scholars take to be Skanda killing Mahiṣa:31 this would suggest that Skanda ‘Mahiṣamardin’ was known in Kuṣāṇa times (c. 127–93 CE), as Srinivasan assumes. The problem is that with no other similar, fully preserved statues, and the face hewn away, we cannot ascertain if the icon represents a god or a goddess. In the absence of greater textual and artistic representations of Skanda as ‘Mahiṣamardin’, Srinivasan’s suggestion that the tale of Mahiṣāsuramardinī was borrowed from Skanda’s legendary tradition, though plausible, cannot yet be proven. However, her observation that an affinity exists between Skanda and Mahiṣāsuramardinī is, I believe, correct, and formed in some part the spur for the present discussion. A similar observation was made by Sohnen-Thieme, a textual historian. While not concluding that the Mahiṣāsuramardinī myth had been borrowed from Skanda’s mythology, she noticed that her buffalo-demon-slaying legend in the Devīmāhātmya was extremely similar to Skanda’s Āraṇyakaparvan story as ‘Mahiṣamardin’, and asked: ‘Is this [i.e. the parallelism] a mere coincidence, or is there some interdependence between the texts? Has the Mbh [Mahābhārata] influenced the DM [Devīmāhātmya], or have earlier versions of the Mahiṣāsuramardinī myth (as documented in Indian art) been the basis for the Mbh account?’32 What these scholars, and myself excited by their suggestiveness, overlooked is that Skanda’s legend as the slayer of Mahiṣa was rather the exception than the norm. It appears in expansive form in just two sources, namely the Āranyakaparvan of the Mahābhārata, 3.221.29..n–80 and the Vāmanapurāṇa, 22.8–19. However, it is important to note that stray references are also to be found in the old Skandapurāṇa. In one, Skanda is said to have caused ‘the death of the buffalo as well as the destruction of Tāraka’;33 in another compound he is said to have ‘stolen the black collyrium lining the eyes of the demon Mahiṣa’s wives [by making them weep]’,34 and in another he is (p.113) described as the ‘slayer of Mahiṣa’.35 However, a full narrative is not given explaining the story underlying these compounds, nor are similar compounds found in contemporary works, which suggests that, even if acknowledged, the story that he had slain Mahiṣa was not widely known.

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Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century) By and large, Indian mythology viewed Tāraka to be Skanda’s arch-nemesis, whose defeat forms the carita or deed defining Skanda’s heroism. Majestically expounded in Chapter 165 (Bhattarai’s edition),36 Tāraka’s killing forms Skanda’s ‘first act’ of anointed generalship in the old Skandapurāṇa. In fact, most Śaivite dramatizations of Skanda’s birth such as Kālidāsa’s Kumārasambhava similarly understand him to be the slayer-to-be of Tāraka. The obscurity of ‘Mahiṣamardin’ is further reflected in the Nāmalingānuśāsana, which nowhere among its list of names for Skanda acknowledges any epithet with Mahiṣa, though Tārakajit and Krauñcadāraṇa..are catalogued (Nāmalingānuśasanam, 1.40).

Conclusion The decline of Skanda’s cult provided the historical transformation that most energized the growth of Durgā’s popularity as a goddess favoured by prestigious Indian heroic lineages for their worship, who controlled not just war but all situations, such as natural disasters, in which death could occur. This change in fact spurred the heroic cult of the goddess-as-sovereignprotector, a role that would eclipse by far her earlier understanding as a deity of sleep and swooning. We have seen that the Southern Cālukyas were the first major Indian lineage to start worshipping Durgā and that they increased their devotion to her even as their veneration of their traditional family deity, Skanda-Mahasena, waned. They remained devoted to the goddess, the patroness of their political powers, for generations. We have also seen that Durgā’s rise to Skanda’s status was marked in mythology by her increased association with mythological elements initially closely connected to his worship. Among these, I have suggested that her increased association with the protective goddesses called the Mātr.s, who are portrayed in early literature and material remains as Skanda’s family members, served a political purpose in increasing the effectiveness of her autumnal worship in combating communal crises. Safeguarding a community from death-giving dangers such as drought, cataclysms, earthquakes and the onslaught of harmful demons involved worshipping Durgā in the centre of the Mātr.s, whose apotropaic function was well established in religious literature of the day. Public (p.114) performances of such protective rites enforced a ruler’s role as a conduit for a community’s well-being. As a result the ritual sequence of the festival of Navarātra began to be dominated by the worship of these goddesses during the sacred days of Mahāṣṭamī and Mahānavamī. As time went by, their connection with the goddess grew more entrenched, affirmed as it was every year during large-scale and lavish Navarātra festivals sponsored by rulers. By the 7th century, Durgā had fully taken over the position formerly occupied by Skanda, as her religion came to be viewed as a religion of crisis that a kingdom and a good ruler did well to adopt and faithfully practise every year. Civilization depended on her propitiation. Notes: (1) Skanda is said to have six faces which, according to legend, emerged in order to gaze upon each of his six mothers, the Pleiades. (2) According to legend, Skanda was nursed in infancy by the Six Pleiades, the Kṛttikās, whence his name Kārttikeya, son of the Pleiades. They claimed to be his true mothers. However, the later, more dominant, legend reflected in this verse treated Parvati and Ś iva as his real parents. (3) Śiva. (4) The other half of Śiva’s body is his consort the goddess. (5) These developments are argued by Mann (2003; 2007; 2011) with reference to the popularity of Skanda in north India, the ‘afterlife’ of which I here develop. Page 12 of 15 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century) (6) See, for example, a copperplate of Māndhātṛvarman (Epigraphia Carnatica 7.1: 91) (svāmimahāsenamātṛgaṇānudhyātābhiṣiktaḥ) and a copperplate.of Mṛgeśavarman (Epigraphia Carnatica 4.2: 136) (svāmimahāsenamatṛganānudhyātābhiṣiktasya). (7) Found in many early inscriptions, the epithet beginning with a gotra-designation and ending in-putra (for example Gautamīputra, Kauśīkīputra, Vāśiṣṭhīputra etc.) has been traditionally interpreted as a matronymic (Gautamīputra, for example, is conventionally translated as ‘son of a mother who is of the Gautama gotra). According to Sarma (1981), this is a false interpretation. Building on Bühler’s observation, he explains that the gotra-designation refers to the gotra of the royal chaplain, by whose blessing the kings of the lineage were believed to have been born. The epithet is a religious title, or a ṛṣi surname, honouring the priest (referring to his lineage)—‘the so-called matronymics do not indicate any gotra but simply customary surnames resulting out of devotion to the sages by the parents seeking male progeny’ (72). Sarma notices that such-putra epithets were first adopted by foreign clans the Śakas and the Kuṣāṇa rulers, or clans of a mixed descent, in order to upgrade and legitimize their social status through respected priestly connections. Following his understanding, the name Hāritīputra would imply ‘son of the seer Hārita’. (8) Both of these honorifics can be traced back to an inscription of the Sātavāhana Hāritīputra Sātakarṇ ī, who ruled Vaijayantī before the Kadambas—see the inscription of Hāritīputra Sātakarṇ ī etched on a pillar found in Maḷḷavaḷḷī (Epigraphia Carnatica VII.1: 251). (9) EI 27.39, l. 5. The reference was given to me by Alexis Sanderson. (10) The Sanskrit compound svāmimahāsenapādānudhyātānāṃwould traditionally be translated as ‘of those who had meditated on the feet of the Lord Mahāsena’. However, as demonstrated by Törzsök & Ferrier (2008), the phrase pādānudhyāta as it is used in inscriptions originally meant ‘favoured or blessed by the respected’, where pāda conveyed an honorific. (11) kauśikīvaraprasādalabdharājyāṇāṃ mātṛgaṇaparipālitānām (undated grant of Vijayasiddhi/ Maṅgi Yuvarāja published by Csaba Dezsö online at http://avacurika.wordpress.com, accessed 30.10.2010, date also clarified by him); Amma I’s grant uses the same birudas (EI 27.10, pp. 39, 45), as does Mallapadeva’s grant (EI 4.33, ll. 30–1) (these two references provided by Alexis Sanderson). In Satyāśraya’s grant we have a slight variation: saptamātṛikāparirakṣitānām (copperplate of Satyāśraya published by Csaba Dezsö at http://avacurika.wordpress.com, accessed 30.10.2010). (12) Copperplate of Satyāśraya, see previous note. (13) EI 4.33, ll. 25–7, grant of 1124 Śaka era (= 1046 CE) issued by Mallapadeva. The narrative context in which these emblems are referred to is described in Chapter 6, p. 187. (14) so ’bhiṣikto maghavatā sarvair devagaṇaiḥ saha | atīva śuśubhe tatra pūjyamano maharṣibhiḥ | tasya tad vacanaṃ śrutvā skandasya balavṛtrahā | ṛṣibhis taṃ mahāsenaṃ hṛṣṭo devagaṇ aiḥ saha | sauvarṇe ratnakhacite taruṇ āruṇ abhasvare | divyāsane samasthāpya vimalaiḥ puṇyavāribhiḥ | mahasenaṃ tadā śakraḥ senapatye ’bhiṣiktavan | tasya tat kāñcanaṃ chatraṃ dhriyamāṇaṃ vyarocata | yathaiva susamiddhasya pāvakasyātmamaṇ ḍalam | viśvakarmakṛta casya divya mālā hiraṇmayī | ābaddhā tripuraghnena svayam eva yaśasvinā | āgamya manujavyāghra saha devyā paraṃtapa | [digression on Skanda’s birth] araje vāsasī rakte vasānaḥ pāvakātmajaḥ | bhati diptavapuḥ śrīmān raktābhrābhyām ivāṃśumān | kukkuṭaś

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Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century) cāgninā dattas tasya ketur alaṃkrtaḥ | rathe samucchrito bhāti kālāgnir iva lohitaḥ | yā ceṣṭā sarvabhūtānāṃ prabhā śāntir balaṃ tathā | agratas m. m. tasya sā śaktir devānāṃ jayavardhinī | viveśa kavacaṃ cāsya śarīraṃ sahajaṃ tataḥ | yudhyamānasya devasya prādurbhavati tat sadā | śaktir varma balaṃ tejaḥ kāntatvaṃ satyam akṣatiḥ | brahmaṇyatvam asaṃmoho bhaktānapariraksan. am | nikṛntanaṃ ca śatrūṇāṃ lokānāṃ cābhirakṣaṇam | skandena saha jātāni sarvāṇy eva janādhipa | […] yadā skandaḥ patir labdhaḥ śaśvato devasenayā | tadā. a tam āśrayal lakṣmīḥ svayaṃ devī śarīriṇ ī | śrījuṣṭaḥ pañcamīṃ skandas tasmāc chrīpañcamī smṛtā | ṣaṣṭhyāṃ kṛtārtho ’bhud yasmāt tasmāt ṣaṣṭhi mahātithiḥ | Mahābhārata, 3.218.23–49. (15) For a summary of Purāṇic versions of this episode in Skanda’s mythology see Mani (2006: 748). (16) Devīmāhātmya, 2.18–30. See also Vāmanapurāṇa, 19.14–16. (17) Yokochi (2004: 100–1). (18) Revatī appears with Skanda in Mahābhārata, 3.219.28a; Pūtana ibid., 3.219.26c. Ṣaṣṭhī is grouped with Skanda in medical literature (identified and discussed in Mann (2007: 733). In the Mahabharata, 3.218.47c Ṣaṣṭhi is described as another name employed by brāhmaṇas to refer to Devasenā, Skanda’s consort assigned to him by Indra just after his consecration. (19) Skandapurana, III.64.27, 68.1–9. (20) Mann (2007: 732–3). (21) Vāmanapurāṇa, 29.56–7 (birth of Kālī from Caṇḍikā’s forehead); ibid., 29.64–8 (birth of Caṇḍdamārī from Caṅḍikā’s sheath); ibid., 30.3–9 (formation of the Seven Mothers from different parts of Caṇḍikā’s body). (22) tataḥ samastās tā devyo brahmāṇipramukhā layam | tasyā devyās tanau jagmur ekaivāsīt tadāmbikā || Devīmāhātmya, 10.4. (23) For teachings concerning the Nine Nights ceremonies, see Sarkar (2012: 379–86) and Chapter 7, pp. 245–6 and n. 109. (24) Revatī: Mahābhārata, 3.219.28a; Pūtana ibid., 3.219.26c. (25) pure vā yadi vā grāme nagare kheṭake ’pi vā | dṛṣṭādṛṣṭaphalārthibhiḥ pūjanīyas tu mātaraḥ |[…] gṛhe catvāre haṭṭānte pūjitā dhanaputradāḥ | nagaradvārapūrvādyā vṛddhirājyasukhārthadāḥ | kheṭake (kheṭake ’pi] conj. Szántó, kheṭakeṣv api edn). The apotropaic dimension of the cult of the Mothers in rituals protecting the king and the kingdom is also reflected in south Indian Mātṛtantra/Yāmala literature (Sanderson 2007: 277–8 nn. 140–3; 2009: 282 n. 673), and had evidently become well established by this time. (26) bhūmikampo diśām. dāho grahadvandaṃ tu jāyate | gagane dṛśyate ketur ādityaś caiva kampate || viparītāṃ nad īṃ. m caiva †rudhiraṃ caiva pravāhayet† |[…] gaganāt śruyate divyaṃ nirghātaṃ caiva jayate |[…] rājyopasaṃharaṃ caiva rājānāṃ kṣayakārakaṃ || ity evam ādini | tāny etāni sarvāṇy †adbhutāni prāyaścittāni bhavanti† | gṛhe gṛhe bhavec chāntir mātṛṛṇāṃ pūjaṇaṃ baliḥ | Devīpurāṇa, ‘Sarvotpātaśāntyadhyāya’, 55.8. (The passage marked †† is unmetrical.)

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Taking over Skanda (c. 6th to 7th Century) (27) See above, pp. 102, 112. (28) Srinivasan (1997: 303). (29) Schlingloff (1969); Brockington (2010). (30) For theories on dating sections of the Mahābhārata and its appendix, the Harivaṃśa, see Hopkins (1901: 397–8) and Fitzgerald (2010: 91–2). John Brockington dates the Harivaṃśa to the period between the 1st and 3rd centuries, and even into the 4th (pers. comm. 2 March 2017). I am also indebted to Naamaa Shalom for her views and for sharing with me parts of her draft thesis, in which she deals extensively with this issue. (31) The image is pictured and discussed by Samad (2011: 100). (32) Sohnen-Thieme (2002: 242). (33) mahiṣasya vadhaś caiva krauñcasya ca nibarhaṇam | śakter uddharaṇaṃ caiva tārakasya vadhaḥ śubhaḥ | Skandapurāṇa, 2.27 (verses according to Bhattarai’s edition: see Skandapurāṇasya Ambikākhaṇḍa in the Bibliography). (34) papraccha kārttikeyaṃ vai mayūravaravāhanam | krauñcadehāntakaraṇaṃ devyā hṛdayanandanam || mahiṣāsuranārīṇaṃ nayanañjanataskaram | mahasenaṃ mahātmānaṃ meghastanitanisvanam | ibid., 114.25–6. (35) namaḥ krauñcavināśāya mahiṣāsuraghātine || ibid., 114.34ab. (36) Skandapurāṇāsya Ambikākhaṇḍa, pp. 948–52.

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century)

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) Bihani Sarkar

DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.003.0005

Abstract and Keywords One of the most important ways whereby rulership was affirmed was by the donation of gifts and largesse (dāna) by a ruler to a deity of power, which tied kingship to the divine and in turn financially supported religious establishments. Looking at epigraphic evidence, this chapter assesses the forms of patronage received by the cult through dedicated worship in royal lineages, the establishment or funding of temples and the commissioning of statuary in the period between the 6th and the 12th centuries. Examining the donors and major Durgā sites receiving patronage, the chapter pays special attention to uncovering specific networks of patronage developing in Maharashtra, Thanjavur, Bengal, Himachal and in Kannauj whereby the worship of Durgā and her affiliated deities gained greater popularity and was institutionalized. These networks of patronage show that philanthropic support was provided to the cult of the goddess not just by ruling members of government but also by private individuals and village associations, indicating the broad devotional basis acquired by the cult by the 12th century CE. Keywords:   Rāṣṭrakūṭa, Gurjara-Pratīhāra, Kannauj, Coḷa, Pāla, Chamba, epigraphy, patronage

raktacchaṫāśavalakuñjararājakṛttisaṃchāditastanataṫāmba vibhāsi kālī | paurandarī dig iva bāladivākarāṃśu-

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) bhinnāntarālatimirasthagitodayādriḥ || Haravijaya, 47.26 O Mother, You, the goddess black in hue, The slopes of your breasts in the blood-streaked hide Of the king of the elephants hidden, The eastern horizon do resemble Where break the scarlet rays of the child-sun From behind the Sunrise-Mountain sheathed in black. At the time Ratnākara, the Kashmirian poet of the Haravijaya, had composed this verse to Durgā-Kālarātri sometime in the 11th century, the cult of that goddess, having filled the place Skanda once enjoyed, had reached pan-Indic resplendence. By the end of the 7th century, a more widespread accommodation of her worship was overseen by the great medieval dynasties, beginning with the Cālukyas, who were the earliest lineage to publicly devote themselves to her. At the same time, local royal goddesses important to regionally powerful dynasties began to be integrated with forms of Durgā, a development that will be assessed in greater detail in Part II of this book. As a result, from a set of practices and beliefs surrounding a singular goddess Durgā, the cult now became a theological system encompassing a complex of other goddesses, for (p. 116) whom Durgā, her legends, her rituals and her litanies, formed a heroic archetype. Chief among these connections was the one forged with Umā-Pārvati, and thereby with all other goddesses associated with her. I call the particular ethos of this expansive cult of Śakti, that is to say Durgā in her all-encompassing, pluralistic personality, heroic Śāktism. This upward arc in the religion is further reflected by its economic history retold through a great number of copperplate and stone inscriptions where acts of donations to Śakti temples are recorded.1 The deities, donors, dates of donations and sites are listed chronologically in Table 1 (pp. 22–3 above) based on the information provided in the inscriptions, by royal cave-temples and also by commissioned statuary. Well-known imperial dynasties such as the Pāṇḍyas, the Coḷas, the Rāṣṭrakūṭas and other, less famous but locally influential, chieftains and associations were major donors. The geographical areas in which these patronage networks appear are plotted in Map 2. The map of this distribution demonstrates clearly that what were once obscure shrines to localized forms of the sovereign goddess acquired patronage between the 6th and 12th centuries in a remarkably broad area of the subcontinent covering (i) the Nāgārjunī Hills, (ii) Vasantgadh and Mewar in Rajputana, (iii) the Chamba valley, Kumaon Hills and the Himachal, (iv) Kudarkot, (v) Badami and Aihole, (vi) the Konkan coast, (vii) Orissa, (viii) Mahābalipuram, Thanjavur and other parts of the Coḷa and Pallava empires, (ix) Pāla Bengal (including Devīkoṭa), and (x) the Licchavi domain. The emergence of these shrines as officially patronized sites tells us that after the fall of the Guptas there was a remarkable turn of fortune for the Śakti cult in kingship—it had grown to pan-Indic eminence as a result of robust patronage, despite all the stiff competition from other cults advancing merits to client-rulers. We can also infer from the increased patronage to Śakti shrines that the cult as a whole had acquired the status of a great classical religion, on a par with other medieval court-religions such as Vaiṣṇavism and Śaivism. Its accessing patronage, a key process of prestigious kingship, meant that it had by this time developed tremendously in stature, for, in the medieval period, the act of giving to a deity was no small matter casually undertaken but formed the most meaningful way a king could tie himself to divine power. (p.117)

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) So strong did the belief in the cult’s protective powers grow after the 6th century, that even an influential Muslim settler on the Konkan coast in the 10th century is stated in an inscription dated 17 April 926 to have offered sizeable landgrants and gifts to a form of Durgā called Daśamī, a name referring to the Tenth day of the Navarātra, in order to obtain her blessing in securing his political aggrandizement; while the great imperial city of Kanyakubja was host to not one, but several śakti-worshipping clans.

The Establishment of Patronage Networks With the rise in status of the Śakti cult, the Map 2. Goddess-sites receiving patronage, ties of patronage between imperial lineages 5th–13th centuries. and goddess shrines grew more established. The cult of Daśamī provides a good example of a Śakti shrine that developed a firm and enduring (p.118) tradition of accessing patronage from the powerful lineages of the surrounding region, in particular from the Rāṣṭrakūṭas, whose imperialist ambitions over central India, it is tempting to think, may even have prompted their generosity to the war-goddess. The shrine of the goddess was attached to a Vaidika monastery (maṭhikā) in Saṃyāna (now Sanjan in Thane District, Mahārāṣṭra) which housed nine brāhmaṇas of the Pañcagauḍīyamahāparṣad. Five donation-plates concerning this shrine provide quite a detailed history.2 The first donor was the Rāṣṭrakuta king Indra III of Māṇyakheṭa (Malkhed). On 17 April 926 a Muslim whose name is Sanskritized as Madhumati Sugatipa3 issued on behalf of the king the donation of a village called Kāṇāḍuka and land in another village called Devīhāra for repairing the monastery, the preservation of Dharma and the feeding of the resident brāhmaṇas.4 However, the foundation of the monastery was not the work of a ruler but of a group of ordinary if clearly powerful priests or scholars, whose philanthropy was prompted out of a devotion to Durgā. The application for founding the maṭhikā was submitted by a Maitrāyaṇīya brāhmaṇa of the Bhāradvāja.lineage named Annaiyya (Annammaiyya). In an appeal for merit made by the founder at the end of the inscription, two other names appear, one Revaṇa and one Kautuka, both of whom along with Annaiyya ask to dwell for a long time in the mountains of the gods through the grace of the goddess (devyāḥ prasādāt) for whom they had exerted such effort and to whom they must, therefore, have been privately devoted.5 These individuals too seemed to have been linked along with Annaiyya with the establishment of the monastery and that such was truly the case is confirmed by another inscription (translated below) where Kautuka is named as its founder. Subsequently the Daśamī-maṭhikā appears in an inscription from the Rāṣṭrakūṭ a Kṛṣṇa III (939–67). By this time the shrine and its monastery had developed into a large institution, for the inscription of the king paints a vivid picture of a bustling and prosperous establishment of learning and worship: In this land there is a flawless and venerable monastery founded by Kautuka. It is appointed with rooms difficult to cross and freed of [the taints] of the age of Kali. It is filled with countless skilled students of the Veda (svādhyāyikair), who are sharp due to their intelligence which has increased because they have understood the substance of all

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) scriptures (akhilavāṅmaya-), dexterous in all the Dharmic Aims (sakalārthadakṣaiḥ), learned in the meaning of the Vedas. Pleasing because of people who have examined the arts and are pure, piled with excellent heaps of fine-quality goods, it shines like the land of the gods with (p.119) meritorious wise-men, in which the goddess Bhagavatī, worshipped by gods and dānavas, bestows boons to mankind like the wish-fulfilling tree. [The monastery] is adorned at its entrance (dvāri) with gates (gopuraiḥ) crowded with innumerable men busy in coming and going, their looming spires grazing the white clouds momentarily resembling crests; and is appointed with many countless jewels [that are none other than] the flawless members of the Association (parṣadīyaiḥ) endowed with learning.6 Such hyperbole is in sharp contrast to the purpose of the inscription: it records a legal resolution (vyavasthā) issuing a punitive fine of forty drammas (and that too from a specific minting agency) which the shrine was liable to pay every dīpāvalī to a neighbouring Bhillamāladeva temple for having encroached upon its land.7 Being embroiled in legal disputes with the Vaiṣṇavas (Bhillamāla was a form of Kṛṣṇa) did not stain its reputation. In fact, despite the trouble, on three further occasions the shrine secured donations from local chieftains of Saṃyāna: in 1034 an oil-press (ghāṇaka) so that it could become self-sufficient in producing its own fuel (required for burning a lamp before the goddess’s image and massaging the feet of the residents) granted by a subordinate of the Śilahara lineage named Cāmuṇḍarāja;8 in 1048 a tax.in favour of some of the residents of the maṭhikā granted by a Moḍha chieftain, Vijjala;9 and on 13 November 1053 a permanent endowment by the same patron.10 Over the 127 years of the shrine’s rise to prestige, it had become expedient for governors in the area to attach themselves to it through philanthropy. Even greater in terms of commitment and largesse was the patronage-nexus established by the Coḷa princess Arvar Parantakan Kundavaiyar, elder sister of Rājarāja Coḷa (985–1014) and queen of Vallavaraiyar Vandyadevar, with the goddesses of the Bṛhadīśvara Temple in Thanjavur, the two Umā-Parameśvaris, consorts of the Tañjai-Vitaṇkar and Adavallar Dakṣiṇaa-MeruVitaṇkar. Over the course of four years, beginning from the 25th year to the29th of Rājarāja’s reign, and continuing into the rule of Rajendra Coḷa (1012–44), the princess made a number of by no means paltry endowments to (p.120) the deities, which are meticulously catalogued in the form of three inscriptions occupying different surfaces of the temple walls.11 On the 310th day of the 25th year she gave a number of gold vessels.12 From the 25th to the 29th years of Rājarāja’s reign she gave, excluding these vessels, 141 gold ornaments and emblems to one goddess and 35 to another (including a gold parrot and a swan, two handles for a yak-tail whisk, two for a flywhisk and a crown).13 She also gave a large quantity of gold for decorating the sacred hall used for the chariot processions of the two goddesses.14 Besides the movable goods presented, the princess devised a method of financing the food, temple-garlands, oil for the lamps and other expenses necessary for the goddesses’ chariot-processions at their festivals: she made several investments (kasu) which were given on interest to villages, which had to be paid annually to the temple either in cash (at 12 per cent) or in the form of paddy.15 In the third year of Rājendra Coḷa, Kundavaiyar again made a substantial donation, this time a glittering hoard of thirteen large and heavily jewelled gold ornaments.16 Similar in stability to the patronage-network between the Coḷa queen and the goddesses of the temple at Thanjavur were the philanthropic ties to Śākta shrines established by the Pālas of Bengal. As pointed out by Sanderson, at least four kings among the Pālas, beginning with Devapāla, were faithful supporters of the Śakti-cult—particularly, with Devapāla’s son

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) Mahendrapāla onwards, that of Carcikā:17 Devapāla is stated in an inscription of his son to have founded a temple to Gaurī;18 Mahendrapāla, as recorded in the 11th-century Sīyān inscription of his later successor Nayapāla, revered Carcikā,19 cognate as we have seen in Chapter 2 with the Kāpālika form of Durgā as Kālarātri,20 perhaps as his personal deity (iṣṭadevata); while Nayapāla himself, among his numerous religious establishments indicated by the Sīyān (p.121) Inscription, commissioned Vaḍabhī temples (topped by gold lions and a finial) for a Śaiva goddess, several stone temples for the Navadurgās—nine aggressive Durgās of different colours and names,21—one for the Mother-Goddess, a temple of Bhairava surrounded by the sixty-four Matṛs, and a temple on a hill for the Carcikā established by Mahendrapāla.22 Once again, during the reign of Nayapāla’s successor, Mahīpāla I, his rājaguru Mūrtiśiva, as reported in the Bagarh inscription, built on behalf of the king another shrine to Carcika.23 Indeed, Bengal even before the Pālas was fertile ground for a form of Śāktism that was particularly adaptable to Buddhism: we have an icon of Śarvāṇī standing on a lion from the Khaḍga period, assigned to about the 7th century, that was commissioned to be gilded by Prabhāvatī, queen of Devakhaḍga, a great supporter of monastic Buddhism.24 Such patronage extended after the decline of Buddhism in Bengal into the reign of the Senas—iconographic evidence is also available testifying to the commissioning of Caṇḍī statuary in the third year of Lakṣmaṇa Sena (1121).25 Patronage networks appear also in Himachal. One among the early medieval Chamba rulers was a firm supporter of the Śakti cult: Meruvarman—who may be assigned to the first half of the 8th century26—was the commissioner of inscribed statues of the deities Lakṣaṇa/Bhadrakāli— Bhadrakālī was a form of Durgā popularized by Tantric and Purāṇic literature—and Śakti Devī, the latter, represented as a sceptre-bearing regent, even being publicly acknowledged by the king, in the engraving on the pedestal, as having conquered his ‘enemies lodged in insuperable fortresses’ (ripūn durjayadurgasaṃsthān).27 Both images (see Figures 1 and 2) were created by an eminent craftsman, Gugga, and such seems to have been the associated prestige that the commissioning of Bhadrakāli’s statue, a four-handed Mahiṣāsuramardinī of great elegance,28 was a feat publicly recorded in the Chamba genealogy, attesting therefore to the importance laid on it by the lineage.29 Another, perhaps less important, king of the district of Kiṣkindha called Bhogaṭa also commissioned an inscribed image of Mahiṣāsuramardini,30 (p.122)

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) (p.123)

Figure 1. Image of Śākti Devi (Vogel 1911: pl. a, facing p. 138).

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) (p.124) while his son Sātyaki evidently inclined towards Śāktism, for his Sarāhan Praśastī glorifies his wife Somaprabhā as Durgā for the most part of the eulogy.31

The Emperors of Kannauj The city of Kannauj/Kanyakubja lies in the riverine basin drained by the Gaṇga in present-day Uttar Pradesh. Politically it was the contested seat of civilization for three empires, those of the Gurjara-Pratīhāras, the Rāṣṭrakutas and the Pālas, from the mid-8th to the 10th centuries. All three lineages supported the cult of the goddess in various forms. But among them one lineage in particular was devoted to her cult through several descendants, and through them she became the chief royal goddess of this city in the 10th century. The goddess Bhagavatī was the most popular deity of worship among eight generations of the Gurjara-Pratīhāra emperors of Kanyakubja (Mahodaya), beginning from Devaśakti. Among two rulers who worshipped the Sun, two who worshipped Śiva and one who worshipped Viṣṇu, the Partabgarh Inscription of the Gurjara-Pratīhāra Mahendrapāla II (946) records three kings who were ‘ardent devotees of Bhagavatī’ (paraṃ bhagavatībhakta). These predecessors were Nāgabhaṭa II, Bhoja I and Mahendrapāla

Figure 2. Image of Lakṣaṇā/Bhadrakali (Vogel 1911: pl. b, facing p. 138).

I.32 That the epithet paraṃ bhagavatībhakta was quite commonly used to style these early kings is indicated by an even older citation in a seal and the genealogical part of an inscription, both issued by Bhoja I himself and dated c.706.33 Although choosing not to present himself in the manner of his forebears, since he was a devotee of Śiva (paramamāheśvara),34 Mahendrapāla is evidenced in the Partabgarh Inscription to have supported the goddess-cult in some measure, for the inscription records his issuing a village to a local śakti shrine in the Śaiva Hariṣeśvara monastery.35 (p.125) The shrine belonged to the goddess Vaṭayakṣiṇī36 and given that the inscription makes an elaborate invocation, preceding its genealogical part, to Durgā, it seems that an identification obtained between Vaṭayakṣiṇī and the Purāṇic war-goddess, and that it is she who is indirectly referred to as Durgā. It is not unreasonable to make this assumption. Benedictions in early medieval inscriptions recording grants to deities often, though not always, praised the deities who were the recipients of the grants. Secondly, it was a common enough practice to identify otherwise obscure local goddesses with the more recognisable Durgā in the invocatory preambles to early medieval inscriptions recording donations to their shrines. We have, for

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) example, the benedictive openings to Anantavarman’s inscription to the Vindhyan goddess he had installed, the inscription to the goddess Kṣemāryā, the inscription to a local ‘Durgā’ of the Kudarkot fortress, and the inscriptions to the goddess Daśamī, in which descriptions of Durgā were in fact references to the regional goddesses who were the recipients of the grants.37 The invocations from these inscriptions, transposing either Durgā’s triumphant foot surmounting Mahiṣa’s head, or her connection with Śiva, the lion and Skanda, or her suzerainty of the terrified gods, onto the goddesses of those shrines, in fact, tell us something important about how the Śakti cult became pan-Indic—by using concepts and terminology associated with the Imperial Durgā to describe a regional deity, they create a prestigious vocabulary whereby any goddess of territorial importance could be conceived and classicized. In the Partabgarh Inscription, for instance, the benedictive verses echo a verse from Bāṇa’s hymn (p.126) to Caṇḍi’s triumphant heroic form, the Caṇḍīśataka, which, given the prestige of its author and its appearance in at least three known later medieval poetic anthologies widely used by students of poetry, was possibly already well known to the versifier.38 By evoking the poetry of Caṇḍī, the poet succeeds in stamping Vaṭayakṣiṇī with all the hallmarks of the classical war-goddess, although she may have been, as suggested by her name, a deity associated with the banyan tree. Indeed, it is in most of the benedictions to the inscriptions from the Śakti cult from the medieval period that the universalized face of heroic Śāktism emerges, and where one can see how a single concept was being uniformly applied to deities of independent sectarian affiliations to form a universal ideology of Śakti. The making of a single, pan-Indic cult of Śakti had reached its most mature phase. Supported over the years by great medieval lineages in the north, east, south and west of India, heroic Śāktism had grown into institutionalized stature, bound by a meta-narrative of symbols and metaphors.39 Evidence also suggests that it was not just members of ruling families who supported heroic Śāktism in the period: powerful individuals or associations of villages, particularly in the south, made grants which were as generous as royal donations, and all inscribed on copperplate, the medium mostly reserved for royal charters. A resident of Naḷḷur under the Coḷas made a donation that equalled in measure the grandeur of the Coḷa beneficences, including a fourhanded Durgā on a jewelled pedestal, enveloped by a solid aureole, and ornaments of gold and pearl that included one gold and ruby marriage band set (p.127) with five diamonds and one ruby.40 Similarly, in the Pāṇḍya domain, Nakkan Kori, a lady of whom we know little except that she was the wife of Śattan Gaṇapat, commissioned two shrines, one to Durgā, the second to Jyeṣṭhā.41 On two occasions powerful village-corporations made donations to goddesses set up as protectresses of their villages, on one occasion to Durgā, also called Bhagavatī, in Aihole, on the other to Durgā, called Bhaṭārakī, in Puḷḷalur.42 We have already observed Pantha (his donation was recorded on stone, though his expenses were indeed great43). Heroic Śāktism was thus also richly supported by these private acts of patronage emanating from subjects and from the domain of local government, demonstrating the wide devotional basis of the cult straddling all levels of social power-structure.

Models of Divine Kingship The process of classicization articulated by the material history of the cult did not occur effortlessly. The medieval Indian religious landscape was characterized by competition. Models of divine kingship sanctified by a goddess linked to Durgā were not the only ones employed in ancient Indian and even later medieval and early modern kingship. There was a repertoire of ways in ancient India whereby a king could affirm his power and lay claim to his right and ability

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) to rule. Within this context, heroic Śāktism had to articulate its role as the most critical force for civilization by emphasizing its adaptability. With the rise of Brahmanism and the great brahmanized empires beginning with the Guptas came more Aryanized forms of divine power. These gods soon represented the public face of a monarchy, inscribed on coins or patronized with great largesse in important temples. Among all the gods, it was Viṣṇu and Śiva who evolved into the most popular royal deities during the medieval period, with major temple cults in the north and in the Deccan.44 Brahmanical literature on royal power promoted Vedic gods such as Indra or epic heroes such as Rama as paradigmatic kings. (p.128) In the case of the Buddhists, theirs was one of the earliest religions to secure state patronage. Under the orthodox Buddhist model of kingship developed under the Aśokan empire, the king was the chief agent of an ethical form of governance consonant with Buddhist principles. It is not clear how accommodating Aśoka was of goddess worship, and it seems that there was no patronage at all of heroic Śāktism. Theoretically there would have been a marked disjunct between the two religions, a mandatory aspect of heroic goddess worship such as bloodsacrifice militating against principles of orthodox Buddhist non-violence that Aśoka proselytized in his edicts. The greater choice in religions meant that methods of evoking a goddess for royal power competed with these other forms of divine kingship that were, in many ways, advocated to their prospective clientele as the more prestigious or advanced option. Nevertheless, though in competition, and even challenged in several cases, the royal devī was too popular a tradition to be uprooted. She was absorbed after some modification by Vajrayāna, Jaina and Brahmanical models of divine kingship. Following a hiatus of a thousand years after Aśoka, a very different Buddhist model of kingship appeared in the east under the Pālas. These kings, the chief of whom were proponents of Vajrayāna and the goddesses venerated in that system, did indeed actively promote Śāktism in the region (Tara was, for instance, the deity Dharmapāla emblazoned on the ensign of his house). In fact later histories claim their founder subscribed to the Śākta legend that he had been granted kingship by a goddess, while during the Pāla rule, temples to forms of Caṇḍī such as the Navadurgā were commissioned by later monarchs of the lineage. Śakta worship occurred despite the fact that a Pāla king would be styled as a saugata, an adherent of the Buddha in several inscriptions. The Buddhist model in the Pāla case was congruent with and supportive of the royal śakti, as also was the Śaiva model, in its more Tantric versions inseparable from the worship of the goddess. Bengal was, and remains, a fertile terrain for local-goddess worship and the reverence placed in female divinities in Pāla-sponsored Vajrayāna would have blended fluidly with the long-term traditions of devī-worship firmly embedded in such areas of Bengal as Vīrabhūmi (Birbhum). So well-rooted were these goddesses in ideas of kingship that their faith was absorbed even by completely antithetical religions necessitating mandatory vegetarianism. When vegetarian Vaiṣṇavism reformed the Cachariworshippers of the flesh-eating clan-goddess Kacai Kati, whose Durgā-aspect (p.129) was called Raṇacaṇḍī, the Dimasa royal court in due respect to their family deity continued animal sacrifice to her at the ritually appointed times.45

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) So too with the Jainas. Reformistic Jainism, inherently uncomfortable with the sanguinary element of devīpūjā, gained momentum under Kumārapāla in Gujarat in the 12th century and significantly questioned the nature and place of the older palace-centred Śāktism. However, instead of a wholesale purging of Kumārapāla’s court of the dynastic Śakti, who had clearly been established there for a very long time, the rise of Jainism prompted instead a modification in his clan, who began to abjure certain elements of older tradition such as animal sacrifice but still continued venerating their family goddess. The story of this accommodation is shown more fully in Chapter 5. The Jainas in fact, despite their suspicion of these deities, whose ferocity they exaggerated in prose as outright bloodthirstiness in such caricatured figures as Caḍamārī, embraced their practice, including for instance lengthy instructions on establishing and worshipping devīs in palaces in ritual works like the Ācaradinakara.46 The relation with Brahmanical notions of kingship was similarly ambiguous to start with. The medieval cults of Durgā remained essentially a creed of raw militarism, an occasionally savage one (royal narabalis were mandatory in many kingdoms such as Bastar and among the princely worshippers of the goddess Anna Kuārī of the Chotanagpur Plateau47), which in appearance was, and in many respects remains today, far removed from the mainstream orthodox religion. In the view of the latter, these royal goddesses were dark and deadly, unbridled and atavistic, contrasting sharply with the dignified, sober, contained masculinity extolled in Brahmanical exemplars of sovereignty (Rama, Yudhiṣṭhira, Dharma, the Seers, Manu). Blood, the central offering made to a devī, connotative in many ways of the military ethos, and in Tantric practice of sexuality, was deeply offensive to the Brahmanical communities in certain regions of India, as it was to the Jainas. Nevertheless, an accommodation did indeed take place in the orthodox sphere, albeit somewhat late, particularly once the local protector-goddess of a kingdom began to be identified as a kṣatriya deity, from the 11th century. A cycle of Purāṇic legends, for instance, on Caṇḍī and the investiture of the epic king developed. Additionally, orthodox models of kingship began to name local goddesses in conventional genealogies, the traditional forms of political rhetoric whereby the king’s ancestry was glorified during ritualized bardic recitations. The Sahyādrikhaṇḍa gives what appears to be the oldest genealogy list asserting goddesses as the source of a kṣatriya-line, along with a (p.130) conventional Solar or Lunar source. The composition of such Śāktized versions of royal genealogies indicates the necessity felt for the inclusion, within established criteria of royal power, of the powerful kuladevīs, whom (formerly tribal but) exemplary kṣatriya-groups such as the Rajputs were loath to relinquish.

Managing Crises through the Goddess’s Rituals In this respect it is also necessary to query the crucial function played by ritual in the ancient Indic world in contributing to the longevity of royal Śāktism. Ritual of course has been studied in various ways and is thought to convey many meanings (or famously none at all), and it is important therefore to mark the parameters with regards to warrior-centric devīpūjā. Court-sponsored goddess worship had quite a specialized function to serve in protecting the state through crisis-management, warding off evil influence (for the medieval Indian universe was conceptualized as beset with ghosts, evil-intentioned planets and spirits), galvanizing military activity, granting agricultural yield, and sustaining the welfare of the kingdom. For this purpose a highly sophisticated ritual system and terminology with particular application developed around warrior-devīs, with specialists employed in the field. In general kings would Page 10 of 17 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) worship devīs to maintain harmony and order in a kingdom, and more importantly to ritually create and consolidate the substance of their power. Goddess rites were thought to produce a tangible result. If one were to think of sorcery and witchcraft in relation to heroic Śāktism, the yajamāna in a royal goddess rite would be the magician, his mantras the spell, and the result would be something that manifested empirically: rainfall in periods of drought, the success of the king in an arduous campaign, the destruction of a hated rival, so on and so forth. So in the same way royal power was also something substantial (a hot light, tejas/prabhā)48 that could be sought and acquired in the sphere of the ritual. Only the king’s goddess was the fountain-head of that power, but it did not follow that the deity would altruistically dispense power to the king at all times. There were special methods—elaborate systems of propitiation involving a huge amount of expense and grandiose display—by which the deity could be coaxed into sharing those gifts with humans. Courts therefore grew to become the arenas for the enactment of such (p.131) ceremonies where the substance of power was ritually solicited from the śakti and transferred to the king and to the entire kingdom. Among all the rites of kingship, it was the goddess-centric Navarātra that was the rite of heroic and civic glory par excellence. Annually celebrated, for if not disaster would strike, the Navarātra marked the occasion when the ritual of the court was publicly shared by all citizens, when goddess, king and state were constituted as one energized entity. The inclusion of tribal celebrations such as the Śabarotsava, at least in the eastern versions, meant that state rituals of Durgā incorporated tribal modes of honouring kingship where present (in Barabhum, for instance, the collusion of the tribal with the courtly was made palpable in a number of shared rituals between Hindu king and the Bhumij held in the sacred tribal grove of the goddess Koṭeśvarī). These had not ended but had simply been assimilated within the template of the goddess’s festival, enhanced and re-adapted to suit changing times. In this way, a ruler’s sponsorship of the cult of goddess included the religious observances of those of his subjects who were outside the caste-system.

Making Civilization By the medieval era, the vocabulary of state ritual was so strongly associated with Śāktism, given the latter’s specialization in that area, that in all state enterprises, for instance, in the protection of fortresses, in harvests,49 as an ancillary rite (aṅga) in royal consecrations,50 in dealing with abrupt disasters such as forest fires and earthquakes, and most importantly in war, the royal śakti was the chosen deity for appeal. The particular importance of heroic (p.132) Śāktism in disasters latent in civilizational processes is reflected in several scriptural texts where chapters appear on treating calamities in the kingdom through ritual. The pacification (śāntikam) of the state-goddess, who was believed to control the causes of those crises, with special effort and largesse (mahāpūjā) was instructed by this literature at such times. For example, the Special Worship (mahāpūjā) of the state-goddess Sāmrājyalakṣmī was particularly associated with the handling of calamities such as those mentioned above or omens in the kingdom: O Empress of the Gods, when there should arise an epidemic in a kingdom or in a city; drought, fire or an earthquake; when a nation or township is afflicted by rival kings; when suddenly diverse diseases should strike [the royal] horses and elephants; when tears should flow from the eyes; when fires blaze in every house in a town or in a kingdom; then wise kings must perform according to rule the Great Worship [of the Goddess] lavishly to ameliorate the faults causing those.51

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) The civilizational process was acutely aware of its potential threats. These attacked not the individual but the community in the form of kingdoms, cities, townships, fortresses, markets and the places of commerce, which were the seeds around which civilization proliferated. An awareness of crisis was essential for the continuity of these microcosmic structures of civilization. And it was in times of crisis that a royal goddess’s protective aspect became fully manifest and her ability to oversee the state ritually reinforced. She was the chief symbol of both the dangers disrupting the systems of civilization and of its continuity. The text connected to the goddess that grew most powerfully associated with protection was the legend of the Devīmāhātmya, which implicitly articulated the myth of civilization through its metaphor of the goddess, the king and the merchant. The myth came alive in the sphere of pūjā. Believed to contain auspicious powers, particularly in warding off, or placating, evils, the legend played (and still plays) a crucial ceremonial role during the public (p.133) rituals of the Navarātra in the lunar month of Aśvina, an importance emphasized by almost all the most influential medieval ritual guides (paddhatis) in Sanskrit describing the performance of this ceremony. During this festival, the Devīmāhātmya is taught by the paddhatis to be publicly recited in a practice called the caṇḍipāṭha (‘reciting the Caṇḍi’) during the entire duration of the worship. In this way, it forms the grand narrative of the goddess’s autumnal worship, articulated by specialists in ritual recitation, while the visual pageantry of pūjā is enacted by the officiant (pūjaka). A subtle, intrinsic connection is understood between its story and the sequence of rites by participants of the Navarātra. Its perceived magical effects are described, in a section advertising the rewards of recitation towards the end of the work, to be, among others, the enhancement of warrior prowess and powers, and the protection of a kingdom from dangers (Devīmāhātmya, 12.4–29ab). In this respect, there is an anecdote from the Marathi chronicles (bakhars) of the Maratha empire worth mentioning. This describes how Jayasiṃ ha, an enemy of the Maratha leader Śivāji, performed a crore of Caṇḍī-recitations and, thereby empowered, proceeded to roundly defeat Śivāji in battle (Sen 1920: 48–9). The only conceivable reason for the inclusion of such an acknowledgement in commissioned Maratha history, otherwise reluctant to record Śivāji’s failures, was surely the fact that such an ignoble defeat could be explained and overlooked through the argument of the warrior goddess’s power protecting the rival king and the mystical effects seen to inhere in the recitation of her most popular legend. The reason why the Devīmāhātmya’s language of protection, intoned during recitations of this hymn during the Navarātra, held such cultural power was because it was already preceded by an earlier and immensely popular Buddhist tradition of singing or meditating on protective hymns to manage crises.52 These protective hymns were connected to the boddhisattva Avalokiteśvara and later to the goddess Tara. For example, the popular Buddhist work the Saddharmapuṇḍarika, which spread in Central and East Asia, contains a chapter about asking Avalokiteśvara to protect a person trapped in eight types of crises such as fire, being swept in rivers, being cast on an island of demonesses, being condemned to die by someone, being surrounded by demons, being shackled in wooden or iron fetters, and being surrounded by weapon-bearing enemies (Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, ch. 24, p. 439). After appealing to the deity in this way, the Buddhist work teaches the worship of the deity in an effigy on the bank of a river. The Devīmāhātmya too postulates (p.134) eight situations possibly leading to death, some of which tally with the dangers of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka: being trapped in a forest, in fire, among bandits, captured by enemies, chased by wild animals, imprisoned by a ruler, caught in a storm at sea and in the middle of weapons in battle (Devīmāhātmya, 12.24cd–27). In these situations, it teaches that if the Eulogy to the goddess is chanted, the person in danger will be freed. Before the Devīmāhātmya, no other legend of the goddess was so forcefully advocated as Page 12 of 17 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) having the power to affect real conditions of crises if ceremonially recited and heard. Heroic Śāktism’s popularity was partly dependent on the way the practice of reciting the Devīmāhātmya became an inalienable part of the Navarātra ceremony and began to be viewed as a critical ritual cleansing political power. What this shows is that by the 8th century the association of the goddess’s rituals with removing crises had been greatly strengthened with the addition of the litany of the Devīmāhātmya, which built its reputation as a powerfully protective ritual layer by styling itself on lay Buddhist practice. Notes: (1) The existence of a number of inscriptions discussed later in this book, including the south Indian ones, the inscription to Kṣemāryā, the Orissan inscriptions and the Kudarkot inscription, was first brought to my attention by Louise Finn’s table of Śākta epigraphs, appended to her translation of the Kulacūḍāmaṇitantra (Finn 1986). This table provided the following information: the name of the deity (Bhavānī/Camuṇdā etc), a list of the published sources for inscriptions pertaining to that deity (SII 1.4, CII 3.50 etc.) and the general period of the inscription (6th/7th century), but no further details. Among the inscriptions dedicated to the Saṃyāna maṭhikā, Finn noticed only the Rāṣṭrakūṭa charter from Chinchani village. (2) EI 32.4.1–2 (also discussed in Sircar 1971: 126–9); EI 32.5.1–3. (3) According to D. C. Sircar, editor of EI 32.4.1–2, the name Muhammad is similarly Sanskritized as Madhumada in the Panjim plates of Jayakeśin I of Goa (EI 32.4, p. 47 and n. 2). (4) EI 32.4.1, ll. 27–31. (5) Ibid., l. 65. (6) astīha kautukakṛtir maṭhikānaghāryā durlaṇghyaśālakalitā kalinā vimuktā | svādhyāyikair akhilavāmayatattvabodhād udbhūtabuddhipaṭubhiḥ sakalārthadakṣaiḥ | vedārthasāranipuṇair amitaiḥ paritā | lokair vilokitakalair amalaiś ca ramyā deśyaiś ca bhāṇḍanicayair nicitātisārair yādevabhūmir iva sadvibudhair vibhāti | yasyāṃ bhagavati devī devadānavapūjitā varadā mānavānāṃtu kalpāṇghripatarūpamā | virājitā dvāri ghanapraveśavinirgamāyasitalokalakṣair ya gopurair ucchritakūṭakoṭikṣaṇadhvajibhutasitabhrabhaṇgaih adhiṣṭhitā koṭisahasraratnaiḥ śrutānvitaiścānaghaparṣadīyaiḥ | EI 32.4.2 ll. 27–34 (-parṣadīyaiḥ] conj. Sircar (p. 60 n. 3),-parṣada vā inscr.).I am indebted to Csaba Dezső for his help in interpreting this passage. (7) EI 32.4.2, ll. 35 ff. (8) EI 32.5.1. (9) EI 32.5.2. (10) EI 32.5.3. (11) SII 2.1.2, 2.1.6, 2.1.7. (12) SII 2.1.2, ll. 1–12. (13) Ibid., ll. 13–59. (14) SII 2.1.6, l. 2.

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) (15) Ibid., ll. 10 ff. (16) SII 2.1.7 (see the Introduction, p. 25 above, for a summary of the contents of the grant). The fact that each gift in this donation was quantified so meticulously (right down to noting any flaws on the gems) suggests that the donor, besides displaying her devotion, wanted to make the status of the endowments as the goddesses’ personal assets legally binding. In the event that their assets were misappropriated by others the inventory would immediately reveal what was missing, and the matter would be regarded as a theft of the deities’ property. (17) Sanderson (2009: 108–14). (18) Sanderson (2009: 108 and n. 226). (19) Ibid. and n. 227. (20) Compare for instance the obeisance verses in the Bāgarh inscription (Sanderson (2009: 227 and n. 512) with the verses on the goddess Kālarātri in Ratnākara’s Haravijaya, 47.12–27. As with Carcikā, Kālarātri manifests herself at the hour of the aeon’s destruction, swallowing all creation yet craving for more beings to sate her appetite. (21) For their names, see Chapter 7, p. 253. (22) Sanderson (2009: 111–14). (23) Ibid., p. 108 and n. 227; p. 226 and n. 512. (24) EI 17.24.4, ll. 2–3; Sanderson (2009: 84 and n. 145). The image can be viewed online at the Huntington Archive: http://dsalsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/huntington/show_detail.py? ObjectID=30031675 (accessed 02.11.2016). (25) EI 17.24.5. For the date see Sanderson (2009: 360). (26) Vogel (1911: 141). (27) For Lakṣaṇ ā, see ibid., p. 85. For Śakti Devī see ibid., p. 145, l. 3 and plate a facing p. 138. (28) Ibid., plate b facing p. 138. (29) Ibid., p. 85, v. 46. (30) Ibid., pp. 150–2. (31) Ibid., pp. 152–9. (32) EI 14.13, ll. 6–8, p. 183. See also Handiqui (1949: 395 and n. 1); Sanderson (2009: 52 n. 29). The religion followed by the other kings of this line is described as follows in the same inscription (ll. 4–9): Devaśakti = [paramavai]ṣṇavaḥ; Vatsarāja = paramamāheśvaraḥ; (Nāgabhaṭa II); Rāmabhadra = paramādityabhaktaḥ; (Bhoja I); (Mahendrapāla I); Vināyakapāla = paramādityabhaktaḥ; Mahendrapāla = paramamāheśvaraḥ. The bracketed names are the goddessworshipping kings mentioned in the main text. (33) EI 5.24, ll. 4–6. For the seal see p. 212, ll. 5 and 10. For the date see ibid., p. 210.

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) (34) EI 14.13, l. 9. (35) The editor’s transliteration of the inscription reads Harirṣeśvara (EI 14.13, l. 12; the editor proposes Haryṛṣīśvara), but I understand this as Hariṣeśvara following Alexis Sanderson’s hypothesis (pers. comm. July 2011), which is summarized as follows. The inscription states that the grant was proclaimed ‘in the Jagir of a Talavargika named Hariṣaḍa’ (talavarggikahariṣaḍabhujyamānakharpparapadrakagrāme, ibid., l. 9). Hariṣaḍa is in all probability the name of a local fief-holder, as we have attestations of closely related instances Śivaliṇga(Harsata/Harṣaḍa) from the early medieval period. He ‘marked his authority by creating a with his own name (following a long-established practice first attested in the fourth century), this liṇga being named accordingly Hariṣeśvara, with the dropping of the vernacular suffix-ḍa/-ṭa’. The monastery was named after this Śiva. (36) EI 14.13, ll. 12–13. (37) The opening to Anantavarman’s inscription (CII 3.50) eulogizing the particular goddess installed by him in the Barābar caves is: unnidrasya saroruhasya sakalām āksipya śobhāṃ rucā sāvajñaṃ mahiṣāsurasya śirasi nyastaḥ kvaṇannuṃpurah | devyāḥ vaḥ sthirabhaktivādasadṛśīṃ yuñjan phalenārthitāṃ diśyad acchanakhāṃśujālajaṭilaḥ pādaḥ padaṃ saṃpadaṃ || ‘When her foot, throwing to shade with its light the light of a full-blown lotus, was placed in disdain upon the Buffalo Titan’s head, her anklet rang forth—May that foot of the Goddess with gleaming toenails pouring lustre guide you to success, as it unites your request, which equals this prayer of steady devotion, with its reward.’ The implications of the description of the goddess in the verse and its association with Gupta era Mahiṣāsuramardinī iconography are considered by Yokochi (2004: 141).—The benediction to the inscription found in Kudarkot (EI 1.12) also describes the deity as Durgā and is as follows (in the translation I have separated the pun): sannihitanīlakaṇṭhā nitambataṭaśobhinī haguha | jayati prāleyācalabhūr iva durgā sadā sumukhā || ‘Allied with blue-throated sasiṃhaguh Śiva, the flanks of her hips resplendent, accompanied by her lion and Skanda, Hail Durgā, eternally fair-faced, like the frost-crusted mountain frequented by blue-throated peacocks, filled with caves of lions, the sloping banks of whose rivers gleam.’ (38) The benedictive verses to Durgā/Vaṭayakṣin. ī in the Partabgarh Inscription (EI 14.13) are: rudre vidravati drutaṃ surapatau pastyaṃ prati prasthite vitteśe pratipannarāyi +++++śaśāke sati | vaikuṇṭhe matikuṇṭhitām upagate brāhmyam. śrite brahmaṇi pāyād vo mahiṣāsuraṃ suraripuṃ devī dṛśā nighnatī || 3 varṇadvayābhyasanam amba tavedam eva durgeti nākagamanaya ++++ [nti] | kātyāyanīti varadeti ca santi kasyāḥ nāmākṣarāṇi paraṃāṇi yathā bhavatyāḥ || 4. (śaśāke restored on the basis of the parallel in Caṇḍīśataka, 66, see below; +śake inscr.)—The fourth verse is not clear to me and I am not convinced of my interpretation. As it stands, a partial translation is: ‘When in haste Rudra flies, Indra escapes to his stall, Kubera promised his wealth, the Moon [++], Viṣṇu grows lost in his purpose, and Brahmā takes recourse to meditation, may Devī who slays simply with a glance Mahiṣa the Foe of the gods, protect you! O Mother, the repetition of the two syllables “Durgā” in order to reach heaven [+.. +] “Kātyāyanī”, “Varadā”—whose syllables could be greater than yours?’—The parallel for v. 3 is Caṇḍīśataka, 66, as follows: an.. vidrāṇe rudravṛnde savitari tarale vajriṇi dhvastavajre jātāśke śaśāke viramati maruti tyaktavaire kubere | vaikuṇṭ the kuṇṭhitastre mahiṣam atiruṣaṃ pauruṣopaghnanighnam. nirvighnaṃ nighnatī vaḥ śamayatu duritaṃ bhūribhāvā bhavāni || 66 || ‘When the Rudras ran, the Sun-god trembled, Indra’s thunderbolt was destroyed, affrighted grew the Moon, slack the wind, Kubera curbed his hostility and Vaikuṇṭha’s weapons were blunted, she slew with ease the fiery buffalo dependent on manliness as a crutch—May

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) Bounteous Power Bhavānī end your sin.’—The anthologies in which the verse appears are Śrīdharadāsa’s Saduktikarṇāmṛta, 25.125; Śārṇgadharapaddhati, 112; Harikavi’s Harihārāvali, 112 (Quackenbos 1965: 328). (39) See also Table 1, pp. 22–3 above, for other patronage networks. (40) SII 2.4.79. (41) EI 36.15. (42) SII 15.2.463, 13.341. (43) EI 5.8, l. 5. (44) The worship of Viṣṇu gained widespread patronage throughout India, as in the empire of the Gupta rulers and the Vākāṭakas in the 5th century and in the eastern state of Orissa under the state-sponsored Jagannātha temple-cult of Puri that flourished under the Ganga monarchs (1110–1435) (Bakker 1997; Brighenti 2001: 142–3). The worship of Śiva rose to pre-eminence in mainland India and Southeast Asia during the medieval period due to several reasons. Chief of these was the fact that royal officiants offered the king a repertoire of specialized Śaiva rites such as a particular form of initiation granting greater powers than that provided by Vaidika rites. In addition to this, the Śaivas also developed a range of ritual texts aimed at lay devotees such as kings parallel to the esoteric ritual texts that already existed within its liturgical corpus but which targeted a more specialized and committed audience. These strategies ensured the acquisition of royal patronage for Śaiva temples and gurus. For these arguments, see Sanderson (2005; 2009: 254–73). (45) For Raṇacaṇḍī see Introduction, p. 10 n. 32. (46) See Chapter 5, pp. 156–7. (47) Russell & Lal (1916: vol. 4, 312). (48) See the Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, 100.8–14 discussed below in Chapter 7, pp. 264–5, for a ritual whereby the king is said to shine with a bright light, envisioned as his might and power, after the goddess is summoned into his person during the Navarātra. (49) See the Navarātra among the Kumhārs of the Central Province for the sowing of wheat at this time, Russell & Lal (1916: vol. 4, 13). (50) Consecrations would routinely initiate or close the Navarātra. For instance, see the Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, which prescribes opening the Navarātra with an abhiṣeka (Chapter 7, pp. 263–4). The Navarātra in the kingdom of Mithilā would close with the abhiṣeka of the king Śivagaṇgai on Daśamī (Chapter 7, p. 257). During the Navarātra at and Ramnad, the kuladevī Rājarājeśvarī was identified with Mahiṣāsuramardinī and in this maximal form held a central position during the consecration of the king. This ceremony would be performed on Vijayadāśamī, and two reports from 1863 and 1892 of the abhiṣeka provide details of the ritual and the place of the goddess during the rule of Rani Kathama Nachiar and Bhāskara Setupati respectively. During the 1863 ceremony, water empowered with the goddess’s mantras during a cakrapūjā was poured over the Rani, who was thereafter crowned (Price 1996: 140–3, 141). In the 1893 ritual the Rājā is said to have worshipped Rājarājeśvarī immediately after his

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Patronage, the Civilizational Process and the Spread of Heroic Śāktism (c. 7th to 11th Century) coronation on the first tithi of the Navarātra. Bhāskara’s sword and sceptre, which had been placed before Rājarājeśvarī, and the green stone in which her essence was believed to be concentrated were then ceremonially presented to him. Thus holding the forms of the śakti in his hand, the king then meditated upon her. Only after this transference of power from the goddess was the king thought able to rule (ibid., p. 144). (51) rāṣṭre pure vā deveśi janamāro yadā bhavet | yadā bhaved anāvṛṣṭiḥ kṣāmaḥ kṣobho ’tha vā yadā || yadā janapado devi puraṃ vā śatrurājabhiḥ | pīḍyate vā gajāśvādivāhanānām anekadhā || yugapad rogapīḍā vā netreṣv aśrunipātanam | […] akasmān nagare rāṣṭre vahnidāho gṛhe gṛhe | […] tadā taddoṣaśāntyarthaṃ mahāpūjā manīṣibhiḥ | kartavyātra viśeṣeṇa rājabhiś ca yathāvidhi | […] Sāmrājyalakṣmyās tuṣṭyarthaṃ pustyartham. rāṣṭravasinam | janānāṃ trividhotpātajātabhītiśāntaye || Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, ‘Sāmrājyalakṣmīmahāpūjānimittotpātasvarupakathanam’ (‘A Description of the kinds of Crises necessitating the Great Worship of the Goddess of the Kingdom’), 10.4–28.—The worship of Rāṣṭraśyenā, a goddess important to the Guhilas of Mewar, for instance was ordained in the Ekaliṇgamāhātmya, 11.13–22 to prevent the occurrence of trouble in the Guhila domains. For an eyewitness account of a rite propitiating goddesses to elimininate a rival king held by the prince of the Bihari kingdom of Dumraon in 1941, see Gupta & Gombrich (1986: 135–6). (52) I am indebted to Stefano Zacchetti, Numata Professor of Buddhism, Oxford University, for pointing out to me the similarity in the list of dangers between the Devīmāhātmya and the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka. He generously read through sections of the latter work with me and explained its broader social and ritual contexts.

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā Bihani Sarkar

DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.003.0006

Abstract and Keywords This chapter shows how the cult transformed against the backdrop of upcoming lineages, such as the early Rajputs, into a symbol of particularity by absorbing other similar deities important to specific lineages. Chapter 5 encapsulates the 6th and 12th centuries, when the political map of India represented a heterogeneous order of entrepreneurial lineages. It untangles the distinctively coloured threads of smaller local figures enmeshed with Durgā in her symbolic form of this cohesive social backdrop. It presents as case studies the stories of six locally popular goddesses who were synthesized with Durgā—Bhīmā, Nana, Kaṇṭeśvarī of the Caulukyas, Māneśvarī of the Mallas, Āśāpurī of the Cāhamānas and Danteśvarī of the Nāgas and Kākatiyas of the Bastar Raj. These aid us in evaluating the intricacies of individual goddess-cults and their continuity through dynastic shifts up to the 12th century. It also recounts other tales of clangoddesses, in which heroic Śāktism is seen as the theology sanctifying a king, assessing the tropes and motifs whereby this sanctification and its concomitant concepts of power are evoked. First it locates a period and a locus when and where Brahmanical discourse, silent on local goddesses, began to contain such deities and the heterogeneous practices many represented, and assess accordingly the genealogical part of the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa, a Purāṇic work, as an example of this containment. Next, I study the legend of Kāmateśvarī, a story that was employed by the princely state of Cooch-Behar in explaining the divine right of its rulers, assessing this in parallel with Rajput ideologies and narratives, where similar narrative structures and figurative devices centring on the goddess and the king are employed. Keywords:   Rajput, Nana, Bhīmā, Caulukya, Malla, Cauhan, Danteśvarī, Āśāpurī, Nāgas, Sahyādrikhaṇḍa, Kāmateśvarī, lineages, genealogy

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā

kālī kalpāntakālākulam iva sakalaṃ lokam ālokya pūrvaṃ paścāc chliṣṭe viṣāṇe viditaditisutā lohitā matsareṇa | pādotpiṣṭe parāsau nipatati mahiṣe prāksvabhāvena gaurī gaurī vaḥ pātu patyuḥ pratinayanam ivāviṣkṛtānyonyarūpā || Caṇḍīśataka., 41 Black she turned at first when she had seen The world in tumult as if at the universal end. Red in ire when she knew, upon his horn Curling round her ankle, that it was he, The progeny of Diti, who was the cause. Fair she grew ac-cording to her first nature When fallen Mahiṣa trampled by her foot had died. May that Gaurī protect you, she who seemed For every eye of her husband to conjure up A different form.1 In this part of the book, we pay attention to the ‘new world’ that came into being in India from the 6th century and how its heterogeneous political landscape was mirrored in Durgā’s newly expansive, fluctuating identity. From the 6th century onwards, the localized, particular expressions of the pan-Indic cult of Durgā were the regional protective goddesses spread out across various parts of the Indic world, including Afghanistan. These deities were associated with many social networks. At the broadest pan-Indic level, (p.138) they were affiliated to Durgā, their alter ego, and through her to the collective conceptual framework of heroic ideas available to Indian culture at large; at the provincial level, to sacred sites attracting devotees from far and wide; at the level of political power bases, to ruling dynasties, in whose palaces were housed shrines to these goddesses in which the royal family affirmed the exclusive connection of the deity to itself and to the political core of that kingdom; and, at the smallest level of the clan, to warrior lineages for whom they were protectors of fortunes and legacy (kuladevatā/kuladevī). A regional goddess would, in other words, represent and maintain a dynamic between both criss-crossing and widely separate socio-political and ideological strata of varying loyalties and sizes by adopting manifold identities. Such a quality enabled them to incorporate communities and different kinds of religious customs belonging to different social groups. When can we start plotting this process of inclusion? Though it started as soon as entrepreneurial lineages from particular regions began to build strong kingdoms at the end of the 6th century and possibly even earlier in the 5th century, hard evidence for Durgā’s

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā assimilation with local goddesses is from the 7th century, and it becomes more abundantly manifest in a broader variety of sources from the 11th century. This means that in terms of what we have discussed so far we have to think of the cult of Durgā slightly differently from the 6th century onwards. In Part I we traced the rise and development of a single deity from the Gupta period, who had already emerged as a prestigious goddess under the Kuṣāṇas, and who had specific mythologies, n.conceptsand ritual functions attached to her. We can therefore think in terms of a relatively monolithic deity from the 2nd to the 6th centuries (albeit inflected first by Vaiṣṇava and then by Śaiva ideas). But from the 6th century onwards, the clarity of her personality grows diffuse and it is important to understand the growth of Durgā’s cult from this period in terms of a social phenomenon comprising the incorporation of indigenous goddesses that was part of a larger social process of state-formation. In other words, we must now think of Durgā as a metonym enfolding goddesses of particular locales, who in many cases were nonBrahmanical and who gained greater popularity as regional kingdoms throve once the Kuṣāṇa and Gupta empires waned in north India. She became the face of these formerly faceless sylvan deities, with whom she shared similarities in personality, notably her control over crises and her bipolarity—the interfusion of mild and wild aspects, of light and dark. It is possible that even before the Kuṣāṇas, Durgā had been such a ‘tribal’ goddess herself before she made her first Sanskritic appearance in Vaiṣṇava mythology as Sleep, but there is no descriptive source from that period that would allow us to put flesh on this speculation. Our argument about the links between tribal goddesses and Durgā can be substantiated firmly only from the 6th century (p. 139) onwards, when the heyday of a singular Durgā had reached its zenith and she could thus be seen as a powerful political symbol for unifying peripheral cults. The doubling of identity this process resulted in is represented through images in mythology. As we have seen, the earliest known Devi myth from the 7th century contained in the Skandapurāṇa has a scene where the goddess fills the battlefield with animal-headed warrior-women who leap as if by magic from parts of her body, and further, towards the end, she assigns regency to these self-born goddesses in particular cities, towns, mountains and villages. The image is intended to evoke an empire: these goddesses are Durgā’s feudatories (sāmantas) in fiefdoms, mapping out the Śākta essence over a maṇḍala, an empire ruled by Durgā as the supreme overlord.2 Such maps of sacred geography are clearly images of syncretism that were embedded in the myth in order to allegorize the identification of local devīs with the war-goddess and to represent Durgā as sovereign state power in its incorporative dimension. Similarly, the Devīmāhātmya, the locus classicus of the Durgā-myth, composed most likely in the 8th century, presents Durgā as a syncretistic deity, most notably in chapter 11.35–51. In these verses the goddess prophesies her descent on earth in several successive emanations among whom the following are named as locally relevant deities: Vindhyavāsinī (11.37–8); Śākambharī (11.42–5ab); Bhīmā (11.47–8). The first still commands a flourishing practice in the Vindhyācala, the second has her shrine in the Sambhar lake and is of particular relevance to the Śakambharī Cāhamānas, while the third is described by the text to have appeared in the Himācala (kṛtvā rūpaṃ himācale). Here too we find an appropriation of autonomous cults. The composition of the Devīmāhātmya coincides with a period in Durgā’s cultic history when to the two earlier narrative layers, Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava, there is added a third layer in which she is shown to be an aggregate of all gods and in which her importance to kings is explicitly narrativized. The Devīmāhātmya showcases Durgā’s totality—that she had attained by that time her highest status as an omnipotent, ubiquitous, unifying godhead who represents all goddesses and creation. This idea is represented for the first time in the second deed of the Devīmāhātmya,

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā which portrays her creation from the combined radiant essences of all the gods. With regard to her sanctity for kings, the Devīmāhātmya’s legend of king Suratha, who is granted his lost kingdom once he listens to the goddess’s tale and worships her, that is when he becomes a Śākta, which integrates the three other tales of the goddess, places the once disparate myths of her origin within a narrative of political reclamation. In other words, the Devīmāhātmya expresses in the form of litany the notion of civilizational power acquiring its substance and authority from (p.140) a goddess in whom power is conceived as a union of two polarities, harsh punishment and thoughtful compassion. Previous research has also pointed out how the scene of Durgā’s divine investiture to power, a famous moment in her mythic corpus,3 whose most known exemplar is located in the Devīmāhātya, shares similarities with a real royal consecration ritual. These have been illustrated by Coburn in his 1984 study of the Devīmāhātmya4 and more recently by Yokochi in her study of the warrior-goddess in that work.5 Light is the chief metaphor of kingship employed during the ceremony of her genesis. Radiant streams (tejas) exude from a council of gods fusing together to form Durgā’s limbs. The effusion of each god forms a corresponding part of Durgā’s body and she is thereby ‘formed of a mass of tejas from all gods’ (samastadevānāṃ tejorāśisamudbhavāṃ). The splendour first pervades the horizons from end to end (jvālāvyāptadigantaraṃ), an image of universal pervasion. Then it stabilizes in one spot as a single beam of light (ekasthaṃ). Soon a woman is revealed whose appearance is so bedazzling that—as the Devīmāhātmya describes—she, or rather the coagulation of light, illuminates the three worlds (vyāptalokatrayaṃ tviṣā) and resembles a blazing mountain peak in the sun (jvalantam iva parvatam). The gods then each gift her with weapons and ornaments, counterparts of their own. Thus furnished with weapons, shining with divine radiance and saluted by cries of ‘victory’, Durgā, thus represented as a single concentration of the gods, is said to proceed to battle with Mahiṣa.6 While Coburn has pointed out parallel passages in Manu where earthly kings are said to be similarly composed of the radiant fragments of the gods (devāṃśa) (Manusmṛti, 7.3–11), Yokochi indicates an earlier prototype of the Vedic coronation (rājasūya) where the king was ceremonially conferred devāṃśa and ritually made cognate with luminous heavenly substance. Fire and light sustain life and protect from danger and evil spirits. Both are the elements constitutive of (p.141) the ideal warrior who guards from danger and is also said to radiate with their life-giving lustre. In this regard, Yokochi also shows, on the basis of verses in the Taittirīya Āraṇyaka of the Black Yajurveda, that Durgā shares an affinity with the Vedic Agni: resplendent like the god of flame, she too was invested with the heroic ability to protect beings and emanate life. What we have thereby in the Devīmāhātmya is a rich and ritually enacted articulation of Durgā as the archetypical ruler, the goddess above all gods in whom all godheads are merged and in whom tensions and contradictions are resolved.

Bhīmā Though merged with this broader ideology of Durgā the ruler, many of the clan-goddesses were locally influential divinities originally with independent and highly distinctive identities and a corresponding mythology enjoying prominent cult centres. The earliest among these regional deities absorbed into Durgā’s cult was Bhīmā. Prior to the ‘new world’, Bhīmā’s cult centre was independent, located in fact on the northernmost outreaches of the Gupta empire. By the 8th century, in the heyday of rule by entrepreneurial lineage and the rise of the cohesive Durgā, Bhīmā had been appropriated into her cult, as evidenced by the Devīmāhātmya, in which she is named as one of her emanations. Before this appropriation, as in the early peripheral kingdom she was a powerful regional player. The Miñjaparvata, now identified as the cave Kashmir Smast (north Pakistan, Peshawar Valley), was the site of her shrine, from which a few archaeological Page 4 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā remains, comprising seals and one copperplate inscription, have been recently unearthed. In the seals Bhīmāā is depicted as a squatting figure, as if about to give birth, with full breasts, accompanied by a trident, a kalaśa and the figure of a dancing male companion. The symbolism of fertility evoked by this depiction was perhaps considered by the goddess’s worshippers as her potency. There may also have been an identification with Śrī through such a representation. Bhīmā’s cave-temple is described as a pilgrimage place of great power for seekers of wealth and merit in the Mahābhārata,7 in Purāṇic myth (where she is described as Durgā’s vice-regent) and in the account of the 7th-century Chinese traveller Xuanzang.8 The copperplate found in her cave records substantial donations made by a pilgrim to the shrine, possibly around the early part of the 5th century.9 Not by any means was this site shrouded in obscurity. Much about Bhīmā’s cult appears to be far more ancient and well known than (p.142) the first sources would have us believe, clearly pre-dating the layer of the Mahābhārata where she appears (namely the Āraṇyakaparvan). Already by the time these accounts—including the inscription— were written, the shrine was prosperous and famous (the inscription mentions that there was even a maṭha in charge of its business dealings).10 Xuanzang emphasizes the great numbers of visitors from all over India and of various religious backgrounds who would arrive there to have their wishes miraculously granted. Observing a weekly fast before seeing the goddess, pilgrims would first bathe in cleansing waters on arrival at the cave and thereafter, according to the Mahābhārata, would assuredly become the goddess’s son (devyāḥ putro bhaved), accruing ‘a reward [equalling] a hundred thousand cows’ (gavāṃ śatasahasrasya phalaṃ).11 Inside the sanctum sanctorum they would worship the goddess’s idol of green-blue stone, which, according to Xuanzang, was a natural formation, arisen from the earth of its own accord. Bhīmā’s aniconic nature suggests that she might have been an ancient autochthonous deity, for many of the early local goddesses, as we shall see, began as indigenous deities worshipped in natural formations.

Nana But the earliest evidence from the same region attests to the importance of another goddess, called Nana, whose sculptural syncretism with Kuṣāṇa statues of Durgā we have already considered. She was revered by the Kuṣāṇas, particularly by Kaniṣka (127–53) and Huveṣka (153–91).12 A Near Eastern goddess with roots in the Ur III period, Nana commanded a flourishing practice in Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Arabia, Syria, Phrygia, Egypt and Iran, where she was syncretized with various other local goddesses such as the Sumerian Innana/Istar, Greek Cybele and Artemis, Egyptian Hathor and Iranian Anahita. Owing to this complex assimilation she not only had a defined warrior aspect but was also associated with motherhood and fecundity.13 Her diffusion into Bactria and subsequent appropriation by the Kuṣāṇas as the divinity representing the source of their authority is evidenced in a Bactrian inscription retrieved in Rabatak, Afghanistan and dated to the (p.143) first year of Kaniṣka’s reign.14 The inscription describes the foundation of a temple to various family-divinities important to the Kuṣāṇas, among whom Nana, often described as Sao Nana (Queen Nana) in Kuṣāṇa coinage,15 occupies the central position. In the second line of the inscription, Kaniṣka is stated to have obtained kingship from her: … of the great salvation, Kaniṣka the Kuṣāṇa, the righteous, the just, the autocrat, the god worthy of worship, who has obtained the kingship from Nana and from all the gods. The inscription further goes on to state that:

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā King Kaniṣka gave orders to … make a sanctuary … in the plain (of the royal house), for these gods … the above mentioned Nana … And he gave orders … to make images of the same … many rites were endowed, also many attendants … the king gave an endowment to the gods.16 Nana’s, and also Bhīmā’s, presence in Afghanistan points to what was a more widespread Central Asian practice of worshipping territorial protector-goddesses for sovereignty around the 2nd century. Nana was also established as the city goddess of Pendjikent in Sogdiana.17 Like Bhīmā, Nana too was eventually assimilated into Durgā’s cult. Visual elements associated with her portrayal filtered into Durgā’s representation in stone during the Kuṣāṇa period18 (see Introduction, pp. 25–9), and later, between the late 6th and 7th centuries, the by then fully formulated Indian imagery of Durgā made its way back to Central Asia: the four-armed formation with the sun and moon characteristic of Durgā’s Kuṣāṇa icons was used to depict a seated four-armed goddess identified by Minardi as Nana on a metal bowl from Chorasmia.19 This means that Durgā’s iconography was well established as having diffused (p.144) as far northwards as Central Asia by that time and was employed in the imagery of local divinities of that region.

The Cults of Heroic Clan-Goddesses (kuladevatā) At the level of the clan, royal power and the right to continue holding and passing it at discretion were authorized by a goddess called the kuladevī/gotradevī/kuladevatā, taken to be the source of the family’s rise and the key to its heroic success. A network of subtle symbolic links to Durgā crystallized around these gods, which meant that when it came to their identities, there was a constant oscillation between a personal and a generalized level of symbolism, allowing the cultivation within clan and kingdom of a sense of classical universalism even within a conscious provincialism. The problem with this proteanism is that in Sanskritic discourse, particularly poetic literature and officially commissioned inscriptions, the provincial but specific aspect of these goddesses is largely obfuscated and subsumed within the universal and the classical. Heroic Śāktism in medieval India comes with a semiotic all its own and the historian’s task is in some sense, like that of a sensitive reader of poetry, to decode these symbols in order to recover what is hidden or implicit or unexpressed. So it is not surprising that many examples of kāvya from the classical period, in which the notion of the classical and the refined was articulated with greatest force, do not furnish us with a particularly detailed portrait of clan-goddesses in their independent roles.20 As exceptions, though, Jaina prose accounts composed between the 8th and 11th centuries contain illuminating descriptions of court practices surrounding the kuladevī, which indicate that rather than the established Sanskritic gods it is the household lineage-goddesses who are intimately tied with the minutiae of the laukika but essential aspects of court life.21 The Prakrit kāvya Kuvalayamālā by Uddyotanasūri, which he completed in 779, recounts a lively story in which an heirless king turned to his clan-goddess to grant him a son, after being berated by his wife. The suggestion was made by his ministers, and though the king had considered other deities such as Śiva, it was ultimately the family deity (p.145) Rāyalacchī/Rājalakṣmī who was favoured, owing no doubt to her unique ability to grant rewards and ameliorate crises. On an auspicious day, the king organized a lavish ceremony for his kuladevī. Having propitiated the protective gods of the town, having granted gifts to bhikṣus and the poor, and after the initial public rites, he worshipped the goddess alone. With hymns to the deity’s numerous aspects and flowers he conciliated her for two days, but with no luck. On the third, in despair he was about to offer his own head when the deity appeared in full glory and held his hand back. She granted him the boon of a son and

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā disappeared, thereby averting an impending state crisis and the collapse of the lineage.22 A similar account also appears in the Tilakamañjarī of Dhanapāla (composed for king Bhojadeva, who ruled C.1000–55), where a childless king is given a mantra of Aparājitā to propitiate and is instructed to worship his clan-goddess Śrī in the palace for issue, rather than venturing into the wilderness.23 What we have described here are two notions: the vital, private and passionate link between king and goddess, a link so visceral that self-sacrifice, even by a man in power, becomes the noblest form of expressing fealty and warriorhood; and averting crisis, both of which are germane to Durgā’s conceptualization too from the Gupta period. Both notions formed threads tying the kuladevī to Durgā. One may ask why this absence in literature and royal records. As suggested by 15th-century Jaina literature, in some cases it may have been the strongly secretive aspect of these goddesses that was partly responsible for their exclusion. For instance, in the Jaina work the Ācāradinakara, the author Vardhamāna, though describing the procedure for the pratiṣṭhā of devīs (systematized as prāsādadevīs, āgamadevīs and kuladevīs), does not describe the method of worshipping them. He asks the reader to learn the method from the tradition transmitted by the guru (gurvāgamāt) and from the customs of the lineage (kulācārāt). One of the reasons for his intentional silence is to avoid making the tradition related to the goddess public, and he cites a teaching to support this, stating that only through the concealment of the ritual method does success come about, while its exposure leads to danger (Ācāradinakara, vol. 2, 209b ff.). Even today they appear to be connected in some unique way to family members of a ruling dynasty, who have private shrines, legends describing the special favours granted to members in the clan and practices which are seldom fully shared with the general public apart from at the Navarātra festivities in autumn. Clan-goddesses were the objects of jealously guarded private/familial worship, while inscriptions and literature were concerned with projecting the public face of religion. (p.146) It is the vernaculars, though, that formed the medium in which kuladevī-narratives appear with greatest frequency, and this is unsurprising given the strength of the association of these goddesses with the regional. Oral legendary traditions in Nepal, Bengal, Mahārāṣṭra and Rajasthan offer an array of narratives about local kings and goddesses, which were popular but on the whole uncanonized in official writing. Where inscribed by contemporary or later ethnographic histories, they provided the most valuable frameworks for conceptualizing the relationship kings bore to clan-goddesses and to their archetypical identity Durgā. These vernacular folkloric traditions describe the warmth a royal lineage would feel towards regional goddesses. Kings would most often have personal shrines to them in their palaces, though their main temples might have been elsewhere, and claimed special relationship with them. The religious cults that developed in the vast majority of medieval Indian courts to enhance the divinity of the king all derived their key symbols (manifested in legends and rituals) from the ancient goddesses of the realm held to protect the royal lineage from its inception. Most of these cults have been studied as discrete curiosities, but when taken all together they reveal an important historical point about ancient Indian culture: the cults of kuladevīs represented a broader, interlinked, pan-Indic concept that viewed the true locus of royal power to be a female divinity, whose highest and most optimal form was Durgā. If not already goddess-worshipping, an Indic monarch eager to establish his credentials would certainly subscribe to this concept, tying himself with the indigenous female divinities venerated in his dominion by the local population and publicly stating this allegiance in inscriptions. By the time it was enshrined and granted Brahmanical respectability in the Purāṇic genealogies of the 12th century (pp. 161–4 below), the worship of a kuladevī for power had become the substrate of heroic identity across Page 7 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā regions, and would remain so for centuries to come. On the basis primarily of early medieval inscriptions, the areas of worship of some major kuladevīs, rising between the early medieval and the later medieval eras, can be plotted over the entire the subcontinent (see Map 3 and accompanying note for individual descriptions).24 (p.147) (p.148) Such was their consequent impact and longevity that kuladevīs remain a welldocumented feature of royal clans in India. For instance, the Rajputs, the kṣatriya elites who held sway in the West from the medieval period until very recently—and unofficially even in our days—have traditionally asserted, and still proclaim, a strong fealty to kuladevīs in their mythology. The Fire-Lineages of the Rajputs, the Caulukyas, Cāhamānas, Paramāras and Pratīhāras, claim in the legend of their birth from a mythical fire pit on Mount Abu (Arbuda) that their goddesses enabled them to conquer demons by feasting on the rākṣasas’ blood, thereby aiding the progenitors of these clans to establish themselves as kings. These goddesses are Āśāpūrṇā/Aśāpurī of the Cāhamānas/ Cauhans, Gajun Mātā of the Pratīhāras, Keonj Mātā of the. Solākī/Calukyas and Sañcer Mātā of the Paramāras, all with flourishing local cults, the patronage of which grew important to these lineages as they expanded control into those cultic bases. The Śākambhari line of the Cāhamānas, as we (p.149) shall see below, Map 3. The major clan-goddesses and their assert in their origin-myth that in their affiliated clans. regency over the Sambhar lake they were blessed by the goddess Śākambharī, whose shrine still stands in the Sambhar lake. Additionally, the Amber Mahārājās worship Śilā Devī, the Sisodias of Udaipur Kālikā, while the Rathores worship Rāṣṭraśyenā/Lāṭanā/Manasā also known as Pankhānī Devī (the Winged Goddess), whose shrine is located in the fortress of Jodhpur. She is said to have given the first Rathore king Rāṣṭrodha to king Nārāyaṇa of Kanauj.25 Wherever royal lineages migrated, and they dispersed far and wide particularly after the Gupta fall (an example being the House of Cālukya), they carried with them their family goddesses, even raiding the divinities of rival kings whose empires they sacked. This led to the spread of the practice all over the subcontinent. A notable example is provided by the goddess Śilā Devī of the Amber kings, whose ritual history and the spread of whose temple sites are connected to the military expansion of this line. According to the 18th-century Bengali maṅgalkāvya, the Annadāmaṅgal, she was originally the protective goddess of the Bengali king Pratāpāditya of Yaśohara (Jessore), a Kālī known as Śilāmayī, ‘the fearless Empress of Page 8 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā Yaśohara’ (abhayājaśoreśvarī). The poem says of this king that he was the ‘chosen son of Bhavānī’ (varaputra Bhavānīr), for whom ‘Kālī was a veritable general in battles’ (yuddhakāle senāpatī kālī) but his luck and power ran out, and with it the loss of his clan-goddess to his enemy. In the late 16th century Pratāpāditya faced in battle Mansingh of Amber, general of the Mughal army, when Akbar had sent his troops to conquer Bengal. He was defeated by him, because, the work claims, the goddess had cursed him in her anger for his misdeeds. After this battle, Mansingh married his daughter who took back the goddess with her to Rajasthan. The image of Śilā was installed near the entrance of the Amber fort and even today is worshipped in honour of her eastern heritage by the descendants of the Bengali priests who had performed her rites in Jessore.26

Case Studies of Some Early Clan-Goddesses Let us now try to locate individual cults that flourished in India in the early medieval period. An exploration of their history shows that the goddesses of these cults were intimately connected to the process of state formation whereby local lineages participated in the broader civilizational process and asserted ownership over land. I shall also see if the rituals whereby these goddesses were worshipped can be reconstructed in order for us to understand (p.150) how the relationship between clan-deity and king was expressed and made real in observable practice. The royal rituals expressed how power was conceptualized in the medieval world. It is therefore necessary to analyse their processes in order to gain a key insight into why the cults of the royal goddesses were important to the king. Āśāpurī and Śākambharī of the Cāhamānas Between the 6th and 11th centuries, there emerged a number of powerful Śākta lineages on the political map of India who would attribute the source and emblems of their power to their patroness Śakti. Of these the Eastern Cālukyas, discussed in Chapter 3 (pp. 99–101), and the Orissan Śulkīs, discussed in the Introduction (pp. 7–8), are the earliest. To these may be added two other important medieval lineages, who present us with three of the most charismatic, if somewhat elusive, royal goddesses to have wielded power over monarchs in the period. The first of these lineages is the Rajput Cāhamānas. The Cāhamānas were devotees of the clan-goddess Āśāpurī, who was said to have aided them during their mythic birth from fire in Mount Arbuda, and also to have been the hand behind their acquisition of the Aser fort. Gaṇapati, a king of the Candavāra Cāhamānas who ruled in the 12th century, is said to have worshipped her,27 while even earlier Vigraharāja II, whose date can be ascertained from an inscription of 973,28 established a temple to her on the banks of the Revā (Narmada) at Bhṛgukaccha (Broach). Having seized the fortress called Kanthā (Kanthādurga) belonging to the rival Gurjara king Mūlarāja, he established Āśāpurī in the shrine he had built for her, which had a flight of stairs leading to the Narmadā (revāspṛṣṭasopānam).29 However, the territorial importance of the principal Cāhamāna seat, the Śākambharī (Sambhar) lake, caused a second deity to grow close to the hearts of the kings, the goddess of the lake herself, the eponymous Śākambharī. The claims made about this goddess’s connection to the clan are confusing: one bardic legend, recorded by Tod, the colonial historian of Rajasthan, asserts that she had granted Māṇikya Rāya, the son of Dula Rāya (684) possession of the Śākambhari lake, and thereby sovereignty.30 It is not clear who Tod’s bardic source was, or indeed if he was echoing a contemporary legend, for this claim that the goddess granted the Cāhamanas kingship is not recorded in the more ancient testimony found in the Sanskrit epic poem Pṛthivīrājavijaya of Jayānaka, a Kashmirian poet who was most likely the court composer of (p.151) Pṛthivīrāja Cāhamāna. The work was possibly composed between 1191 and 1193.31

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā Here the legend32 retold by Jayānaka establishes no direct relationship between the goddess Śākambhari and the Cāhamānas, that is to say she never appears in person to any of their members. It is rather Āśapurī who is named as the clan-goddess of the mythical Cāhamāna ancestor, Vāsudeva, whereas Śākambharī, a form of Pārvatī, is the object of worship of a Vidyādhara called Śakambhara.33 His devotion to Pārvatī so gratified her that she adopted his name and the site later filled by the salt lake as her home. Śakambhara’s son the Vidyādhara made frequent trips to the shrine to maintain his father’s tradition. It is this Vidyādhara, and not Śākambhari, who enables the king to produce the lake and be master of it. As a mark of gratitude for restoring to him the flight-enabling gulikā that had dropped out of his mouth, he asked the Cāhamāna to plunge his lance at a particular spot just as the night arrived. Then Vāsudeva was to ride forward and not look back. The king did as he was bade and from the hole in the ground gushed forth the salt lake. The place where the king in his curiosity turned back to see the moving torrent marked the lake’s limit. He is then told by the Vidyādhara that both Āśāpurī and Śākambharī would guard the Sambhar in partnership (militvā) and is advised to pay his respects at Ś ākambhari’s shrine inside the lake. After this, Vāsudeva spent the night near the goddess’s feet, and the next morning left. Jayānaka’s legend shows that, though the Cāhamānas swore primary fealty to Āśāpurī as their clan-deity, their possession of Sambhar made it necessary for them to also patronize and establish ties with the most important sacred site of the region, whose history can be traced back to at least the late 8th century, for Śākambharī is well attested in the Devīmāhātmya.34 Their power over the lake, clearly one of great strategic importance to them, could only be fully recognized in this way. At the same time, Śakambharī it seems could never replace the role of Āśāpurī—the two deities were venerated by the Śākambharī Cāhamānas together (hence their pairing in the chronicle) but in different capacities. This seems to be reflected in the inscriptions. Śākambharī’s name is conjoined with kings of this line such as Pṛthivīrāja Cāhamāna35 and the founder of the Naddula line of the family, Lakṣmaṇa.36 But in neither is she (p.152) referred to, as the bardic tradition recorded by Tod would have us believe, as the granter of kingship, the conventional epithet for a sovereign goddess. Nor are the kings described as her bhaktas, while to assume that the kings would have been thought ‘Lords over the goddess Śākambharī’, the apparent meaning conveyed by the epithets, is also unsuitable, for that would have been thought at the time highly disrespectful towards the deity. It seems that in reality the epithet simply meant that the kings were ‘Lords of the region of Śākambharī’, and in fact one epithet used to describe Lakṣmaṇa—‘he who is lord of Śākambharī, the playground of Lakṣmī as it were’ (lakṣmīlīlāsadanas-adṛśaśākambharīndraḥ)— does indeed suggest this.37 Māneśvarī of the Mallas The second lineage is the Nepalese Malla clan. Like the Rajputs, the warrior lineages of Nepal are also known for being strongly Śākta, and even today this sectarian current is observable in the ritual life of the city and in its architecture. Claims have been made advancing the Śākta affiliations of the Licchavis, the earliest prestigious dynasty from the kingdom whose rule spanned the 4th to the 8th centuries, mainly by Slusser (1998). The historian makes an argument proposing that the goddess Māneśvarī was the chosen deity (iṣṭadevī) established by the Licchavi Mānadeva (459–505/6)38 in his palace Mānagṛha.39 There is much in Slusser’s conjectures that may be true, and it is important to note that a temple to Mānamānesśvarī, dating though from later Malla times, stands in Hāṃḍigāon, the Licchavi capital.40 Slusser disregards the fact that the shrine is a Malla one too readily: ‘That the existing temple elevation

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā dates from the Malla period signifies nothing, of course, since any number of successive temples may have risen over the same foundation.’ The basis, nevertheless, on which her proposition rests is primarily embodied by a reference to an unspecified devī in Aṃśuvarman’s Hāṃḍigāon inscription of 606 CE,41 to whom the latter king made donations in Mānadeva’s palace; and a much later chronicle, the Gopālarājavaṃśāvalī, written in the 14th century under the rule of the Malla king Jayasthiti, that claims that king Mānadeva I established the cult of Māneśvarī.42 While Slusser assumes that the mysterious śrīdevyāḥ in the ninth line of Aṃśuvarman’s inscription (which (p.153) could mean either Śrīdevī or simply be an honorific followed by ‘goddess’) must be none other than Māneśvarī43 nothing from the other inscriptional records of the Licchavis, nor indeed from other literary or legendary sources from the period, accounts for their devotion towards this goddess. If the Licchavis were indeed the worshippers of Māneśvarī, they concealed it well from the world, and perhaps this was only proper, given that a goddess’s presence in the royal family’s life was something to be treasured and guarded. On the other hand, we do have evidence for the cult of a Durgā called Bhagavatī-Vijayesśvarī under Mānadeva’s reign: an inscription from the Bhagavatī temple in Palanchowk dated 425 Śaka saṃ vat (503) records that such a goddess was established (pratiṣṭhāpitā) by Vijayasvāminī, with whose name the deity’s seems collocated, wife of Samrāṭ Gṛhapati under the reign of Mānadeva.44 Nepal’s rich Śākta traditions flower more fully under the later Mallas, votaries of both Māneśvarī and the great royal goddess Taleju, who is well attested in at least three Mallaera inscriptions from the 17th century.45 The Malla Abhayamalla (C.1216–35) was a devotee of this goddess, as recorded in the colophon to a palm-leaf manuscript of the Nāṭyaśāstra, which he had commissioned to be copied for the prince Anantamalla on Thursday 9 November 1223. It says that the king Abhayamalla was favoured by the constant propitiation of the lotus feet of Goddess Māneśvarī.46 Tales and literature on both goddesses abound from Malla times onwards and Taleju herself has been the object of much scholarly analysis (the most detailed among which has been considered on pp. 3–4 above). If the Licchavis’ patronage of Māneśvarī was indeed fact, they would be the most ancient Indian dynasty to have nurtured a royal goddess-cult. Much remains of promise but Māneśvarī, before her civilizational sanctification of the Mallas, still remains shrouded in mystery, and work is left to be done. Kaṇṭeśvarī of the Caulukyas An early example of a royal kuladevī for whom ample testimonia are available is furnished by Kaṇṭeśvari,47 lineage-goddess (gotradevī) of the Western (p.154) Caulukya king Kumārapāla48 (1149–1230 Vikrama saṃvat; 1093–1174 CE). The court of this king was located at Aṇahilapura (modern-day Pāṭan) in Gujarat. The king’s belief that forms of Śakti were responsible for his victories in battle was something he proudly made public in his inscriptions. We have already encountered how he had ritually gifted the head of his slain rival to Caṇḍī in the very beginning.49 A further verse in that inscription tells us, while eulogizing the king’s merits, that ‘war [for him] was a delightful carnival, for his enemies, [however] many, were crushed by a multitude of goddesses’ (devīmaṇḍala).50 Information concerning one clan-goddess, Kaṇṭeśvarī, is given in two histories of Kumārapāla in Sanskrit, the Kumārapāladevacarita by Somadevasūrī and the Kumārapālaprabodhaprabandha by an anonymous author.51 These state that Kumārapāla worshipped Kaṇṭeśvarī and other goddesses in the bright half of Aśvina according to family tradition.52 Both legends thematically Page 11 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā deal with tensions caused in religious policy by Kumārapāla’s prohibition of animal slaughter (amārī) promulgated after his espousal of Jainism in 1216 Vikrama saṃvat (1160),53 and the requirement that Kaṇṭeśvarī be propitiated only by animal sacrifice. It is in this context that the importance of the goddess to the king is revealed, so much so that even in a case where Śākta worship conflicted with the official state religion, Kaṇṭeśvarī was nevertheless propitiated, despite all odds. For.when she was not, the fury of the goddess is described by these sources as being dire, while great efforts were made to negotiate a balance that would be acceptable to the kuladevī. In the legend it is said that after the promulgation of non-violence, Kaṇṭeśvarī became desirous of her dues on the.occasion of Navarātra in the bright half of Āśvina. While, according to Somadevasūri, she is said to crave ‘a hundred goats and one buffalo on the First (of Āśvina), double the amount on the Second (Dvitīya), triple on the Third (Tṛtīya) and nine times the amount on the Ninth (Navamī)’ (v. 387), the Kumārapālaprabodhaprabandha claims she asked for 107 beasts and seven buffaloes on the Seventh, 108 on the Eighth (Aṣṭamī) and 109 on the Ninth (Navamī). This request left the Jaina king in a quandary. At first it is said in one source that Kaṇṭeśvarī was (p.155) worshipped without paśubali, with a song (sāman) and then with further Tantric rites performed by Hemacandra, the king’s Jaina preceptor, but at one time, dissatisfied by substitutes, she still asked for a ‘meal of pleasing flesh’ (cāṭumāṃ-sāhāram). Torn between his devotion to Kaṇṭeśvarī, whom he could not refuse at a time of the year most sacred to her, and his recent conversion to non-violence, the king nevertheless decided to go ahead with the Navarātra animal offerings, for his clan-goddess’s desire was not to be rebuffed. However, in order not to infringe the Jaina law, he arranged for the animals to be kept alive in the goddess’s shrine, instead of their customary sacrifice, in the hope that the deity would still be propitiated by this symbolic gesture in lieu of bloodshed. But the legends go on to state that this was not the case. Such was the goddess’s wrath at this mere token of real blood, and the defilements caused by the animals, that in the second source she is said to have appeared before the king at midnight and, striking him on the head with her trident, caused tumours of leprosy to befoul his entire body. The king summoned his minister and declared he would commit suicide rather than continue on the horns of a dilemma. The minister solicited the counsel of Hemacandra, who through mantras restored the king to wholeness. The Jaina author of this legend now asserts the power of his faith over the kuladevī, for Hemacandra, his appeal to the goddess to accept vegetarian offerings having fallen on deaf ears, is said to have captured and imprisoned Kaṇṭeśvarī in a mantra (kaṇṭeśvarīṃ mantrayantritāṃ). The lamenting goddess was freed once a promise of adhering to non-violence had been extracted. Thereafter she is described as promoting the cause of Jainism, reporting to the king in dreams such acts of violence as the killing of a louse and a she-goat.54 Persons guilty were duly punished. Both legends thus end in a manner that conforms to Jaina ideology.55 This is predictable enough. However, what appears significant is that goddess worship, purged of animal sacrifice to accommodate Jaina beliefs, continued in Kumārapāla’s kingdom and, indeed, Kaṇṭeśvarī, rather than being rebuffed by the newly converted king, is shown as significantly manifesting her power upon the juridical functions of the state, albeit through decisions in line with Jainism. This tells us something crucial about the degree of importance granted to kuladevīs by Indic culture: their cult flourished even if it contravened, however radically, the king’s adopted faith. What was the procedure of their worship in this period? Although the daily method of worshipping deities like Kaṇṭeśvarī was best known only by the lineage, some idea of the methods of propitiation for special purposes (p.156) emerge from the Jaina kāvya

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā Tilakamañjarī (10th–11th centuries). As can be inferred from this work, the pūjā of the kuladevī by the king for a specific purpose, such as obtaining a son, was a simple affair: at dawn he would proceed with his courtiers directly to the palace shrine after the completion of his bath and his worship at the juncture (saṃdhyopāsanakṛtyam), adorned in new clothes, and ritually sprinkle the image, bedecked and anointed with her jewels and unguents, with consecrated water from gold pots. Perhaps this would have been completed with the offering of incense to the deity and the respectful chanting of hymns or the recitation of mantras.56 However, it is the kuladevī’s pratiṣṭhā (installation) rites which are better known to us from later Jaina literature. One work in particular, normative in nature, offers us a rare glimpse of the precise operations of a medieval clan-goddess’s rituals, those that would certainly have been prevalent in the Jālandhara area, the locus of its composition. The Ācāradinakara57 of Vardhamānasūri prescribes an installation rite for goddesses, specifying kuladevīs and prāsādadevīs (temple/palace goddesses) among them. First a śantika rite pacifying the planets and a pauṣṭika to bring about prosperity are taught for the sake of the sponsor. Having completed preliminary purificatory rituals of bathing, the officiant should clean and prepare the ground, install the pañcaratnas, five jewels, and a lineage-seat (kulapītha) of wood from the Nauclea Cadamba, placing on top the immovable image of the goddess used in the palace (sthiraprāsāda-devīpratimāṃ). Next victuals are offered to the image with mantras. Then, after further rituals, he must ritually install the protective ancillary mantras on himself and the sponsors of the rite. After offering hymns with flowers, he must then form the maṇḍala of Bhagavatī in front of the palace-goddess’s image. Having drawn a six-sided cakra, in its centre he must either draw, install as a figure or visualize Bhagavatī with a thousand arms, holding various weapons, adorned in white and borne by a lion. The clangoddess and the image of Bhagavatī-Durgā-Siṃhavāhinī (Durgā borne by a lion) are thereby ritually made cognate. Then mantras are invoked in each direction to different goddesses, and a circle with eight petals is drawn. Further mantras are infused in the maṇḍala, beginning from the right side of the central Bhagavatī. The procedure is repeated until sixty-four goddesses forming Bhagavatī’s retinue are installed. Then a further circle with petals is drawn and fifty-two male (p.157) attendant deities are installed. Having made a penultimate circuit ringed with eight Bhairavas, a final ring is added and a collective offering is made to all the deities. Next are installed the ten dikpālas (protectors of the Directions) and finally the ten planets. Outside this ring, the officiant must make four bhūmpuras and install Gaṇeśa, Ambā, Kārttikeya, Yamunā, the Kṣetrapālas, Mahābhairava, his teacher and Gaṇgā therein. Having thus installed the Bhagavatī-maṇḍala, he must next worship it by summoning the deities and propitiating them with offerings, mantras and oblations (homas) offered in a triangular altar (kuṇḍa). Then at the ritually appointed hour he must empower fragrant substances with mantras and offer them to the goddess. Then taking clothes he must worship all the people assembled at the ritual and then sprinkle the goddess with five types of consecrated water from vases and offer her three types of unguents. He must then offer her various feminine embellishments.58 The rite is then concluded. Danteśvarī/Dantavala of the Bastar Raj The dense forest-tracts of Chattisgarh formed in the medieval period a hub for prolific temple building. Chief among the temples falling in the subdivision of Bastar was Danteśvarī’s. Danteśvarī59 is the kuladevī of the ruling family of the largely tribal Bastari kingdom (presently in Chattisgarh). The cult of this deity emerges in the light of history in the 11th century, for she is named by a number of Bastar inscriptions commissioned by members of the ruling Nāgavaṃ śin Chindaka lineage. Hers appears to have been a prominent court cult at the heart of a powerful kingdom known as Cakrakūṭa that fell inside the southern Kosala lands. Such was its autonomy that during the 12th century Cakrakūṭa waged war on neighbouring Vengi.60 In the Page 13 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā inscriptions left behind by two of Cakrakūṭa’s rulers—Jagadekabhusan.a-Dharavarsa and his son Someśvara I—this goddess is specified as the object of royal reverence.61 She is mentioned in these inscriptions under her archaic appellation (p.158) Māṇikyadevī.62 The dedication of the second king, Someśvara I, to her cult appears to have been even stronger. In his Kuruspal inscription of 1019 Śaka year (1097) recorded late in his reign, he asserts that he had acquired sovereignty of Cakrakūṭa through the grace of Vindhyavāsinī, the form of Durgā Māṇikyadevī must have been associated with.63 After the Nāgavaṃśins, Bastar was ruled by a lineage calling themselves the Kākatīyas, as they claimed ancestral links with the proper Kākatīyas of Warrangal,64 under whose auspices the change in the goddess’s name appears to have occurred. The Kākatīyas of Bastar allege that Māṇikyadevī was their clan-goddess, who came with them, as they did, from Warrangal. In this regard, the family legend makes the claim that the Bastar line descended from Annamarājā, the brother of the last king of the Warrangal Kākatīya line, who fled to Bastar from the Bahmani sultanate around 1435.65 Popular belief holds that he was granted kingship by Māṇikyadevī and received from her a sword. The sword was used in his resistance of the Muslim occupation and was held to be the embodiment of the goddess.66 The legend also claims that their family had a long history even before Warrangal, during which time the name of the kuladevī changed a number of times. Prior to their establishment in Bastar, the family claims its descent from Delhi where their kuladevī, known then as Dillīśvarī/ Ḍillyeśvarī, is said to have granted an arrow to Birbhadra, a legendary king in the line. The lineage thereafter moved to Mathurā, where she became known as Bhuvaneśvarī and is said to have given the king a trident. The kuladevī subsequently shifted with the family to Orissa, and thence to Warrangal as Māṇikyadevī. Eventually as Danteśvarī she came to Bastar.67 (p.159) The main shrine of Danteśvarī is at Dantewada, at the confluence of the rivers Śaṅkhinī and Ḍaṇkinī. The image of the goddess inside, seen by the epigraphist Hiralal in the colonial era, is an eight-armed Mahiṣāsuramardinī.68 Annual human sacrifices were purportedly offered to the goddess in the sanctum sanctorum,69 and the British agent Macpherson, appointed to suppress these actions in the hilly areas of Orissa adjoining Bastar, provides a detailed account of the processes whereby victims were selected and captured. The practice apparently continued until it was banned by the British government.70 The goddess was clearly a bloodthirsty deity. Indeed, her name (The Goddess of the Tooth) seems especially to refer to this quality. Inscriptions from the 18th century record the plentiful animal sacrifices made by the king to felicitate important events of the political calendar. A Kākatīya inscription of Dikpāladeva of 1703 found outside the shrine begins by paying obeisance to Danteśvarī, called Dantāvalā, ‘Toothed Lady’ (śrī dantāvalā devī jayatīi), and says: One day he [Dikpaladeva] performed a procession with family accompanied by the members of the palace having arrived at the shrine of Dantāvalā. There he.caused the waters of the river Śaṅkhinī to run red with the torrents of blood issuing from the multitude of bodies of many thousands of buffaloes and goats [that were sacrificed].71 Dikpāladeva’s yātrā was apparently to felicitate his conquest of the Navaraṅgapura fort and the birth of his son.72 Elliot reports that similar processions en famille were regularly made to the shrine by the king on the occasion of a marriage or on the king’s coronation, when animals were sacrificed to propitiate Danteśvarī.73

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā Popular folklore recounts how the first Kākatīya of the state Annamarāja propitiated the goddess before his flight from Warrangal and that Danteśvarī promised to assist him in his military campaign in Bastar. The tinkling of her anklets would signal to the king that she was behind him, but on no account was he to look back, otherwise his battle would end in defeat. But while crossing the Ḍaṅkinī river the goddess’s feet sank in mud, and the king, unable to hear the sound of anklets, looked back. Then the goddess decided to remain at that site, but she promised the king victory nevertheless, albeit in a period (p.160) of five days. At that site, the king was said to have built the Dantewada shrine. Besides the king’s family, the goddess is said to have revealed herself to the priestly caste of the Bhāṇḍārī Naiks, who traditionally officiate at her temple.74 Eventually Annamarāja conquered the remaining territory formerly under the Nāgavaṃ śins after ousting their last ruler. What is clearly underlined in the legend is the goddess’s importance in the king’s political aggrandizement. Her impact on all levels of government policy was noted by Glasford in 1862: Nothing is done, no business undertaken … not even will the Rājā or Diwan proceed on a pleasure party or hunting excursion without consulting ‘Mai’ (mother). Her advice is asked in matters of the most trivial nature, flowers are placed on the head of the idol and as they fall to the right or to the left, so is the reply interpreted as favourable or otherwise.75

Further Tales of Clan-Goddesses Apart from coronations and other court rituals, a king’s power and right to rule were also reinforced by narratives asserting his divine connections. These were crucial accessories in the formation of a royal cult centred on the king, for they articulated and mythicized royal identity. A significant number of such narratives of kingship presented ruling lineages as having been sanctified by a female divinity. Such narratives explained the divinity of the ruler, why the worship of the clan-goddess, the source of divinity, was inherited by one generation from the older, and why she ought to be preserved by the family at all costs. Claims of a clan-goddess’s connection to the royal family were made in two ways: either she was the ancestor of the royal family, or the divine appointer of kingship. I shall now examine the mythologies presenting these claims. The first claim was made in certain .mwarrior-genealogies (vaṃśāvalīs) appearing from the 12th century. Several chapters in the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa (27–35),76 for instance, a scriptural ‘ancillary/ portion’ from the 12th–13th centuries77 claiming to be from the Skandapurāṇa, tabulate kuladevī-derived (p.161) Table 3. Aikṣvāku/Solar Line (based on the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa) Seer

kuladevī/mantragoddess

First king

Epithets

Bhāradvāja

Prabhādevi

Anuja

prabhādevyāś ca bhaktasya … anujavaṃśasya

Pūtamākśa

Kālikā

Devaka

kālikāyās tu bhaktasya pūtamākṣamuneḥ

Vasiṣṭha

Caṇḍikā

Pṛthu

caṇḍikāyāś ca bhaktasya vasiṣṭhasya

Kaśyapa

Mahālakṣmī

Ṛtuparṇa

(i) mahālakṣmyāḥ pādapadmasevakasya (ii) kāśyapāḥ ṛtuparṇāś ca mahālakṣmīprasevakāḥ

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā

Seer

kuladevī/mantragoddess

First king

Epithets

Hārita

Yogeśvari

Jaya

(i) yogeśvarīsevakasya (ii) yogeśvaryāḥ prasādajño

Vṛddhaviṣṇu

Indrāṇī

Suṣibhrū

vṛddhaviṣṇumuniḥ prokta indrāṇī nāma devatāsuṣibhrūr nṛpatir jñeyas

BrahmāJanārdana

Kāmākṣī

Saudāma

kāmākṣīdevatā yatra munir brahmājanārdana

Saubalya

Ekavīrā

Jāgalika

saubalyarṣivaryaś ca tv ekavīrā ca devatā

Kauṇḍinya

Ambikā

Bhadrapāṇī kauṇḍinyān ambikāyāś

Maṇḍavya

Māheśvarī

Jātharī

maṇḍavyā … māheśvaryāś ca sevakāḥ

Kauśika

Durgā

Nahuṣa

kauśikaś´ ca muniḥ prokto durgā devī tathaiva ca

Viśvamitra

Tvaritā

Mārtaṇḍa

viśvāmitrasya gotratvaṃ tvaritā devatā tathā

Note: The two genealogical lines presented in Tables 3 and 4 were tabulated mainly on the basis of three lists given in the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa, chapters 30.27–35 (List A), 30.36–46 (List B) and 31–34.67 (List C) of Da Cunha’s edition. List A gave the names of seers, B the names of goddesses, and C was a more detailed list combining both sets of information with the names of the first kings. kṣatriya lineages, twelve in the Aikṣvāku line and seventy-seven in the Aila (see Tables 3 and 4). The work explains the derivation with a myth. Verses 1–12 of chapter 27 describe, in the usual manner of Purāṇic genealogies, the direct descendants of the Aikṣvāku/Solar line. In verse 12, the direct line suddenly ends with king Aśvapati. Since he was childless, the Solar line terminated. Now a separate myth explaining goddesses as ancestors is worked in. Having obtained the consensus of the Ṛṣis, Aśvapati performed a putreṣṭi to beget a son and gave his entire property as payment to brahmans. Pleased by his worship, Nārāyaṇa.advised him to propitiate Bhṛgu. When propitiated by him, Bhṛgu deliberated that if he disregarded the [Twelve] Ṛṣis and gave a boon to the king, they would be angered. Thus he bestowed on (p.162) Table 4. Aila/Lunar line (based on the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa). Seer

kuladevī/ mantragoddess

First king

Epithets

Padmākṣa

Yogeśvarī

Padmarāja

yogeśvaryāś ca bhaktasya padmākṣasya

Cyavana/Nava (30.27)

Mahālakṣmī

Śama

mahālakṣmyāś ca bhaktasya cyavanasya

Gautama

Ekavīrā

Pṛthu

ekavīrāsubhaktasya gautamasya

Kauṇḍinya

Kālikā

Śrīdhara

kālikāyāś ca bhaktasya kauṇḍinyasya

Padmāvatī

Brahmaa

padmāvatyāś ca bhaktasya kauṇḍinyasya

Saunala/ Saunalya (30.28ab)

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā

Seer

kuladevī/ mantragoddess

Campaka

Kumārikā/ Campaka Kumārī (30.37)

kumārikāyā bhaktasya saunalasya

Kaśyapa

Kāmākṣī

kāmakṣīdevatabhaktakaśyapasya

Vasiṣṭha

Jagadambā/ Nīla Ambikā (30.37)

jagadambāsubhaktasya vasiṣṭhasya

Viśvāmitra

Sarasvatī

Vidyutpati

sarasvatyāḥ subhaktasya  viśvāmitramuneḥ

Bhṛgu

Umā

Suratha

umābhṛgukule

Atri

Vāgīśvarī

Raghu

atrer vāgīśvarīdevitatkule

Atrib

Vagiśvarī

Māgadha

atrer vāgīśvarīdevitatkule

Bhāradvāja

Lalitā

Śaila

lalitāyās tu bhaktasya bhāradvājasya

Hiraṇya

Māna Hariṅṇākṣikāc(30.37)

See note c

Hārita

Caṇḍikā

Śrīpati

caṇḍikāyāḥ subhaktasya hāritasya

Devarāja

Reṇukā

Śaila

reṇukāyāś ca bhaktasya devarājamuneḥ

Bhūcaṇḍa

Mahākālī

Nakula

mahākālyāś ca bhaktasya  bhīcaṇḍākhyamuneḥ

Aṅgiras

Tāmasā/ Tāmasī (30.39)/Tālikā (30.38)

Damana

(i) aṅgira tāmasā caiva devī lokeśu viśrutā (ii) dhṛtamanto … devībhaktā …  brāhmaṇātithyakārāḥ

Gārgya

Indrāṇī

Śaila

indrāṇanyāś caiva bhaktasya gārgyanamno muneḥ

Māṇḍavya

Brahmāṇī/ Bhūratha Brāhmī (30.38)

brahmāṇīdevatābhaktamāṇḍavyasya ṛṣeḥ

Saunalpa/ Śaunaka (30.29cd)

Padmāvatī

Yadu

padmāvatyāś ca bhaktasya saunalpasya

Pārśvad

Nīlāmbā

Pauṇḍraka

nīlāmbāasaktacittasya pārśvatasya

Priyae

Kolāmbā

Jaghana

kolāmbādevībhaktasya priyarṣer

Vṛddhaviṣṇuf

Ambā

Manmatha

ambāsaktacittasya vṛddhaviṣṇor

Vaivasvatag

Vāgiśvarī/ Nāgeśvarī (30.39ab)

Pārasi

vāgiśvaryās tu bhaktasya vaivasvatamuneḥ

Bhadra

Raktākṣī

Raṅghaka

raktākṣīndevatābhaktabhadranāmno

Kṛpāyu

Mahādevī

Pradyoṣa

mahādevyāś ca bhaktasya kṛpāyoś

Cāmara

Tāmasī

Śaśi

tāmasīdevatābhaktacāmarasya

Mārtaṇḍa

Vajriṇī

Dānarāja

vajriṇīdevatābhaktamārtaṇḍasya

Dālbha/Dālabha Matṛnandā

Sāraṅga

matṛnandāsubhaktasya dālabhasya

Pūtimākṣa

Vajradaṃṣṭra lilādevīsubhaktasya putimākṣamuneḥ

Lilā/Nilā

First king

Śārṅga

Epithets

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā

Seer

kuladevī/ mantragoddess

First king

Epithets

(p.163) Gaṇaka/ Jambilagaṇaka (30.31ab)

Mātṛkā

Cāpapāṇī

mātṛkādevībhaktaś ca gaṇako

Vairukṣa

Mohinī/Mālinī (30.40cd)

Śrīpāla

mohinīdevatābhaktavairukṣasya

Jāmadagni

Ūrśilā/Ūrṣilā (30.40cd)

Śūrasena

ūrśilādevatābhaktā jāmadagnimuneḥ

Bhānu/Bhāvana (30.32ab)

Yogeśvarī

Nṛhari

yogeśvaryāś ca bhaktasya bhānunāmno

Soma/Saumana (30.32ab)

Aruṇā

Manduka

aruṇādevatābhaktasomanāmamuneḥ

Nānābhi/ Nāmābhi (30.32ab)

Varṇākṣī/ Caruṇākṣī (30.41)

Bhārgava

varṇākśīdevatābhakto nānābhir

Dundubhi

Karālāa/Kurulā Sugrīva (30.41)

Draviṇa

Pātamālinī/ Pānamālinī (30.41)

Satyasaṃgha pātamḹinīdevyāś ca draviṇo

Gopa

Campāvatīi

Caitra

campāvatīsubhaktasya gopanāmno

Kumāra

Durgā

Dharmarāja

durgādevyāś ca bhaktasya kumārasya

Kumāra

Īśvarī

Ripunāśa

īśvarīdevatabhaktakumārasya

Mitrā/Maitreya (30.32cd)

Vīreśvarī/ Viraheśvarī (30.41cd)

Śāsvata

vīreśvaryāś ca bhaktasya

Maṇḍana

Ṣaḍguṇī/ Śārṅgā (30.42ab)

Dānarāja

saḍguṇīdevatābhaktamaṇḍanasya

Bakadālbhya

Pāṭalā

Śālmalī

pāṭalādevībhaktasya bakadālbhyamuneḥ

Romaharṣa/ Romāṇa (30.33ab)

Tvaritā

Jāyavān

tvaritādevatābhaktaromaharṣamuneḥ

Kūrma/Kumāra (30.33ab)

Mālamālinī

Prāṇanātha

mālamālinībhaktasya kūrmanāmno

Sukumārai

Muṃjā

Vidarbha

muṃjādevyārādhakasya sukumāramuneḥ

Sāvanaj

Māheśvarī

Vaijayanta

māheśvarīpūjakasya sāvanasya

Mālivanta

Kātyāyanī/ Kātyākāpi (30.42cd)

Pārthiva

kātyāyānyārādhakasya mālivantarṣeḥ

Citrak

Kātyāyānī

Bhūrisena

kātyāyānyārādhakasya citranāmno

Antarikṣa/ Agniksa (30.33cd)

Apsaras

Drupada

apsarodevatābhaktasyāntarīkṣamuneḥ

karāladevatābhaktadundubheśh

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā

Seer

kuladevī/ mantragoddess

First king

Epithets

Mudgala

Dāḍimā

Vāsuki

dāḍimādevatābhaktamuḍgalasya

Pārijāta

Candanā/ Bhadrikā (30.43ab)

Kīrtimān

candanādevībhaktasya pārijātarṣeḥ

Pārṇaval

Vaiṣṇavī

Suravara

vaiṣṇavidevatābhaktapārn.avākhyarṣeḥ

Agastya

Ugriṇī

Vāsudeva

ugriṇīdevatāpūjyāastasya

(p.164) Śālmalī

Mohinī

Ativāra

mohinīdevatabhaktaḥ śālmalī

Atrayu

Suvarṇā/ Suvarṇākṣī (30.43cd)

Sudeṣṇa

suvarrṇādevatābhaktasyātrayaś

Bhoma (Bhīma?) Bhairavī

Rukmaratha

bhairavīdevatābhaktabhomarṣes

Mahātāpa

Bhāminī

Suratha

bhāminīdevatābhaktamahātāpārṣeḥ

Upamanyu

Jātikā

Ādirāja

jātikādevatābhaktasyopamanyurṣeḥ

Śāṇḍilya

Sauminī/ Saumanī (30.44ab)

Mahārāja

sauminīdevatābhaktaḥ śāṇḍilyākhyarṣeḥ

Vibhāṇḍaka

Dalinī

Arimarda

dalinīdevībhaktasya vibhāṇḍakarṣeḥ

Dhārmika

Daityanāśinī

Prītimān

daityanāśinībhaktasya dhārmikasya

Sāttvika

Prabhāvatī

Sahasrajit

prabhāvatīpūjakasya sāttvikasya

Brahmarṣi

Śilā/Śilaṃja (30.44cd)

Citraratha

śilādevyārādhakasya brahmarṣes tu ṛṣeḥ

Janārdana

Bagalā/Bagilā (30.44cd)

Simanta

bagalārādhakasyaiva janārdanarṣeḥ

Vimala

Bhāminī

Gaja

bhāminīdevatābhaktavimalākhyarṣeḥ

Trātṛ

Amarā

Mahādhara

amarādhakasyāpi trātṛnāmno

Ugra

Śakti

Sukṣetra

śaktidevīpūjakasya hy ugranāmno

Prema

Someśvarī

Svarṇabāhu

someśvarīpujakasya premākhyasya

Bhāṣaṇa

Mahāmārī

Śridhara

mahāmārīpījakasya bhāṣaṇākhyamuneḥ

Somarṣi

Tūlanākṣī/Tulā Mahāvidvān (30.45cd)

tūlanākṣyādhakasya somarṣes tu muneḥ

Nabhas

Lālanikā/ Bālaṇā (30.45cd)

Prajāpāla

lālanikādhakasya nabhanāmno

Vāyu

Pannageśvarī

Suvidvān

pannageśvarībhaktasya vāyunāmno

Vāmaka

Tripurā

Kāmada

tripurādevatābhaktavāmakasya

Prāyaṇa

Antabhairavi

Vedavādarata antabhairavibhaktasya prāyaṇākhyarṣeḥ

(a)

brahma itīritah

(b) This repetition in Da Cunha’s text is problematic.

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā (c) 33.7, which also mentions this lineage, says hiraṇyasyāsya bhaktasya hiraṇyākhyaṛṣeḥ. This does not convey any meaning and appears corrupt. On the strength of 30.37 (hariṇākṣikā) I conjecture the intended meaning of the text as hariṇākṣikāabhaktasya hiraṇyākhyaṛṣeḥ. (d) Not mentioned in List A of the seers (30.27–35). (e) Ditto. (f) Ditto. (g) Ditto. (h) arāla] edn; karālā em. (i) Not mentioned in List A. (j) Ditto. (k) Ditto. (l) From here onwards, the list of kings does not match with what is given in the corresponding part of List A. (p.165) these seers twelve mantras.78 These were sonic embodiments of goddesses,79 and this is further confirmed by the list of mantra-goddesses that follow. The text describes these mantragoddesses as having manifested their power in conjunction with the Ṛṣis.80 When uttered by the mouths of the seers, they bestowed all desires (sarvakāmaphalapradāḥ),81 and magically reproliferated the kings of the dead lineage.82 They are also the kuladevīs of these lineages. On the origin of the Aila/Lunar line, something almost identical is described. Verses 6–12 of chapter 30 describe the direct descendants of Ila, said to have sprung from the flame emitted from the eye of the seer Atri. But the direct line ends with a king Kāmapati. Like Aśvapati in the Solar line, he too performed a putreṣṭi and propitiated Nārāyaṇa. The deity ensured the continuance of the Lunar line, not through the king, but through the magical powers of several mantra-goddesses, who produced kings when enunciated by seers.83 In this way the vaṃśāvalī conceptualizes kuladevīs as one of the origins of royalty. Attesting to its great popularity at the time, the same belief was proudly proclaimed in other non-scriptural genealogies, contemporary with, or dating shortly after, the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa, which explained the rise of several important Śakti-worshipping Rajputs. In the origin-myth of the Jajjapella (Yajvapāla) Rajputs of Narwar, their first king Jayapāla was said to have been created by the goddess Mahāruṇḍā (nirmito mahāruṇḍaya), who instated this king as the ruler of the first seat of the Jajjapellas, a mountain called Ratnagiri. This myth is recorded in an important inscription commissioned by the lineage in 1282.84 Similarly in the origin-myths of the Agnikula Rajputs and the Rathores, all Śakti-worshipping kṣatriya clans, clan-goddesses were closely associated with dynastic origination. Even if not presented as the direct ancestors, these goddesses are described in the origin-myth of these Rajput (p.166) dynasties to have appeared at the birth of their first kings and to have played a protective, fostering role. Since these kings had no human parents, all having been supernaturally born, the myths present these goddesses as the ancestors. In the case of the Rathores, their clan-goddess Rāṣṭraśyenā, also called Lāṭanā, Page 20 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā is presented as the transporter of the first Rathore, a divine child called Rāṣṭroḍha, to the world of men. She requested the infant Rāṣṭroḍha from Śiva and Kātyāyanī (his initial protectors), for the sake of an heirless king of Kanyakubja called Nārāyana, and then, descending to earth, gave this king the first Rathore as his heir.85 The Sahyādrikhaṇḍa was therefore not the sole witness of the belief that a kṣatriya king was delivered to earth by a goddess, but one among many indigenous traditions asserting divine ancestry from a Śakti. Its importance was that it was one of the earliest examples of Purāṇic literature to accommodate the belief in Śākti-derived kingship within Brahmanical conventions concerning kṣatriya identity. For its story that a kṣatriya line had originated from its clan-goddess was unattested by the classical myth of kṣatriya origination described in more ancient and more authoritative examples of Brahmanical literature. The canonical Brahmanical genealogies before the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa, described in early Purāṇic and epic sources, do not mention clan-goddesses as ancestors when cataloguing the descent of kings.86 These viewed Indian monarchical clans as descendants of one of two lines, Aikṣvāku (Solar) and Aila (Lunar), beginning from a mythical progenitor ManuVaivasvata.87 Following this early Purṇāic model of ancestry, the Solar or Lunar adherence of a king was asserted in most early medieval and medieval inscriptions and official genealogies. By adding the story of the clan-goddess, it is therefore obvious that the transmitter(s) of the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa genealogy had remodelled the conventional myth of the Solar–Lunar lines. Genealogical tampering was commonplace among the bardic transmitters of Purāṇas,88 and in the case of the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa genealogy the tampering was done, it seems, to accommodate the sectarian claims of powerful Śākta warrior lineages such as the Rajputs, whose beliefs concerning their ancestry from clan-goddesses had been thus far uncanonized by the Brahmanical tradition. It is owing to the widening pool of such lineages rising to power around the 6th century onwards, and the concomitant strengthening of the conception that true warriors were necessarily ‘devotees of the goddess’, devībhaktas, that newer genealogies like the one in the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa were composed, in order to incorporate the idea of kuladevīs (p. 167) from indigenous narrative traditions and to make it a salient feature of the Brahmanical conception of the warrior. Providing a further reason for the Sahyādrikhaṇḍda’s forced89 but necessary inclusion is the regional importance of the goddesses mentioned in the list. Many of the kuladevīs in the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa vaṃśāvalī still command flourishing local cults—Śilā is the kuladevī of the Amber mahārājas, Tvaritā is another name for Tuḷjā Bhavānī of Tuḷjāpur; Kāmākṣī is one of the most important southern goddesses located at Kāñcīpuram; Reṇukā, Mahālakṣmī and Jagadambā are the deities of Mahur, Kolhapur and Saptashringi in Maharashtra, and, along with Tuḷjā, the four most important Śaktis of the region. Mahālakṣmī’s great status in the medieval period is confirmed in a Cālukya inscription of Vikramāditya VI, where she is referred to as the governor of Soraṭūr.90 Many of these deities are to be found in the Sahyādri region itself and were possibly well known to the transmitters of the list. To regard kuladevīs as the progenitors of the race, though certainly popular, was not a ubiquitous tradition.91 Rather than having generated the first king, as in the myth of origin in the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa, other traditions of kuladevī-myths, primarily in the vernaculars, claimed that a clan-goddess had appointed the first king-to-be to power. These kings were not supernaturally conceived, that is inherently divine, but born in the usual way to men and women on earth. They are therefore conceptualized by the vernacular traditions as ordinary people, who are singled out for kingship by a female divinity. Set down in literary records after the 15th century with the rise of regional kingdoms promoting the vernaculars, such ancient legends

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā were used by these kingdoms as histories explaining how they had risen from obscurity. The Rajput narratives fostered by the Rajasthani kingdoms were particularly popular in the period, but equally so were the narrative traditions of newly developing eastern kingdoms such as Kāmatā (Cooch-Behar) and Cachar. It was in these traditions that the symbolism of Śakti emerged as a major theme in the narratives explaining state formation. I will now examine legends of state formation with particular attention to the myth connected to the kingdom of Kāmatā. (p.168) The legend described in the Bengali Gosānīmaṇgal chronicles the history of the Koch kings, formerly of Tibeto-Burmese stock, sovereigns from the 15th century of the vast kingdom of Kāmatā. At its height its area covered modern Cooch-Behar (North-West Bengal), Kāmarūpa and Darrang districts of Assam, and northern Mymensingh in Bangladesh.92 Historian of ancient Assam Jae-Eun Shin points out the ‘important ideological role of a local goddess cult in legitimizing political authority’ with regard to the role of the cult of Kāmākhyā and rise of the Koches in Kāmarūpa.93 This is also evident in the Gosāntīmaṇgal. In the legend GosānīKāmateśvarī, the clan-goddess of the Koches,94 and possibly a local emanation of Kāmākhyā/ Kāmeśvarī, the presiding goddess of Kāmarūpa, plays a central role in its foundation. The Koches were staunch supporters of Gosānī-Kāmateśvarī, to whom one of their kings, Prāṇanārāyaṇa, dedicated a shrine in Gosānīmārī in Cooch-Behar in 1665, a date indicated in the inscription attached to the temple.95 Their founder, Viśvasiṃha, was a devotee of the goddess, and one of the purposes of this devotion was to legitimize through the authority of the goddess his upcoming clan.96 The Gosānīmaṇgal, composed possibly in the early 19th century by Rādhākṛṣṇa Dāsa Vairāgī, but emulating the older style of the medieval Bengali maṅgalkāvya genre, retells what appears at its core to have been a very old tale originating in early medieval oral traditions, which acquired final shape in the late 15th-century legend (the end was clearly added after the attack of the Muslims in 1493, for it describes the invasion of Kāmatā by the Pathans).97 From similarities to a tale of political authorization centred on a fictional king Naraka and the goddess Kāmākhya that was used by a number of Assamese lineages from the 7th to the 9th century in the formation of their kingdoms,98 it seems that the Gosānī tale went back to the 9th century and was connected to Kāmākhya herself. It discusses the rise and fall of Kāmateśvara (Bengali: Kānteśvara), the mythical first king of the lineage. He is said to have been presided over by Caṇḍī (caṇḍī jār pṛṣṭhopar), manifested as the clan-deity GosānīKāmateśvarī. The story can be summarized as follows: In a village called Jāmbāḍī in Kāmatā, where there was no king, Śiva and Pārvatī were conversing underneath a śrīphala tree. Śiva announced his pleasure at the devotion exhibited by the inhabitants of that land. Then Caṇḍī-Pārvatī (p.169) prophesied that there would be a king called Kānteśvara to rule over that country. A kṣatriya woman in the village called Aṇganā was urged by a divine voice to worship Caṇḍī. That night the goddess appeared to her and, sitting by her head, showed her a dream where she prophesied the birth of a son who would be king. The next day the woman and her husband Bhaktīśvara worshipped Caṇḍī with various fragrant flowers, victuals, incense, lamps, unguents and hymns. Caṇḍī appeared to them in a vase (ghaṭa), pleased at their devotion, and.the woman asked from her the boon of a son. In a few days Aṅganā fell pregnant and on the auspicious day delivered a son, whose splendour filled the room and whose beauty surpassed Kandarpa’s. He was called Kāntanātha (Sanskrit: Kāmatānātha). At the age of five he began his education in Bengali, Sanskrit, grammar, poetry, śāstra, the Tantras and politics. Under instructions from Caṇḍī, a group of yoginīs

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā disguised as village women dressed him in celestial ornaments and robes befitting a king. On the sudden death of Bhaktīśvara, Aṅganā and the boy-king were left destitute. A brāhmaṇa employed Kāntanātha as his cattle-herder but in this task he proved to be negligent, taking recourse to naps on more than one occasion, while the cows roamed elsewhere. To protect him from the heat of the sun as he slept, Caṇḍī, the divine architect of this narrative, watching from heaven, caused her attendant Padmā to send two snakes to cast their hoods over his head. One day the brāhmaṇa stumbled upon this miraculous sight and, catching sight of the royal marks on the boy’s body, recognized him as a king-tobe. From that day on, the boy gave up cowherding and remained in the brāhmaṇa’s household, having made him the promise of appointing him the royal preceptor (rājaguru) on his ascension to the throne. One day Caṇḍī showed Kānteśvara a dream while sitting near his head. She prophesied that he was to undergo a trial in order to prove his mettle, although the kingdom was assuredly to be his. The king was asked to take a bath in a lake called Kājilī Kuḍā where he would witness three horrific creatures: first a makara, then a crocodile and finally a snake. If he caught hold of the makara, his lineage would flourish for all time, if the crocodile, his lineage would expand greatly, but were he to hold the snake, his dynasty would die. Accordingly he followed Caṇḍī’s instructions and saw the three terrible visions in the water of the lake. But he was too frightened to catch hold of either the makara or the crocodile, and instead touched the snake, whereupon the snake turned into the goddess, who cast a curse on his lineage. The distraught king offered Caṇḍī a hymn, and she gently warned him to follow her advice in the future at all times to ensure his success. Thereafter she ordered Viśvakarman the heavenly architect to build a commodious citadel and a palace inside it for the king, with a shrine to Caṇḍī and various other gods; and caused him to place therein a splendid lion-throne. It was all of silver, with four lions whose eyes were jewels. On it was placed a seat surmounted by a silver figure of a snake spreading its hood, in an evocation of the snake sent by Caṇḍī to shield him from the sun. The palace was furnished with a wide array of weapons for the king’s use and was completed in the course of a single night. In a dream Caṇḍī granted him kingship and gave him the new title of Kānteśvara (Sanskrit: Kāmateśvara, king of Kāmatā), and in dreams to all the citizens of that land, informed them (p.170) of their new king’s investiture to power. The abhiṣeka rite having taken place on the fifth of Kārttika, Caṇḍīpūjā was promulgated in the land and a new coin issued with the name of the goddess Kāmateśvarī inscribed upon it. Soon afterwards a fisherman, having cast his net in water and not obtained a catch, thought of the goddess and was gifted with a śaula fish in his net. But a kite flew off with it, which made the fisherman’s wife laugh. Construing this as a sign of mockery, the fisherman started quarrelling with his wife. The quarrel was taken to the throne-room to settle. There the fisherman’s wife while arguing her case recounted the history of Kāmatā to the king: ‘In the age of the Mahabharata war, Bhagadatta, the ruler of Kāmatā, had aided the Kauravas in Kurukṣetra and was slain by Arjuna, who had cut off his arm. On that arm was tied a kavaca granted by Caṇḍī to the king. A kite carried the arm to Kāmatā where, having rested on a tree, it picked the flesh clean off the hand and left the arm with the kavaca intact under the tree. Recognizing the bird that had flown off with the fish as that very kite, the fisherman’s wife had laughed out loud. Believing the woman’s story, the king caused the roots of the tree, a śimūla, to be dug up and the goddess’s kavaca was found in

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā perfect condition. It was inscribed with the name Gosānī. Then the king established the Gosānī-kavaca99 in the temple of Caṇḍī in a throne shaped like a lion, and sacrificed countless goats and buffaloes in the goddess’s honour. He established a fair for Gosānī and grew rich and content. ‘But the goddess’s curse held strong, and misfortune followed. After a series of personal tragedies—the queen’s affair with the royal minister’s son and the defection of that minister to the Muslim nawabs of Bengal—the kingdom was invaded by the Muslims and the king taken prisoner. The kavaca of the kuladevī was hidden in the Kājilī Kuḍā lake by a priest. Eventually she informed the king in a heavenly voice where she was and asked him to join her in her subterranean home. The king entered the Kājilī Kuḍā lake to bathe and was magically transported to the goddess. The kingdom remained without a king for some time but soon the curse was lifted and a king of Śiva’s stock ascended the throne. The worship of Gosānī began again. Lands were granted to support her worship. Countless animal sacrifices were held in her honour. Through her grace, peace returned to the land.’ It is striking how much this tale resembles other Śākta chronicles of kingship, such as those of Śivāji and the favours he received from his lineage-goddess Tuḷjā Bhavānī narrated in the Marathi bakhars. Furthermore, many of its themes resonate also with other contemporary vernacular accounts such as the legend of Raṇacaṇḍī, tutelary deity of the nearby kingdom of Cachar, the legend of the goddess Annapūrṇā, who furthered the ambitions of the landlord (zamindār) Bhavānanda in the Bengali Annadāmaṇ-gal, and also with stories of Rajput goddesses such as Āśāpurī’s. (i) In all such chronicles a kuladevī’s character is conceived as a benevolent yet punitive imperial patron (p.171) (the patriarch substitute). She appears by chance to disenfranchised men and grants them success, guiding them throughout their careers with moral and political instruction. Just as in the bakhar and the Kāmateśvarī legend, the context of patronage is omnipresent in the myth of Aśāpurī of the Cāhamānas, where Aśāpurī protects and oversees the fledgling king of the lineage, Iṣṭapāla, from his initial stage of powerlessness to his final attainment of Aser, principal fort of the Cahāmānas.100 Similarly in Book III of the Śākta medieval narrative the Annadāmaṇgal by Bhāratcandra, the goddess Annapūrṇā guides the zamindār Bhavānanda Majumdar from petty chiefdom to eventual glory against the Muslims. Complementing her benevolent aspect, she also has an opposing dangerous side that easily can fly out of control. (ii) She grants the material substance of royalty—here jewels and clothes, the palace, the throne, the new coin; in others a sword101 or a fortress.102 (iii) She often appears to the king in his dreams or when he is in a trance. The king is thereby presented not just as a ruler but as a conduit of the goddess. Śivaji presented himself occasionally in this role.103 In Annadāmaṇgal, Book III, the kuladevī Annapurna frequently appears in dream-visions to a petty zamindār, Bhavānanda, during his war with the Mughals, engages in conversation with him, and near his death shows him his past lives (jātismara), breaks the bonds (māyājāla) of transmigratory (sāṃsāric) existence and predicts the future of his kingdom. The kuladevī was thought to suffuse not just the outward spaces of the political realm, the palace and the kingdom, but also the spaces of the mind, the most internal, essential and private. In this way a king’s relationship with her is conceived as a particularly intense divine marriage, one that united goddess with king at the deepest level of being, in the unconscious itself. In some legends (here and in Tuḷjā’s), this interfusion is extended to the city: the goddess communicates to all citizens in dreams. (iv) Failed tests and their consequent ill-effects on the lineage that only the kuladevī is able to diminish are often included in the myths to explain the continued necessity of the goddess to the dynasty. The snake-in-water episode in Kāmateśvarī’s tale appears as well in Raṇacaṇḍī’s myth. (v) The clan-goddess is cast as a warrior mirroring Durgā104 or evoked Page 24 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā through warrior/Tantric talismans (such as the kavaca with Kāmateśvarī). (vi) She is both the cause of the state’s growth and the symbol of the aspirations of these kingdoms, which, if not as large as the (p.172) great empires of the early medieval period, nevertheless were eager to present themselves in the same mode. (vii) If medieval kingdoms are thought to be located around a centre whence all power radiates, then all these tales are essentially about the symbolism of that centre. The centre is where both sacred and temporal power in their respective forms as goddess and king merge.

Conclusion I will now conclude this chapter by analysing how the local cult of the clan-goddess attained its imperial manifestation by being ritually associated with Durgā, the prototype of the Sanskritic cakravartin (emperor). As we have seen before, the assimilation was symbolically manifested in such rituals of the kuladevī as the pratiṣṭhā of the Ācāradinakara, where the central deity of the maṇḍala is a thousand-armed Durgā. Such rites, though, were usually open only to members of the court and did not include ordinary citizens. The publicly shared ceremony where this symbolic unity between the particular and the imperial forms of the śakti occurred was the Navarātra. The ritual process of the Navarātra and its various regional systems are discussed in Part III of this book. During the course of the nine tithis (ten in the east) the identity of the clangoddess escalated, becoming manifest to all its citizens as the cosmic cakravartin Mahiṣāsuramardinī during its duration. Though everything in the litany of the Navarātra referred explicitly to Durgā, in practice all those symbolic expressions referred as metonyms to the clan-goddess and as proxy she received the same rites intended for Durgā. For example, during the Navarātra celebrations in Madurai, Mīnākṣī, the chief deity of the shrine, progressively grows violent during the nine tithis, transforming from a pacific form in the opening of the rite, to the royal deity and kuladevī of the Ramnad sovereigns, Rājarājeśvarī and, finally, into the asura-slaying Mahiṣāsuramardinī on Mahāṣṭamī. In the Navarātra in the Maratha kingdom some of the major rites centred on the shrine of the tutelary goddess Tuḷjā, who is also worshipped as Mahiṣāsuramardinī. In the Navarātra rites of Śivagaṇgai and Ramnad, Āśāpurī, tutelary deity of the Chauhans, was homologized with Durgā in the Navarātra, and received buffalo and ram sacrifice on Pañcamī with a procession by the king to her temple. During Taleju’s festivities in Dasain, the major festival of the Kathmandu Valley, she is identified with Mahiṣāsuramardinī. Sacrifices are made to the goddess in this emanation.105 (p.173) This ritual escalation in the deity’s identity was thought to coincide with the escalation in the power of the kingdom and the king. We can locate this process of collocation as having already occurred in the 7th century, for an inscription from 664 CE from the upper Banas plain identifies the local goddess Ghaṭṭavāsinī as a form of Durgā.106 At the level of individual goddess-cults, the language and iconography used to portray Durgā in religious literature were co-opted by the kingdom in its portrayals of the state clan-goddess in the literature dedicated to her and in her iconography. Danteśvarī of Bastar is represented as Durgā-Mahiṣāsuramardini in her icon, as observed above. Tuḷjā Bhavānī’s assimilation with Durgā is not just asserted in the medieval Turajāmāhātmya but also in her icon at the Osmanabad shrine, which is a mobile mūrti of black śāligrāma stone depicting her also as Mahiṣāsuramardinī. Further, her iconography in the Turajāmāhātmya corresponds to the Purāṇic Kauśikī, Durgā’s maiden form: like epithets used to laud Kauśikī, she too is described as an eight-armed girl, lustrous as the rising sun, bedecked in ornaments, coronet and white robes,

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā mounted on a lion, holding various weapons, accompanied by a retinue of fearsome yoginīs, ghosts, vetālas, skeletons, piśācas and grahas with animal heads and numerous legs.107 In the Gosānīmaṅgal, Kāmateśvarī is synthesized with Durgā in the benediction verses: she is called ‘Caṇḍī’, who had manifested herself of her own accord as Gosānī, the Empress of Kāmatā (Kānteśvarī), made Kāmateśvara the king, and given him boons. Further concepts associated with Durgā are applied to this goddess: when eulogized by the gods she slays Niśumbha as Kali and she rescues the gods, having slain Mahiṣāsura after a grim battle.108 In this way each goddess was knitted into a broader ideology of power while each kingdom connected into a prestigious concept of kingship. Despite this over-arching association with the goddess, the kuladevī maintained her distinctive identity, practice and legends, as seen. In this way both archetypical and distinctive identities existed simultaneously. We find (p.174) that the cult of the kuladevī remained a stable part of court life despite historical ruptures. Unlike state religions, which changed from ruler to ruler depending on personal inclinations, the kuladevī remained a permanent fixture in the lineage, unconnected to the vicissitudes of public religion. Thus, as seen, her worship continued in the family whatever their faith, as in the case of the kings of Śivagaṅgai and Ramnad, who were Vaiṣṇavas but simultaneously worshippers of Rājarājeśvarī; Kumārapāla, the Cālukya king who continued to worship Kaṇṭeśvarī, his kuladevī, even after his conversion to Jainism; and the kings of Cachar in Assam, who were Vaiṣṇavas but nevertheless built a shrine for Raṇacaṇḍī in their palace and offered animal sacrifice to please her. A kuladevī’s displeasure meant bad luck, and even ruin, for she was intimately bound to the family’s fortune. Prestige, wealth, land, offspring—the material forms of power were what the devī offered to the clan. This meant that the very continuity of power in the family depended, and still depends, on her worship. Notes: (1) Śiva has three eyes, which are black, red and white. (2) Skandapurāṇa, 64.19–29, 68.1–9. (3) Vāmanapurāṇa, 19.7–13; Devīmāhātmya, 3.8..nn–17; Kālikāpurāṇa, 60.73–6; Inden (1978: 41– 58); Kṛtyakalpataru, vol. 2, ‘Rājadharmakāṇḍa’, pp. 9–17. (4) Coburn (1984: 228). (5) Yokochi (1999: 80). (6) itthaṃ niśamya devānāṃ vacāṃsi ṃadhusūdanaḥ | cakāra kopaṃ śambhuś ca bhrukuṭīkuṭilānanau an.|| tato ’tikopapūrṇasya cakriṇo vadanāt tataḥ | niścakrāma mahat tejo brahmaṇaḥ śaṇkarasya ca || anyeṣāṃ caiva devānāṃ śakṛāḍināṃ śarīrataḥ | nirgataṃ sumahat tejas tac caikyaṃ samagacchata || ativa tejasaḥ kuṭaṃ jvalantam iva parvatam | dadṛśus te surās tatra jvalavyaptadigantaram || ekasthaṃ tad abhūn nārī vyāptalokatrayam tviṣa | yad abhūc chāṃbhavaṃ tejas tenājayata tanmukham || yāmyena cābhavan keśā bāhavo viṣṇutejasā || saumyena stanayor yugmaṃ madhyam caindreṇa cābhavat || vāruṇena ca jaṅghorū nitambas tejasā bhuvaḥ | brahmaṇas tejasā pādau tadāṅgulyo ’ rkatejasā || vasūnāṃ ca karāṅgulyaḥ kaubereṇa ca nāsikā | tasyas tu dantās saṃbhūtās prājāpatyena tejasā || nayanatritayaṃ jajñe tathā pavakatejasā | bhruvau ca saṃdhyayos teja śravaṇāv anilasya m. m. m. ca || anyeṣaṃ caiva

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā devānām saṃbhavas tejasāṃ śivā | tata samastadevānāṃ tejorāśisamudbhavam | tāṃ vilokya mudaṃ prapur amarā mahiṣārditāḥ || Devīmāhatmya, 2.8–18. (7) Mahabharata, 3.80.100–2 and 14.8 (passages identified by Falk 2003). (8) Beal (2004: 113). (9) Falk (2003: 5 (text and picture), 6 (translation)). (10) Ibid., p. 5, ll. 5–9. (11) tato gaccheta dharmajña bhīmāyāḥ sthānam uttamam | tatra snātvā tu yonyāṃvai naro bharatasattama m. | devyāḥ putro bhaved rājaṃs taptakuṇḍalavigrahaḥ | gavāṃ śatasahasrasya phalaṃ caivāpnuyān mahat | girimuñjaṃ samāsādya triṣu lokeṣu viṣrutam | pitāmahaṃ namaskṛtya gosahasraphalaṃ labhet | Mahabharata, 3.80.100–2. (12) Ghose (2006: 99). (13) Ibid., pp. 97–8. (14) Sims-Williams and Cribb (1996), Sims-Williams (1998), Ghose (2006: 97). (15) Ghose (2006: 108, fig. 5). (16) Trans. by Sims-Williams (2004); Sims-Williams and Cribb (1996: 81–3, ll. 1–2, 7, 11, 21–2); Sims-Williams (1998). Further examples of material history bear witness to the privileged position of this goddess to the Kuṣāṇa lineage. These nare a discovery of a partial sculpture of Nana from the devakula of Māṭ/Mathurā, the principal seat of the Kuṣāṇas in India, and several examples of statuary from Gandhāra. The general iconography in these images depicts Nana in regal mode, accompanied by a lion, bearing a cup in her right hand and a sceptre in her left. Coins and seals from the reigns of Kaniṣka and Huveṣka depict her with a sceptre with a lion protome, while one shows her consecrating the prostrate figure of a king with her sceptre. For an assessment of these and other examples of material evidence of her cult see Ghose (2006). For the coins see ibid., p. 108. A consideration of the available evidence supported by the strength of the Rabatak inscription ascribing divine authority to Nana has led Ghose (2006) to conclude that ‘around 127/128 Nana was regarded as the supreme deity by the Kuṣāṇa emperors to whom they owed their sovereignty’ (103). (17) Minardi (2013: 130). (18) Ghose (2006). (19) Minardi (2013). (20) Sanskrit literature contains a few scattered references from the 7th century, viz. in Bāṇa’s Harṣacarita, pp. 82, 73, 59 and Bhavabhūti’s Uttararāmacarita, 1.23, but literary Sanskrit tended to generalize individual goddesses as their pan-Indic imperial exemplar, Durgā. Clangoddesses therefore remain largely indistinct even in the great authors’ works. (21) The passages on kuladevī worship in Jaina literature, particularly in the Ācāradinakara, the Tilakamañjarī and the narratives on Kumārapāla, were first pointed out to me by Alexis Sanderson, whose recent research has focused on this material (pers. comm. 2010). Page 27 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā (22) Kuvalayamālā, Part 1, pp. 11–15 (reference given by Alexis Sanderson). (23) Tilakamañjarī, pp. 32–5. (24) In Baluchistan lies the popular Śākta pīṭha of Hiṅgulā Devī known as Hinglaj. This goddess is also the clan-deity of a number of Rajput lineages such as the Bhavsars, Bhansalis, Jadejas and others. It is reported that before Partition, several kings and princes from the western provinces of India made visits to this shrine to receive her blessings. A period of five days in April forms the occasion for a grand melā (fair) that attracts devotees in throngs (Shah 2009: 190). In the Deccan, there are several powerful kuladevīs: Tuljā Bhavānī in Mahārāṣṭra was the tutelary goddess of the Maratha kingdom, but her sphere of influence also encompassed other groups such as the Are or Kunbi Marathas, formerly a nomadic tribe (Russell & Lal 1916: vol. 1, 343; Iyer 2005: vol. 2, 78). Through her counterpart Koṛṛavai in south India she was connected to groups of other devotees in the Tamil country (Jansen 1995: ch. 5). In Mysore, the Wodeyar dynasty worships Cāmuṇḍeśvarī, for whom a shrine was built in the 17th century and whose image is still paraded.in pomp on the city streets during the Navarātra festivities. Similarly the clan-goddess Rājarājeśvarī enjoyed a prominent role in the rituals expressing the power of the king during the Navarātra of Śivagaṇgai and Ramnad (Price 1996). In the Bundelkhand region of central India stands the shrine of Maniya Devi at Mahoba, kuladevī of the aboriginal Bhars of Bundelkhand (Cunningham 1885: 69). In the medieval period, the Chandellas of Bundelkhand, builders of Khajuraho, who ruled a considerable part of central India from the 10th to the 13th centuries, were worshippers of this goddess, to whom they appealed in times of danger (Russell & Lal 1916: vol. 4, 422; Mitra 1977: 186). For Banjārī Devī of the zamindārī Raj Gonds, the Charans and the Bhats, see Russell & Lal (1916: vol. 2.2, 176, 181–2, 431) and Sharma (2005: 316–17). The 13th-century Gauḍahara Kṣatriyas of Narwar were worshippers of Cāmuṇḍa, the Navadurgās and Gauḍaharā. For a stone slab with an inscription of 1279 describing them, see EI 33.4.1, ll. 12–13. In Mahārāṣṭra the Moḍhas, an influential clan ruling Saṃyana in the 11th century, claimed in their inscriptions to have obtained the grace of the clan-goddess Khadirāvatī śrimoḍhānvayaprasūtaśrikhadirāvatilabdhaprasāda-(1053) (EI 32.5.3, p. 74). In the east, many kings from tribal backgrounds in the largely tribal districts of Chattisgarh, West Bengal, Orissa and Assam worshipped goddesses associated with their rise in status and subsequent brahmanization, such as Virajā (Donaldson 1985–7: vol. 1, 349), Khijjingeśvarī (ibid., 230), Koṭeśvarī, etc. Śyāmarupā’s temple, in the ruins of an old fortress said to date from the later years of the Pāla empire, outside Shantiniketan (Birbhum), has been seen by myself in situ. She is also called Ḍhekur Gaḍer Mā (Mother of the Ḍheku Fortress). Legends tell she had favoured Ichāi Ghosh or Iśvaraghoṣa of Ḍhekkarnī (possibly Ḍhekur Gaḍ itself), mahāmāṇḍalika of the Pāla kings, who established the temple to her in his fort (for a summary of the legend in Bengali see Vandyopādhyāya (CE date unknown [Bengali year 1404]); for inscriptions of Iśvaraghoṣa see Majumdar 2003: 149–57). For Sarvamaṇgalā, established in 1604 CE by the zamindār Cakradhara Bhuiyān, feudatory of Mansingh, agent of the Mughal government, see Bhattacharya (1982: nos 9 and 10); for Haṃśeśvarī, goddess of the Bansberia Raj of Hooghly, see ibid., no. 113; for Vāsalī, goddess of the Sāmanta chieftains of Bankura, see ibid., no. 70. In the Kathmandu Valley, there is Taleju, kuladevī of the Malla and later the Śāhī dynasties, whose role in Dasain, the most important festival in the Valley, is intimately connected with the empowerment of the ruler and the entire state (Levy & Rajopadhyaya 1992: 234–41, 523–5). Those goddesses not included in this description appear later in the book. (25) Tod (1920: vol. 2, 439–41). For Rāṣṭraśyenā, see Reu (1933: 13 and n. 1).

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā (26) Gupta & Gombrich (1986: 134); Willis (2009: 89). (27) Sharma (1959: 21). (28) EI 2.8. (29) Pṛthivīrājavijaya, 5.50–3. The existence of this work, and its relevance for the history of the Cahamānas’ Śākta faith, was first indicated to me by P. D. Szántó. (30) Tod (1920: vol. 2, 359–60). (31) Date established by Ojha in the Introduction to the Pṛthivīrājavijaya, pp. 2–3. (32) Pṛthivirājavijaya, 4.64–88. (33) The verse where this distinction is made is as follows: āśāpuritī nṛpate kuladevatā te śākambhari bhagavatī ca mayī prasannā | ete dyusindhuyamune iva sarvakalaṃ rakṣiṣyato lavaṇavārinidhiṃ militvā || Pṛthivīrājavijaya, 4.84. (The speaker is the Vidyādhara.) (34) See the opening section of this chapter. (35) śākambharībhūpati inscription of 1220, Śaka era: Tod (1920: vol. 2, 452). (36) lakṣmīlilāsadanasadṛśākāraśākambharīndraḥ, EI 9.9c, l. 5 (1262); śākambharīmaṇikya, EI 9.9d, v. 12 and p. 80. (37) The interpretation can be further supported by the epithet used in the Nadol plates of Kīrtipāla to describe Vākpati Cāhamāna, Lakṣmaṇa’s father: śākambharīnāmapure purāsīc chrīcāham-ananvayalabdhajanma | rājā […] vākpatirājanāmā | (EI 9.9b. l. 2). (38) Sanderson (2009: 75 and n. 105). (39) Slusser (1998: vol. 1, 317). (40) Ibid., p. 115. (41) Vajrācārya (1973: no. 72). (42) Slusser (1998: vol. 1, 318). (43) Nowhere in her work does she provide the full Sanskrit text of the inscription whereby the reader could verify her claim. (44) Lielukhine (2009: no. 14). Inscription first pointed out to me by P. D. Szántó. (45) Regmi (1966: vol. 4, nos 64–6).

(46) A palm-leaf MS of the Nāyaśastra in the Nepal German Manuscript Cataloguing Project catalogue (A18/22) has the following colophon (Thursday 9 November 1223): śreyostu || svasti……………… bhaṭṭārakapādānugṛhī[ta]nityārādhanabhagavatīśrīmāneśvarīpādapadmajarājādhirājaparameśvaraparamabh śaśrīmadabhayamalladevasya vijayarājye || || kumāraśrīanantamallasya pustakam idaṃ

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā likhāpitaṃ || || || samvat 344 kārttikaśuklapūrṇṇamāsyāṃ|| bṛhaspativāre || svabhadine || || bharataśastraṃ saṃpūrṇṇaṃ samāptam iti || (fol. 257r1–2). (47) This clan-goddess was first brought to my attention by Sanderson (2009: 246–7 and n. 575). (48) devi kaṇṭeśvarī gotradevi svaṃ bhāvyam īhate | Kumārapāladevacarita, 387c–388b. (49) See Prologue. (50) devīmaṇḍalakhaṇḍitākhilaripor yuddhaṃ vinodotsavaḥ | EI 1.34, v. 15cd. (51) Published in the Kumārapālacaritrasaṃgraha, pp. 21, vv. 387–97; pp. 94–5, ch. 75. (52) āśvinaśuklapakṣo ’gat | tatra kaṇṭeśvaryādidevatānām arcakair vijñaptam […]| ibid., p. 75. (53) The king was converted to Jainism by the ascetic Hemacandra Sūri, who quickly became his advisor on religious matters and influenced the king’s decision to impose the mandate of nonviolence (Kumārapālacaritrasaṃgraha, p. 18). (54) Kumārapālaprabodha, chs 77 and 85, pp. 95, 100. (55) For a detailed account of the Jaina accommodation of Tantric goddesses see Sanderson (2009: 246–7). (56) Tilakamañjarī, pp. 33–5. (57) In a personal communication of November 2010 Alexis Sanderson clarified in considerable detail several issues including the context and date of the author of the Ācāradinakara, and the distinction made by him between the three groups of goddesses classified in the work as kuladevīs, prāsādadevīs and āgamadevīs. This exchange, including his translation of an important passage in Acāradinakara, vol. 2, fol. 209b that has been referred to previously, was of considerable benefit to the present research. (58) Ācāradinakara, vol. 2, pp. 206–9b. (59) This deity was also first brought to my attention by Alexis Sanderson (pers. comm. April 2010). (60) For a history of the Nāgas of Bastar see Sharma (2001). For the Chindaka Nāgas of Cakrakūṭa, see ibid., pp. 159–65. For the burning of Vengi by Someśvara I, see Kuruspal Inscription, EI 10.7 (text), 9.3; Sharma (2001: 163). (61) The Bhairamgarh inscription Jagadekabhūṣaṇa-Dhārāvarṣa describes the king as ‘a devotee of the celestial lotus-feet of Maṇikyadevī’ (śrīmāṇikyadevīdivyapādapadmārādhaka, EI 9.19, p. 164; SII 10.649, Sharma 2001: 162). The Nagpur inscription of his son, Someśvara I (Śaka era 1030 = 1108 CE), also called Jagadekabhūṣaṇa, styles the king, almost exactly like his father, as śrīmāṇikyadevīdivyaśrīpādapadmārādhaka (EI 3.45, pp. 314–17; Sharma 2001: 164–5). For problems with the original date inscribed on this inscription (Śaka era 1130) see Hiralal’s analysis in EI 9.19, p. 162. Someśvara came to power after 1065 CE, ousting the overthrower of his father Madhurāntaka; see Kuruspal Inscription, EI 10.7; Sharma (2001: 163–4).

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā (62) Danteśvarī is identified as Māṇikyadevī by Hiralal, editor of the Bastar inscriptions in EI 9.19.5, p. 164 and EI 10.4, p. 27, on the basis of Elliot’s Report on the Dependency of Bastar 1861, p. 13. Elliot’s Report is cited by Hiralal in EI 10.4, p. 27 n. 7. Here Elliot says that the Bastar kings worshipped the goddess ‘Mānkeshwarea’ before they came to Bastar, and when they arrived there she assumed the name of ‘Dunteshwaree’, under which name she is still worshipped. Lal adds: ‘My own belief is that with the change of the dynasty the old name of the goddess was changed and the Māṇikyadevī of the Nāgavaṃśins became the Danteśvarī of the present family’ (ibid.). (63) śrīvindhyavāsinīdevyāḥ prasādāsāditacakrakūṭādhīśvarāṇāṃ, EI 10.7, ll. 5–6; Sharma (2001: 163). (64) EI 9.19, p. 165. (65) The relocation of the Kākatīyas from Warrangal to Bastar is alleged in the inscription of Dikpāladeva. This says that the last king of Warrangal was the Kākatīya Pratāparudra. When he died his brother Annamarāja left his country because of the terror of the Muslims and established a kingdom in the country of Bastar (tasya […] bhrātā annamarājanāmā yavanabhayāt nijadeśaṃ parityajya daṇḍakākhyanikaṭabastaradeś´e rājyam akarot | EI 12.30, ll. 4–7). (66) Mallebrein (1999) in Sanderson (2007: 289 n. 187). (67) EI 12.30, p. 244. (68) Hiralal, EI 9.19, p. 161. (69) Ibid. (70) Cited in Sharma (2001: 162–3). (71) tena caikadā svapuravāsijanena saha dantāvalāṃ samāgatya kuṭumbayātrā kṛtā | tatra bahusahasramahiṣachāgaśarīrasaṃghātaraktapravāhaiḥ śaṅkhinīṃ nadīṃ śoṇitodām akarot | EI 12.30, ll. 19–21. (72) Ibid., p. 243. (73) Ibid. (74) EI 12.30, p. 244. (75) Cited ibid. (76) The existence of this section of the work was first pointed out to me by Alexis Sanderson (pers. comm. April 2010). (77) A period between the two centuries may be hypothesized as the time of composition, given that the general emergence of the khaṇḍas of the Skandapurāṇa is held to be from the 12th century onwards and a citation from the Sahyādrikhaṇda appears in Hemādri’s Caturvargacintāmaṇ i (Part I, pp. 718 ff. and Part III, p. 306), a work from the latter part of the 13th century. The general period of the Skandapurāṇa is situated by the editors of the Groningen edition between the 6th and the 8th centuries in the Introduction to the Critical Edition of chapters 1–25. The editors, Bakker, Isaacson and Adriaensen, locate an early ‘core’ of the text, Page 31 of 33 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā to which were added newly composed texts styled as khaṇḍas from the 12th century onwards. By the time of the Caturvargacintāmaṇī in the 1270s, the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa along with six other khaṇḍas ‘had gained enough respectability to be used’ (Skandapurāṇa, vol. I, p. 10). (78) Sahyādrikhaṇḍa, 27.12–17. (79) Indicated in the line munipraṇītā mantrās te teṣāṃ vai devatā śṛṇu | ibid., 27.20cd. (80) te mantrā ṛṣisaṃyukta mantrabījasya devatāḥ | ibid., 30.26ab. (81) te mantrā ṛṣịvaktrotthāḥ sarvakāmaphalapradāḥ | ibid., 27.17cd. (82) Ibid., 27.12–17. That the text conceives of the mantras as being generative is indicated in another tale found in chapter 32 regarding the power of mantras chanted by holy men. In this tale (ibid., 32.28–30), a childless king performed a sacrifice to get an heir and fed his elder wife a portion of the sacrificial offering empowered by mantras recited by the officiating seers. Concerning these mantras the text extols: ṛṣivākyān mantraliṅgāt putraḥ samabhavat kila | ibid., 32.30cd (‘It is well known that a son was born from the utterance of the seer [that] bore the mark of a mantra.’). In accordance with this conception, a kuladevī lineage (ibid., 33.15cd) is also described as ‘born from the mantras of that [seer]’ (tasya mantrodbhavo). (83) Ibid., 30.23–7ab. (84) EI 33.4.2, ll. 4–5. Although Sircar, editor of the inscription, points out in a note that ‘Mahā’ in ‘Mahāruṃḍayā’ can also be read as ‘Sadāśivo’, the supporting text in the inscription (photograph, ibid., facing p. 41) cannot be read as anything other than ‘Mahāruṃḍayā’. This is quite legible. (85) Rāṣṭrauḍhavaṃśamahākāvya, 24–6 cited in Reu (1933: 13 n. 1). (86) Pargiter (1910; 1997: 84–125). (87) Pargiter (1910: 16 ff.; 1997: 84–119). (88) Witzel (1990: 3–4). (89) Certain structural signs betray that the transmitters were hard pressed in finding suitable narrative motifs to make the two dynastic schemes fit. The employment of an identical motif— the childless king—in both the Solar and the Lunar legends to explain why the kuladevī lineages arose in both lines strikes me as evidence of tampering—it is employed to forcefully establish continuity between the narratives. Rendering the motif additionally suspicious is the way the names of the kings mirror each other, perhaps rather too conveniently (Aśvapati, Kāmapati). Confusion in genealogies considered spurious also appears, for instance, in the Yādava dynasty in the Harivaṃśa, discussed by Pargiter (1997: 122). (90) SII 15.2.10. (91) One needs only to look at lineages such as the Kadambas of Bānavasī, who claimed to descend from a mythical man, rather than a goddess: Moraes (1990: 8). (92) Bhattacharya (1982: 94 n. 19); Ahmed (1936).

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The Regional Cults of Goddesses Merged with Durgā (93) Shin (2010: 21). (94) Ahmed (1936: 40–7) has a summary in Bengali of the history of the goddess as a Koch deity. (95) Bhattacharya (1982: 94, inscr. 37). (96) Shin (2010: 20 ff.). (97) Bhattacharya (1982: 94 n. 19). (98) For the tale and an analysis of its political use in genealogies see Shin (2010: 9–11). (99) According to Ahmed (1936: 42), the icon of the goddess in the temple was kept atop a box containing this same kavaca. (100) Tod (1920: vol. 2, 455). (101) Tuḷjā and Raṇacaṇḍī (102) Āśāpurī. (103) Sen (1920). (104) Āśāpurī appears as Śaktidevī on her lion, holding in her hand the trident characteristic of Mahiṣāsuramardinī. In this manner she descended at the time that the Cāhamāna king was born from the fire pit on Mount Arbuda and promised to hear his prayers at all times while he battled demons (Tod 1920: vol. 1, 80). (105) For the argument on Mīnākṣī see Fuller & Logan (1985: 88–9, 96); for Tuḷjā see Gazetteer of. the Bombay Presidency (1885: 565–6); for Rājarājeśvarī in Śivagaṅgai and Ramnad see Price (1996: 138–47); for Āśāpurī see Tod (1920: vol. 2, 464); for Taleju see Levy & Rajopadhyaya (1992: 241, 550, 560). (106) Sinha-Kapur (2002: 209). The identification of the local goddess Ghaṭṭavāsinī with Durgā is conveyed in the phrase ghaṭṭavāsinīnāmnā durgādevyā. (107) yoginivṛndasahitā cāmuṇḍāgaṇasevitā | bhūtavetālakaṅkālaiḥ piśācair bhairavair api | nānarupacarair ghorair nānāsyair bhīṣaṇākṣibhiḥ | ekapādais tripādaiś ca catuṣpādair grahair vṛttā | śūcimukhair aśvamukhair vyāghrasiṃhamukhais tathā | […] sandhyāmeghaprabhair ugrair yuktā prādur abhūt tadā | udyatsūryaprabhā devī siṃhavāhanavahitā | śaśisūryāgninayanā pūrṇacan-dranibhānanā | ṣoḍaśardhabhujā bālā nānabhūṣaṇabhūṣitā | śūlabāṇadhanuḥkhaḍgapāśacarmākṣatomarān | hastair dadhānā varadā kirīṭollikhitāmbarā | śuklavastraparidhānā raṇatkaṇkananūpurā | Turajāmāhātmya, 2.10–16. (108) ye rūpe gosānī nām kānteśvarī anupam vyakta hoilo āpan icchāy | kānteśvar kari rājā tāhār loilo pūjā var diyā śasila Behār | nama caṇḍī bhagavatī devatā karile stuti kālirūpe niśumbha vadhilā | devī ghor yuddha kari mahiṣāsur vadh kari devagaṇe uddhār karilā | Gosānimaṅgal, ‘Maṅgalācaraṇ a’, p. 69.

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization Bihani Sarkar

DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.003.0007

Abstract and Keywords This chapter begins the third part of the book, which aims to present the belief systems and ritual practices associated with Durgā. Through these beliefs, which conveyed the myth of civilization and imperial kingship for independent rulers to cultivate, the cult made itself meaningful to its adherents. Among beliefs of heroic Śāktism there was, firstly, the belief that a goddess had granted investiture to a king, secondly, the belief that a king defeated in battle would regain power through a goddess, and thirdly, the belief that a goddess was to be worshipped in times of war. These are expressed among various examples of literature from poetry to inscriptions, in versions of the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata that include scenes with Durgā aiding Rāma and the Pāṇḍava brothers, thereby showcasing her role in aiding the deserving hero. The chapter turns to the visual symbols and palladia whereby the relationship of king and goddess was made palpable for inhabitants of a kingdom, exploring rituals of goddessempowered swords, crests, and fortresses, and chariot processions, whereby the protective, triumphant, militaristic and defensive aspects of Durgā's personality were manifested and enlivened within each and every aspect of a medieval city. Keywords:   Mythology, fortresses, swords, crests, chariot-processions, Rāmayāṇa, Mahābhārata, Devīpurāṇa

nīte nirvyājadīrghāṃ maghavati maghavadvajralajjānidāne nidrāṃ drāg eva devadviṣi muṣitaruṣaḥ saṃsmarantyāḥ svabhāvam | devyā dṛgbhyas tisṛbhyas traya iva galitā rāśayo raktatāyās trāyataṃ vas triśulakṣatakuharabhuvo lohitāmbhaḥsamudrāḥ ||

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization Caṇḍiśataka, 40 Like three streams of thinning redness In the three eyes of the goddess As she recalled her true nature Her anger having dissipated When swiftly she had led the Foe Of gods to an endless slumber— For, powerful he had put to shame The lightning bolt of mighty Indra— May those gushing oceans of blood From the lesion left by her trident Protect you. In Part II we traced the expansion and enrichment of the Śakti cult through an identification of local goddesses with Durgā. In this part let us turn to the belief systems that heroic Śāktism articulated for rulers to cultivate. Essentially these beliefs were grand myths of triumphant civilization—how kings obtained the right to command others, how they kept that right, how they got it back when it was stolen from them, how they claimed land, how the substances of military action acquired effectivity, how communities were kept safe from invasion. These ideas about civilization involving the goddess at (p.178) their heart were universally distributed in a wide array of sectarian literature, in court literature, mythology, inscriptions, sacred objects (weapons and palladia), and were principally evoked in the Navarātra festival performed by all civic members in the communal context of a town. They were not owned by any particular group but were shared by all sects (by Jaina, Buddhist, Brahmanical and Śaiva worshippers of the goddess), forming a paradigm of classical imperialism resonant for all political orders, however small. In a wider sense, they formed the socio-religious ideascape on which notions of kingship and power in the new world came to be grounded, forming a collective religious heritage that did not require abstruse knowledge to be understood while belonging to culture at large. In this chapter I shall assess those beliefs and symbols underlying the cult of Durgā that were pervasive in Indic culture and applied to most warrior-goddesses having a protective role over communities. I also want to show that those symbols were closely bound up with the political realm and ideas about its creation. They guided the way royal power was commonly expressed by forming the main conceptual patterns for medieval kingship. They were as follows.

The First King is Granted Kingship by a Female Divinity The first belief of heroic Śāktism having a particularly wide currency in Indic belief systems was the investiture of kingship by a supernatural female being. It appears, for instance, in the narratives of the dynastic kuladevīs from the 12th century onwards that we examined in Part II, and even earlier in religious texts, in Purāṇic and in Buddhist scriptures from the 7th to 9th centuries (as we will see). But the locus of its primary appearance was not the religious literature of the early medieval period, but officially sanctioned royal inscriptions anteceding it, from the 2nd to 6th centuries. This would suggest that the legend was enshrined in scripture after it had already attained a degree of circulation in the dynastic records of royal families. As it is invoked in early inscriptional literature, the legend viewed the granter of kingship to be a female being, a prototypical emperor, usually Durgā or an associated deity. When worshipped, she grants the first king of the line his kingdom and all the emblems of sovereignty. This belief, appearing for the first time in a 2nd-century Kuṣāṇa epigraph invoking Nana,1 was commonly invoked, as a formula of appropriate kingship, in the genealogy sections of the epigraphs of early Page 2 of 29 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization Indian lineages, both Brahmanical and tribal in their background, from the 5th to 6th centuries onwards. This demonstrates (p.179) that the belief in the goddess as the source of royal power was widely held by Indian kings even at this early period, and was felt to be so important that it was publicly expressed in official records. A prestigious lineage to have consistently evoked such a political legend of ascendancy was the Cālukyas in the 7th century, as we have seen in Chapter 3. The modes of representation appearing in the Cālukyan epigraphs, which claimed political authority from Kausśikī and the Seven Mothers, ought to remind us of the inscriptional terminology employed by the rulers adhering to the 6th-century Orissan royal cult of Stambheśvarī, also mentioned previously. The earliest inscription mentioning Stambheśvarī was commissioned by the Dhenkanal-Talcher king Tuṣṭikāra around the early part of the 6th century from his capital Parvatadvāraka.2 Here he calls himself a ‘devotee at Stambheśvarī’s feet’ (stambheśvarīpādabhaktaḥ). His mother too was a follower of the same deity, for in an endorsement to the grant engraved on the outer side of the first plate of the same inscription, she is described as the worshipper of Bhagavatī Stambheśvarī’s feet.3 Stambheśvarī appears next in the inscriptions of the Śulkī dynasty (600– 900). For example, the Hindol inscription of the Śulkī king Raṇastambha, who ruled in the same area, issued around 709, states that the lineage had ‘obtained the gracious boons of Stambheśvarī’.4 At the time of the inscription, this goddess enjoyed legislative power, for she is the pramāṇa invoked to authorize the land-grant to the recipient brāhmaṇa.5 The ‘Goddess of the Post’ was considered to be not just the appointer of kingship, but also (as demonstrated in this instance) the fountainhead of law, the true sovereign on whose behalf the lineage ruled. Thus already by the 6th and 7th centuries, we find the Śākta investiture myth appearing in the literature expressive of royal power from the Deccan and Orissa. Given that its most ancient dated records emerge from the secular context of a court, in inscriptions issued by the ruler, the belief that a goddess had granted power was better known as a political philosophy of kingship in its early days, before acquiring a more conventional religious character in sacred literature. Among the sacred texts, the motif of a goddess granting kingship appears in early medieval Vajrayāna literature. In sources such as the (p.180) Kalyāṇakāmadhenu,6 Pārvatī and Durgā are mentioned as deities granting land. Among a catalogue of goddesses associated with siddhis, the work teaches a ritual involving the worship of Girikumārikā (Pārvatī) for a kingdom, followed by a rite worshipping Durgā for a village. In the first, the sādhaka is instructed to live on asafoetida (piṇyāka) for a lunar fortnight and to worship the goddess with oblations of bilva leaves smeared in clarified butter with the mantra ‘Mother Girikumārikā, grant me a kingdom, Svāhā!’ Thereafter the goddess is said to fulfil his wish. In the second he makes a hundred oblations into a fire ignited with the wood of the fig-tree (kṣīradruma), without having performed any preliminary practice (puraścaraṇa), while reciting the mantra ‘Oṃ O Durgā-Vidurgiṇī, Svāhā!’ at night. Then, the text assures, the goddess will indeed bestow that village on him at the end of his homa.7 The belief in Durgā or Pārvatī, her other half, granting kingdoms or land thus constituted a wide substratum in the landscape of early medieval religious practice. We have already seen how the figure of the oracular Caṇḍikā prasenā appears both in early Śaiva sources and in Buddhist literature (see Chapter 2). Although this is by no means conclusive evidence that the legend of a goddess’s investiture was Buddhist in its early religious form, it does indeed reveal the prevalence in Indic culture of a firm tradition of female divinities and siddhis relating to kingship, before the appearance of the Purāṇic devī-literature, where this receives greater elaboration. Indeed, there is much in the myth of investiture that appears indebted to the archaic Tantric traditions.

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization Among the early Purāṇic texts, the legend appears in nearly all the Śākta Purāṇas, beginning with the Devīmāhātmya, which I shall discuss later. At present I will focus on the Devīpurāṇa,8 the Śākta scripture which had a significant impact on the cultural programme of kingdoms, for it is cited in numerous famous Dharmaśāstric legislative compendiums (nibandhas) composed by smārta paṇḍitas serving in courts, for the benefit of their kings. Among many examples, early citations from the work appear for instance in the Kṛtyakalpataru of Lakṣmīdhara, the 12thcentury minister of the Gāhaḍavāla regency of Kannauj, in the Kṛtyaratnākara of Caṇḍeśvara Ṭhakkura, the (p.181) 13th-century minister for war and peace (sāṃdhivigrahika) in the court of Mithilā/Tirhut, and in the 14th-century Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī of Vidyāpati, who served in the later Oinwar court of Mithilā.9 The Devīpurāṇa is an eclectic scripture containing, besides legendary material on goddesses, a number of chapters on aspects of medieval government, and it therefore doubles as a political treatise. This could well have been the reason why it was profusely quoted as an authoritative text of goddess worship among orthodox scholars advising rulers on government. It contains information, for instance, on the building of gateways (toraṇa) (ch. 25) and forts and cities (ch. 73), what to do in the case of calamities (utpāta) such as discord in the royal household, falling meteors, earthquakes, portents of the king’s death, the rites of pacifying (śāntika) ferocious goddesses (mātṛgaṇa) in such times (ch. 55), and medical science (āyurveda) (ch. 108). The Śākta legends and rites are embedded within this framework, thereby suggesting that the Purāṇa could have been composed to serve, in addition to its scriptural function, as a practical manual for and within a state the ruling lineages of which were predominantly Śākta. Lending this greater support is the emphasis in the work on the association between goddesses and the attainment and preservation of kingship. It says in one place, for instance: In particular, when [worshipped] in Fire, the goddess is considered to bestow long life and good health, [while] in a sacrificial pit, glory in battle, conquest of land, affection among all men, knowledge, fortune, heirs etc. Therefore, a king must worship auspicious Caṇḍī who bestows desires as a stream of wealth (vasordhārā) as best he can for the sake of power.10 And further that a utopian kingdom will be bestowed on the devout: [The devotee] having performed oblations to the various types of goddesses, in a maṇḍ ala, sacrificial pit or on in a painted picture, will never be afflicted anywhere by any griefs, internal and others. Moreover, never do torments of disease or care occur in that land. For his sake appears a kingdom where there are abundant victuals, wealth, freedom from worldly desires, which are eternally splendid with elephants and horses, spread with mines of gold and jewels.11 (p.182) The scripture gives a number of detailed instructions on the making and consecration of Śākta insignia that provide an insight into how a medieval kingdom would have manifested its devotion to the goddess in visual media. These are discussed later. Medieval kāvya from the 10th century also forms the medium in which a number of tales of a king attaining kingship by means of worshipping a goddess appear, and these serve to strengthen the well-established secular context of the myth. The Kathāsaritsāgara contains a number of such royal Śakta legends12 and these too formed the fabric of the medieval imaginative universe, just as much as the scriptures. A summary of one alone, which we have briefly mentioned above, should suffice to demonstrate the vividness with which the political aspect of the goddess was conceived. In 15.1 it is said that once a vidyādhara emperor, Page 4 of 29 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization Naravāhanadatta, set off with a large army on a quest to conquer Mount Mandara, on the northern side of Śiva’s abode Kailāsa, which would grant him the status of a cakravartin. The mountain could only be accessed by means of a mountain pass connecting Kailāsa to Mandara. This was protected by fearsome guards appointed at all the entrances by Śiva: guhyakas and basilisks on one, a mighty vidyādhara on another, and the goddess Caṇḍikā in her terrible, apocalyptic aspect as Kālarātri, the all-consuming ‘Night of Destruction’, on another. Naravāhanadatta could only cross the cave guarded by this goddess to reach the other side if he propitiated her. However, he delayed and so angered her. In her rage, the goddess caused the king’s army to lose consciousness. When even the singing of an adulatory hymn could not make her relent, in his despair the king was about to cut off his head to appease her, when she finally warmed towards him. Thereafter she allowed him to pass, and so enabled him to conquer the other side of the mountain and achieve his ambition of universal sovereignty. These wide-ranging sources for the legend, from early medieval inscriptional, scriptural and literary works, form the precursors to the myth of investiture by a goddess as it was echoed in the histories of later lineages, shaping and influencing the way they presented royal ancestry. We have already witnessed very similar narratives in the previous chapter on goddessworshipping dynasties, and in 12th-century Brahmanical and Rajput genealogies. The myth also appears in the histories of other prestigious medieval dynasties appearing after the early Cālukyas, such as the Buddhist Pālas and the kṣatriya Guhilas. These also tended to present the first Pāla and Guhila kings as having been appointed to regency by a female divinity: in the (p. 183) case of the first Pāla, Gopāla, by the goddess Cundā; in the case of the first Guhila, Bappā (Bāṣpa), by Vindhyavāsinī. Gopāla (750–75), the founder of the Pāla fortunes, is reported by Tārānātha in his Rgya gar chos ’byung (1608) to have been blessed by the goddess Cundā before his assumption of power during the period of political turmoil in Bengal known as the matsyanyāya. The Ekaliṅgamāhātmya, a local Purāṇa on the Śaiva shrine of Ekaliṇgaji that fell within Guhila territory, presents Bappā’s consecration by Vindhyavāsinī in a prophecy made by the goddess. Here she foretells that as a consequence of her separation from Śiva because of a previous curse, she would be grief-stricken and would cry in her misery. In a mighty and venerated lineage of the foremost among the twice-born, a single teardrop (in Sanskrit, bāṣpa, hence the etymological link to the first king, Bappā) of the goddess would become a king when time ripened. When Bappā worshipped Viṣṇu in the Nāgahrada tīrtha, he would acquire a kingdom and would obtain heaven.13 The belief in investiture by a goddess grew to become a staple in the conception of proper kingship14 and no doubt this was owed to its ancient pedigree.

A Goddess Restores Power to a Dispossessed King In later tradition the narrative of goddess-sanctified sovereignty grew more complex and we find the addition of a king who has been defeated in war and has thus lost his kingdom. He is then shown to journey to a remote place, usually to the woods or to a mountain, and while in the wilderness undergoes penance and worships the goddess. The event precipitates a period of selfreflection and the realization by the king of the transience of his status. This addition to the myth was first reflected in the Devīmāhātmya, in narratives indebted to it and in Śāktized versions of the epics popular in the east. It was perhaps composed keeping in mind lineages who, if not Śākta in ancestry, adopted the worship of a goddess at a later point in their dynasty. The Devīmāhātmya presents the goddess as restoring power not only to a king but (p.184) also to a merchant, Samādhi. In this way the agents representing the main processes behind building kingdoms, governorship and commerce are shown to profit from the goddess. The Devīmāhātmya15 was regularly recited in court during the Navarātra, and the values of heroism presented in it, along with its image of the king and the deeds of Durgā, the king-above-all-kings, Page 5 of 29 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization were viewed as glorified reflections and reinforcements of the monarch’s own values and image. In this work the triad of stories concerning Durgā’s origin and struggle with demons is couched within a frame-story of a king called Suratha who has lost his kingdom and would go on to be born as the eighth Manu Sāvarṇi. Although the myths of Durgā have, over the centuries, taken on a life of their own, evidence suggests that the frame-story of the king had as much of an impact as, if not greater than, the tale of the goddess herself, for it evoked a story that could (and did) unfold all too easily in any king’s life. After losing his kingdom, tricked by a cabal of dissident ministers and a rival power, Suratha escapes his kingdom on the pretext of hunting. Hiding in a forest, he laments his loss, going on to contemplate philosophically the transience of material possessions and his inexplicable attachment (mamatva) to the things he had lost. Thus absorbed in existential questioning, he meets a merchant, Samādhi, in a similar plight. Along with Samādhi he goes to the hermitage of an ascetic, Sumedhas, in search of answers to their questions. From him they receive edification regarding the true nature of the goddess’s powers, her legends (the main text of the Devīmāhātmya), their benefits in reviving political fortune and the form of her worship. At the end of this exposition Samādhi and Suratha propitiate the goddess for a period of three years on the bank of a river, building a clay image of her and offering to her balis moistened with their blood. Thereafter Durgā appears to them and grants them wonderful boons. Suratha receives from her his kingdom and also reincarnation as the eighth Manu.16 It is not clear where the story originated but its topos of humility (for that is what defeat teaches the king) affected other narratives of Śākta kingship. A Purāṇic parallel to the Suratha legend exists, for instance, in the well-known Devībhāgavatapurāṇa, 32–5. n. (p.185) The story of the powerless king taught humility by his circumstances and then resurrected by Śakti also appears in literary sources. One of these, the Surathotsava, emerged in the context of an imperial Caulukyan court, indicating thereby the appeal of the myth in the realm of politics. The mahākāvya was composed by Someśvaradeva who lived in Gujarat between 1179 and 1262.17 Though based on the Devīmāhātmya, it adds greater significance to the character of king, editing the merchant from the frame-story altogether. Further, where the Devīmāhātmya posits a spiritual reason for the seer’s exposition—the answering of the king’s questions about selfhood and the induction of the king into Śāktism—here, the tales of the goddess are explicitly told to Suratha by the ascetic Sumedhas for a secular purpose, so that he can regain his lost kingdom.18 The motif of being restored to the throne is thereby even more enhanced in this version. But along with it is the idea that only the deserving ruler wins such a favour and images whereby the suitability of the ruler is presented succeed in accentuating the figure of the king within the story. For example, Someśvaradeva invents an episode in which Suratha’s asceticism, undertaken to win over the goddess, is put to the test by a seductive emanation conjured by Durgā. He is shown to eventually triumph over temptation in this episode, which forms the crucial event in the story, cementing his role as a worthy king deserving of the goddess’s blessing. Thereafter, winning the favours of the goddess, the king’s restoral to his kingdom occurs. The work was commissioned by the Caulukya Bhīma II,19 whose rule witnessed great turbulence in the Caulukya domains, both in the form of a rebellion by a feudatory in Dhārā20 and in the form of continuous attack from the Turkish Muhammad of Ghor and his general Qutb-ud-dīn Aibak, as well as severe disruptions in Malwa.21 It has been suggested by certain scholars that the story echoes the events of the time, and that the Śākta myth of (p.186) Suratha’s loss,

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization worship of Durgā and redemption may in fact be a political allegory of the Caulukya Bhīma himself.22 Suratha also appears in the Durgāvilāsa (‘The Play of Durgā’), a mahākāvya by Rāmakṛṣṇa, son of Govindācārya and grandson of Śivanātha.23 As in the Surathotsava, here too we find a greater elaboration on the theme of the defeated king: while the Devīmāhātmya devoted a short final chapter and a portion of the first chapter to the story, the Durgāvilāsa narrates it in a lengthy three. Extra motifs are added, such as an ornate description of Suratha’s court, a lengthier battle scene, and an episode where Suratha obtains restorative magical boons and uses them to create a kingdom called Citrapura through yogic powers (once again the magical suitability of the king is emphasized in the legend of Śākti-authorized reclamation).24 One may enquire why a narrative of defeat should be important to a warrior-culture that valued victory above all else. The obvious answer is that the legend of the frame-story allegorized the importance of Durgā in the restitution of royal power in times of political crisis. But perhaps less obviously, the legend also teaches a moral lesson for kings—the necessity of humility in a warrior. A goddess does not appear to any ruler, but only to one who is humbled in war and has thus learnt the fleeting nature of political glory. Here we may rely on Rāmakṛṣṇa to summarize this quite elegantly: A king, whose soldiers cannot be surpassed, who is far-seeing in politics, and illustrious of lineage is threatened as the moon is by successive eclipses, by enemies though they are weak, devoid of [knowledge] in governing and born into tarnished lineages. Then the king [Suratha], his soldiers completely destroyed, having deliberated that even the Sun fades on arriving at its [final] hour understanding that its innate lustre cannot be perceived, went to his capital.25 It is the knowledge of political uncertainty—the anxiety of a king regarding the loss of power—of which the myth reminds a ruler and which the cult of Durgā, or any royal goddess for that matter, claims to salve. (p.187) The revival of the king by Śakti was a theme echoed in kāvya26 and, resonating with its presentation in such literature, in the political legends of historical dynasties. In their political narratives, these dynasties would substitute the figure of the Purāṇic king with a member from their own lineage, and the figure of Durgā with their own goddess. The Cālukyas, believing as they did that they had obtained Kauśikī’s favour, invoked their own family legend in the same way, describing a story of loss followed by revival through Śakti in several inscriptions. The story can be summarized as follows. A Cālukya king, named Vijayāditya, who conquered Trilocana Pallava, was slain in the Deccan in an unfortunate twist of fate (daivadurīhayā). After his demise, his principal queen, who was six months pregnant, sought refuge in an agrahāra called Muḍivemu with her coterie. There she gave birth to a son, the heir apparent Viṣṇuvardhana, and brought him up under the protection of the śrauta Viṣṇubhaṭṭa. When he grew older and had been educated in the rites proper to his lineage, he was informed of his ancestry and history by his mother and is said to have first propitiated the goddess Gaurī-Nandā, and then the Cālukyan family divinities Skanda, Viṣṇu and the Seven Mothers, on the Cālukya mountain. The closeness in circumstance to the mythic ideal of the Śakti-worshipping king is indeed remarkable. The Cālukyan story echoes common motifs from Purāṇic legend and kāvya: the disenfranchisement of the king; his retirement to a remote place and dedicated worship of a goddess to restore his might; and even the restitution of power at the end of the worship. For, after his propitiation of Page 7 of 29 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization the goddess, he is said to have reclaimed the emblems of his empire (sāmrājyacihnāni) that had been granted to his family by Durgā-Kauśikī, defeated the Gangas and the Kadambas and reestablished Cālukya sovereignty over the entire Deccan in the region spanning Adam’s Bridge and the Narmadā, because of his Śākta worship.27 In this case too a (p.188) Śākta myth formed the underlying ideology of an example of court-sponsored literature that formed the main locus for the elaboration of royal identity. Perhaps most interestingly, the legend of the dispossessed king influenced the epics, the principal works embodying heroic values and ideas of kingship, appearing first in the Rāmāyaṇa and later also in the Mahābhārata. In the critical editions available of these texts, no narrative exists where Durgā appears. Nevertheless, this particular legend of Śākta kingship is widely narrated in recensions propagated in north and central India (in the case of the Mahābhārata) and in the east, particularly Bengal (mainly in the case of the Rāmāyaṇa, and to a certain extent also the Mahābhārata), where strong goddess-centred cults were known to have flourished. In these versions the goddess is a critically positioned image of sovereign power. Rāma and the Pāṇḍavas are shown to have worshipped Durgā at transitional periods of their disenfranchisement: Rāma after the capture of Sītā, the Pāṇḍavas when they are in exile and just before the Kurukṣetra war, when they are about to face the Kurus in the battle to regain their kingdom. Their subsequent resumption of power is attributed to this worship. In the case of the Mahābhārata the Śāktized interpolation is reflected in Devanāgarī and Bengali manuscripts as well as transcripts of Kashmiri manuscripts copied between the 17th and 18th centuries,28 but they doubtless formed a far more ancient tradition possibly, as suggested previously, dating to the 4th century, since it was usual to have old manuscripts re-copied when they began to disintegrate. We have already discussed these two hymns in the Virāṭaparvan and in the Bhīṣmaparvan showing (p.189) Durgā’s intervention, in the first chapter of this book, and have argued that they preserve the memory of Durgā’s most ancient identity as the Vaiṣṇava goddess of Sleep and Death, Nidrā-Kālarātri. However, let us briefly recapitulate the essentials and analyse how they convey the idea of Durgā’s importance for a dispossessed ruler and for the reclamation of state power. In the Mahābhārata Durgā’s intervention is shown not just once but twice at two critical stages of political dispossession. The first intervention is in the Virāṭaparvan (Mbh 4.5.29 ff., published in Mbh 4, App. I, 4A–G). On their way to the court of Virāṭa, the brothers hide their possessions in a śamī tree to protect them from enemies, and Yudhiṣṭhira mentally invokes Durgā for blessings. She appears to them and grants them boons of victory, and provides consolation to these princes in their period of dispossession. The second hymn appears later in the Bhīṣmaparvan (Mbh 6.22.6 ff., published in Mbh 6, App. I, 1) and the context of royal crises is more sharply visible in this hymn than in the first. Like the first, this too is showcased as a selfstanding hymn intended for public recitation and would doubtless have been chanted at festivals and in temples, so that its core ideas would have seeped through culture at a popular level. At the crucial confrontation which the Mahābhārata story builds up to, when Kṛṣṇa saw the opposing forces of Dhṛtarāṣṭra assembled for battle, he advised Arjuna to recite the hymn to Durgā ‘for victory over enemies’ (śatrūṇāṃ parājāya). Once Arjuna, having descended from his chariot, had sung the hymn extolling Durgā as Nidrā, the goddess appeared before her brother Kṛṣṇa and granted a boon to Arjuna that in short time he would conquer his enemies. Assisted by Kṛṣṇa, he would be unvanquished in the battlefield, a veritable Indra himself for all enemies. After this, Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa proceeded to war, and there follows an extended phalaśruti passage in which the importance of the hymn in critical periods is emphasized. These fears are essentially anxieties about the exertions of the civilizational process, and the goddess’s worship Page 8 of 29 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization is associated with clearing the potential threats hindering these exertions. Dangers such as fear from demonic beings, enemies, fanged creatures like snakes or other royal lineages would dissipate. Success would crown the reciter in a legal disagreement (vivade). One is freed from imprisonment or robbers. One assuredly can scale an impenetrable fortress (durgaṃ). One will always triumph in war and, endowed with health and strength, will live for a hundred years.29 Since five out of the nine manuscripts, as recorded by the editors of the Poona critical edition of the Mahābhārata transmitting this event, are in the Bengali script, this second interpolation seems to mirror a particularly eastern tradition of the epic prevalent in Bengal. But there is the possibility that this part of the story containing Durgā (p.190) was already present in the older Kashmirian version of the Mahābhārata, since two manuscripts (the editors’ K2 and K4) are copies of the Kashmiri version.30 What these Śāktized Mahābhāratas show is that the tales of the Pāṇḍava brothers, which formed the archetypical myth of Indian heroism, had possibly very ancient traditions showing the goddess interceding in the most crucial points of dispossession and battle. She is shown to appear in royal crises when indeed her powers were most sought after in parts of India where the Durgā-cult or cults associated with Durgā were most prominent from the 6th century onwards, namely the Deccan, Kashmir and Bengal. The version of the Rāmāyaṇa containing the theme of the dispossessed king is to be found mainly in the two eastern Purāṇas, the Kālikā31 60.25–43 and the Bṛhaddharma 22.1–25, and also in the possibly Deccan Devībhāgavatapurāṇa32 3.30.18–60.33 In these episodes a lamenting and powerless Rāma worships Durgā in Āśvina after Sītā’s abduction, and acquires the goddess’s grace and a boon of victory in the forthcoming war in Laṅkā. His victory is therefore attributed to Durgā, while each day of the Navarātra is explained as a day of his battle, with Rāvaṇa’s death said to have occurred on the Ninth tithi and the goddess’s ritualized departure from the world of men occurring on the Tenth with the performance of a lavish worship (viśeṣapūjā) and the Śāvarotsava. Indra then ritually lustrated his army and concluded the rite.34 (p.191) The Bṛhaddharmapurāṇa connects every tithi of Durgā’s autumnal worship with a day of the Rāmāyaṇa battle. After seeing the goddess in the figure of a young and beautiful maiden sleeping naked in a bilva leaf, Brahmā charmed her with a hymn. She then advised him to worship her from the dark Ninth of Āśvina until the very end of Rāma’s battle. She prophesied, in the manner of the Caṇḍikā prasenā, the following: on the dark Ninth conjoined with Ardrā, Brahmā was to ritually awaken her in the bilva (bodhanavidhi); on Trayodaśī the rākṣasa Kumbhakarṇa was to be slain by an arrow of Lakṣmaṇa; on Caturdaśī Rāvaṇa was to set forth on his campaign; on New Moon, Lakṣmaṇa would kill Indrajit. Now begins the bright phase: on Pratipat the demon Makarākṣa and on Dvitīyā Devāntaka were to die; on Saptamī Caṇḍikā would enter Rāma’s bow and thereby empower it; his confrontation with Rāvaṇa would begin on Aṣṭamī watched by all the gods; on the juncture of Aṣṭami and Navamī (midnight) Rāvaṇa would be frequently decapitated, but due to his powers would refresh his heads; on the afternoon of Navamī Rāma would kill him; on Daśamī he would celebrate his victory. In this way the Bṛhaddharma integrates the goddess’s worship in this month with the Rāmāyaṇa and thereby with mythical kingship. The myth, originating as a sectarian remodelling of the established kṣatriya legend, perhaps—it might be speculated—to accommodate the cult of heroic clan-goddess worship, outgrew its narrow context in the later medieval period. It significantly influenced the popular late medieval Bengali version of the Rāmāyaṇa by Kṛttivāsa,35 as well as the myth of.the Deccan goddess Tuḷjā Bhavānī in the Turajāmāhātmya, and remains today a belief common among all sects throughout India. In the Turajāmāhātmya, the older of the above two works, it is said towards the end of

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization Adhyāya 3 that Tuḷjā arrived at the Sahya mountains with her entire retinue of yoginīs and malevolent planets in her desire to see Rāma and that she dwelt there wishing to meet with him (Turajāmāhātmya, 3.40, 45cd). When he passed by on his way to Laṇkā she was gracious to him. She is thus also known as ‘Rāmavaradāyinī’ (She who bestows boons on Rāma).36 Her connection to Rāma is also evoked in her name: vernacular traditions connect one of her epithets, Tukāī, with a question Rāma supposedly asked the goddess on first meeting her.37 It is difficult to ascertain the period when the legend that Durgā aided Rāma was interpolated in the Purāṇas: only a far more thorough analysis including the manuscripts of the previously mentioned Purāṇas will succeed in clarifying the date. For the time being the available edited works must suffice as tools for tracing the period. A hymn to the demoness Saramā in the (p. 192) Rāmacarita of Abhinanda, who flourished in the 10th century in Bengal,38 imagines Saramā as Durgā in its 16th canto. In identifying Durgā with Saramā, Abhinanda makes an inversion, unifying a deity with a demonness. But such an inversion was not out of place. It echoed a widespread early medieval conception of Durgā: her aspect as the fearsome doorkeeper (dvārapāla), the protector of passes, crossings39 and communities. Among a sequence of laudatory epithets in the vocative, Saramā is described as the slayer of the buffalodemon, a clear reference to Durgā, ‘by whose foot, delicate as the sheath of a lotus, Mahiṣa was crushed in ancient times’ (abjakośamṛdunā mahiṣaḥ prāk cukṣude sa ca raṇe caraṇena). Saramā is also addressed as Caṇḍī and Bhavānī. This is accompanied by a number of epithets usually used to describe Durgā’s omnipotent aspect: she is unmanifest nature, Prakṛti; she is composed of all the Śaktis (sarvaśaktisamavāyiśarīre), and of Dharma in its entirety (sarvadharmamayi); she is the refuge of all beings (sarvaśaraṇye); the mother of the Universe (jagatprasavinīṃ); the slayer of wicked Daityas (duṣṭadaityakulamāri), whose face is fiery with the flames of the gods (devatānalamukhī).40 Before the hymn Saramā had introduced herself in the mode of the Purāṇic warrior-goddess, as the ferocious Śakti of the lord of the world (śaktir asmi jagadīśitur ugrā), who both destroys the enemy in battle and rescues with a glance bound souls submerged in the ocean of creation who approach her for refuge (saṃharāmi samayapratipakṣam uddharāmi ca bhavārṇavamagnān īkṣitena paśukān upasannān). The analogy with a ship in stormy seas is conventional in Purāṇic descriptions of Durgā.41 Hanumān asks Saramā to offer him safe passage in order to rescue Sītā (dehi devi gamanāya niyogam. yāmi rāmaramaṇīm anusartum). She, being pleased, lets him pass and also, in the manner of the regal Durgā, blesses him, prophesies his speedy destruction of Rāvaṇa’s clan and the favourable presence of the gods, Siddhas and seers in the southern direction where he is (p. 193) headed.42 In this way, the interlude presents Hanumān’s encounter with this syncretized deity exactly in the manner of a heroic myth involving Durgā: when in danger, the warrior worships the ferocious goddess and obtains from her safe and propitious passage. Given, then, that the Rāmāyaṇa was open to additional Śākta inflections from the Pāla period, it is tempting to suppose that the proclivity to augment the Rāmāyaṇa with Śākta narratives fructified in the east from the 9th or the 10th century.

A Goddess is Worshipped in War It was in war, both in its defensive and combative aspects, that a goddess’s potency was most sought after, and by all religious traditions. The belief that a female being ought to be worshipped in times of war probably arose simultaneously with the first legend of her having granted boons to the king. Numerous interludes in medieval courtly literary works describe a king worshipping Durgā in her bellicose forms on the warrior-tithis of Mahāṣṭamī or Page 10 of 29 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization Mahānavamī, sometimes with rituals involving a degree of risk and even human sacrifice for the attainment of special martial powers.43 The ferocity of the goddess, as we have already seen in the Haravijaya, was indeed understood to be her primary and most ancient characteristic. The inscription from Vaṭa (Vasantgadh in Rajasthan), dated 625, to Durgā as Kṣemāryā or Kṣemakarī conclusively establishes that Durgā’s connection to battle was prevalent at this early period, for in the benedictive stanzas the poet asks the goddess to provide blessings in the battlefield (ājau […] kṣemāryā […] vidadhātu śivāni).44 But inscriptions reveal little as to how that connection was manifested in ritual. For that aspect we must turn to prescriptive literature in Sanskrit. Many examples of this literature describe in detail how goddesses ought to be worshipped in Āśvina just before the departure of the army on military campaigns. It is difficult to contextualize such texts historically for, being written as divine revelations, they deliberately conceal specificities of context, such as (p.194) the time and place of composition. Nor do they serve as eyewitness accounts of real events, since they are concerned with what ought to be done, rather than what was. And yet, despite these problems, the martial aspect of goddesses is manifested with sharpest clarity in these works and they all suggest that war served as the most important social context for heroic Śāktism. A consideration of these ritual works is to be found in Chapter 7. Among the religious texts, early Vajrayāna again reveals an awareness of an archaic form of this belief. The Buddhist Tantric text Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa45 describes in considerable detail in chapter 52 (one of the Yamāntaka group) the worship of goddesses called yakṣiṇīs for warlike purposes. Several are named who can provide protection in war, or are employed in aggressive rituals to dispose of enemies. One, Tamasundarī, ‘kills enemies even removed from him by a hundred yojanas’ when worshipped by the sādhaka, while another, Naravīrā, is described as ‘providing excellent protection in calamity’.46 Like the later yoginīs, some of these deities wander in large groups.47 Some among them are benevolent (sattvānugrahakārikāḥ): they are said to fight Daityas in battle, are Dharmic (dharmiṣṭhā), compassionate (karuṇāviṣṭāḥ), and wander the earth for the benefit of good folk.48 These are also the hallmarks of the Purāṇic Durgā/Caṇḍī. As in the case of the first belief, here too one finds that the idea of warrior-like celestial women had appeared quite early on in Indian history. As before, one may wonder again whether, given the comparative antiquity of the early Tantric corpus to the Śākta Purāṇas, the descriptive terminology concerning these yakṣinīs and their aggressive rituals in this material might have influenced Durgā’s depiction as the kingdom-bestowing war-goddess, the slayer of Daityas and the protector of men.

The Goddess’s Evocation in Symbols of War The great martial ability of Caṇḍī or other martial goddesses collocated with her was evoked in a number of spectacular visual symbols such as the royal sword, crests and the deity’s sacred chariot that were used in war and also (p.195) regularly paraded in the city as important emblems of state. They displayed the wealth and magnificence of kingly power in its highest sacred form. The Pālas, for instance, were famous for owning a crest emblazoned with Tārā—a goddess who one of their kings, Mahendrapāla, boasted presided over him in battle49—that was captured as war-booty by the Rāṣṭrakūṭa Govinda III,50 while several important kings claimed to be the custodians of Bhavānī’s sword, treated as the form of the goddess held in the arm of the king. Śivājī, for instance, was said to have owed his military successes to the magical power of the sword that he claimed Bhavānī had granted to him.51 The sword always accompanied Śivāji or was kept, when not required, at Tuḷjā Bhavānī’s altar. It was kept in a shrine in the Rānī’s palace in Sātārā and publicly paraded during the Navarātra in a palanquin.52 Every year on

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization Vijayadaśamī, the sword was reclaimed from her, in ceremonial enactments of her celestial favour, before the king proceeded on campaigns.53 Several Nepalese dynasties were also the bearers of such a sword whence their lineages claimed to derive their sovereignty. A Nepalese inscription of 1387/8 reports the granting of a gift of a sword by the goddess Māneśvarī to the king Jayasthitimalla by which ‘other kings were brought in his dominion’ (śāsitānyamahīpāla).54 The Malla kings of Bhaktapur worshipped Taleju, their clan-goddess, in a royal sword that even in the present day is kept beside the statue of the deity in the palace temple.55 (Figure 3 shows a relief of the sword in Kathmandu’s Durbar Square.) Ritual manuals of the Newar Brāhmaṇas indicate that the sword was worshipped as the esoteric form of this goddess, Siddhilakṣmī, who is described in the litany as being ‘present in the sword’ (khaḍgasthā) and as its ‘embodiment’ (khaḍgarūpiṇī).56 A Newar manuscript on the Navarātra also sets out the procedure and mantras concerning the installation of a goddessempowered sword (khaḍgasthāpanavidhi) with Tantric rites and the attainment of the sword-siddhi on Mahāṣṭamī. The purpose of the siddhi was to bring wealth and crops, to achieve success in all deeds, to destroy enemies and to grant victory to the king.57 (p.196) (p.197) After the rise of Muslim powers in India from 1000 CE onwards, such swords, said to be gifted by a goddess, were often employed as symbols and instruments of crusades against Islam. During this period the expanding Muslim empires, from the Sultanate to the Mughals, posed an enormous threat to small Brahmanical kingdoms, who struggled against the sophistication and organization of the former. Thus, legends of the origin of mystical swords, and the ideologies connected to their use, especially in the cases of the early modern emperor Śivāji and the late Pāṇḍyas, often arose from the politics of religious opposition. The 14thcentury Pāṇḍyan prince Kumāra Kampaṇa claimed, for instance, that the sword he had used against the Muslims in the Madurai area was granted to him by a goddess so that he was able to extirpate the Muslim presence in the south and restore the temples and regions of that land to their

Figure 3. The Sword of Taleju in Durbar former glory.58 Śivāji himself constructed Square, Kathmandu his political strategies, religious ideology, (photo: P. D. Szántó). military career and empire against the might of Aurangzeb’s empire. His sword was not only a representative of the goddess, but also became an emblem of his political defiance.

How to Energize Symbols of Warfare

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization Given that they were no ordinary objects but rather totems of Śakti used in war, the question arises as to how these objects could have been ritually granted their sanctity and transformed into vessels of Śakti. Here we may turn again to the Devīpurāṇa, which formed one of the chief scriptural bases for courtly treatises instructing how to empower objects used in attack and defence. The work describes methods to ritually empower palladia such as swords, chariots and crests that would protect a king and the citizens of a kingdom. These instructions embody by no means simply a scriptural ideal, for they authorized the ritual programmes of various Indic kingdoms—they informed paddhatis (ritual manuals) used by officiants, while the Dharmaśāstric treatises in which these methods were reiterated harmonized with actual ritual policy. Swords With regard to swords or similar substrates, the text teaches a rite to be performed on the tithi called Śakrā or Vijayā, that of the full moon (purṇimā) in the month of Śrāvaṇa, an occasion important to kṣatriyas. The association of the festival with Indra (Śakra) is indicative of its military context. The text says that the ritual was to be performed mainly for success in battle (vijaya), (p.198) but also for heirs (putrārthaṃ), a kingdom (rājyaṃ), knowledge (vidyā), fortune (yaśas), good luck (saubhāgya) and good health (ārogya). On an auspicious asterism, the goddess was to be ritually installed in a sharp sword of gold or silver (hemaṃ vā rajataṃ taikṣṇyaṃ khaḍgaṃ), or in a pair of her slippers (pāduke)59 or in an image (pratimā) after the deity Fire had been summoned with mantras. This became her receptacle (ādhāra), empowered by her essence. It was to be adorned with mango leaves and placed on barley and śālī grains. She was to be anointed with sandalwood and the yellow pigment rocanā and worshipped with various flowers, incense, scents and food offerings. Next various kinds of grain and fruits were to be presented as naivedya. If the sacrificer desired specific rewards, fruits (phalā) were offered to the goddess; for victory in battle, barley grains (yavāṅkurān); for good luck, flowers (puṣpaṃ); for glory in war, jewels (ratnāni); for the destruction of enemies, a bow (dhanuḥ); for wealth, rice (annaṃ). Having asked for her forgiveness for errors caused in the rite, the sacrificer is instructed to feed children (if he wishes for offspring), or women and men of the twice-born castes (if he wishes for victory).60 The relative antiquity of this tradition associating swords with the worship of martial goddesses is borne witness by the Gaüḍavaho and the Haravijaya; and also in various tales of the Kathāsaritsāgara.61 Its great importance in the rituals consolidating the power of the state continued into the colonial period: during the Wodeyar rule over Mysore, the State Sword was worshipped daily (p.199) during the Navarātra and placed beside the royal throne during the Durbar. The tradition was initiated after 1610, when the Navarātra first began to be celebrated in the grand manner under the rule of Wodeyar I.62 Crests As with swords, the Devīpurāṇa also describes how to make a martial crest emblazoned with the goddess’s symbol (devīdhvaja). The ensign would be used in battles for repelling obstacles,63 or would fly on the palace turrets, at the gates and on mountain citadels as an apotropaic seal against demonic beings who were otherwise thought to run amok and cause obstacles,64 hence its symbolism of the goddess’s punitive aspect. It was to be erected on the palace new, smoothsurfaced, made of aṇḍaja or uṇḍuja metals (?), precious stone or other metallic substances, and white in colour. On its surface a lion endowed with all auspicious marks was to be inscribed with rocanā and sandalwood with a gold paintbrush or with dūrvā leaves. An allusion to her Purāṇic myths, where she is depicted attended by a lion, this was the paradigmatic symbol of the goddess in her aspect as regent of heaven and heroic slayer of demons. The crest was to hang

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization from the top of the ramparts to the earth. On the dhvaja the guardian deities, whose duty was to protect the crest, were to be emblazoned in their appropriate directions with their mounts. Having performed homas, the sacrificer must adorn these deities with tinkling baubles, yak-tail whisks, bells, mirrors and leaves, and worship the goddess with music and chants, offerings of fragrant flowers and grandeur according to his means. Having fed maidens, brāhmaṇas, with yoghurt, pāyasa and candied sugar, and having sacrificed beasts to appease ghosts, he should hoist her emblem. In this way, the text assures that a king will obtain all his wishes and become the ruler of Vidyādharas. Alternatively, he can erect the emblem in another way: the king should have moulded from earth from a mountain in his country, or from gold or silver, a statue of a rampant lion. It was to be depicted in a wrathful posture, as if attacking a mighty elephant (‘gouging masses of pearls with its great claws’, adds the text). On Navamī he must worship the goddess with the rites taught for this occasion, fasting, feasting maidens, men of the twice-born castes and devotees of the goddess, offering animal sacrifice to all (p.200) the ghosts who dwell in the ten directions. Then he was to chant a mantra of the goddess Vajraghoṇā or another, twenty-eight syllable, mantra, and erect the lion on a pillar with joyous cries, invoking the mantras of Carcikā and Kālikā, ferocious forms of Durgā with occult powers and control of dark forces. He must contemplate the lion and then hoist on it the ensign of the goddess adorned with cloths and jewels. Thereafter he was to hoist the ensigns of the remaining deities such as Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Indra, Rudra, the Moon and the Sun. For, the text says, as long as he does not hoist their emblems on the top of his palace, the palace will be bereft of the sign and presence of the gods.65 The Devīpurāṇa’s teachings concerning Śākta insignia evidently had an impact on the Brahmanical model of the running of kingdoms—in the subsection named the ‘Rite of the [Royal] Ensign’ (cihnavidhi) in the section on royal duties in the Kṛtyakalpataru of the dharmaśāstrin Lakṣmīdhara, minister to the Gāhaḍavālas in the 12th century, a further passage attributed to the Devīpurāṇa is cited.66 This Devīpurāṇa passage teaches the benefits of worshipping ensigns of different forms of goddesses on different mounts, and the description illustrates the great range of Śākta insignia available in the medieval world. Described, for instance, are the benefits of emblazoning a crest and flag, and also a yak-tail whisk, an amphora, a conch shell, a royal parasol and an awning with the following auspicious ensigns (cihna): the goddess Umā seated on a lion; the goddess Mahāmāya on a monkey, or also on a bull, a (p.201) camel, a swan, a peacock and Garuḍa; the goddess on a buffalo; the goddess holding a trident on an elephant; and the goddess Carcikā emblazoned in silver on a lotus, or on a corpse holding a blue lotus in her hand. When displayed in this manner on the heraldic devices or important objects of a king desiring attainments, decorated with fragrant flowers, garments, gold and fruits, the goddesses were thought to grant rewards—destroy fevers, pacify plagues, slay a king’s enemies and grant knowledge and sons.67 The Devīpurāṇa’s elaborate teachings concerning goddess-empowered insignia were therefore well known and respected by formulators of royal policy. Its belief that a king’s emblems of royalty, emblazoned and sanctified with Śakti, could bring about powerful effects was one that was evidently strong in medieval kingship. Chariot Processions The ceremonial procession of the chariot (rathayātrā) through the city carrying the goddess is also described vividly in the Devīpurāṇa. The yātrā symbolized the journey of the deity as a regent into battle. It thus enacted her role as the warrior and punisher of enemies, and functioned as the highest statement of her sovereignty. The chariot (ratha) was to be seven stories high, marked with the sign of the moon’s digit, draped in fine cloths, adorned with pillars of ivory and gold, and glittering with rubies and other gems. It was to be celebrated with the Page 14 of 29 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization fanfare of bells and drums, with yak-tail whisks, and decorated with banners, crests and mirrors. First the king was to ritually perfume the chariot and make it free of impurities with various fragrant flowers, unguents and incense. Then a beautiful image of the goddess was to be installed therein depicting her in her characteristic regnal form as the demon-slayer (mahāsurakṣayaṅkarīm). The image was to be worshipped with a hymn sung by the king in salutary mode, palms folded, asking this demon-slaying aspect for boons, and then balis were to be offered. Then the chariot was to be led with songs. It was to be taken out on the lunar days of Pañcamī, Saptamī, Full Moon, Navamī, Ekādaśi and Tṛtīyā, accompanied by a great crowd of inhabitants (mahājanapada), men and women. The object of (p.202) the journey was to reach a palace (vāstu) built on the confluence of two great rivers or on the banks of a mountain stream. There, in a pavilion made of great logs and bricks, stone or earth as prescribed in the architectural literature, the king was to offer animal sacrifice to appease the hungry deities hovering over the quarters, make an invocation to Durgā’s ferocious occult aspect of Kali, asking her to accept the sacrifice and grant boons in exchange, and then was to dismount the image of the goddess from the chariot. The image was to be installed on an auspicious seat and there bathed with perfumed water from sturdy new vases of gold, silver and copper filled with leaves, flowers and jewels, and then carefully wiped dry with fine cloths. Then the goddess, having been given offerings washed with the water from the vases, was to be anointed with sandalwood, camphor, vermilion and gorocanā and worshipped with gold and jewelled garlands, resplendent garments and incense. A feast was to be given for maidens, dvijas and paupers, and the king ought to next beg atonement for sins. She was then to be reinstalled on the chariot and led back to the royal palace. While the chariot meandered on its way, women were asked to cast salutary sprays of flowers, dūrvā grass and barley before it so thickly that the path had to be made muddy with their ceremonial showers. In every home gay adornments were to bedeck doors, alleys and compartments in order to avert inauspicious obstacles. Trees were forbidden to be cut down and animals from being slaughtered, and prisoners were to be given amnesty.68 It was a time when the victorious power of the (p.203) goddess was held to embody the military supremacy of the king and the kingdom. And, indeed, the importance of this tradition is borne witness by accounts of such processions in various medieval kingdoms, appearing for instance in the Kṛtyaratnākara of the Maithila Caṇḍeśvara Ṭhakkura,69 indicating that this was by no means a scriptural ideal. The ceremonial procession of a goddess, her revelation to the inhabitants of the city and the celebration of her punishment of demons also formed, for instance, the climax of the urban festivities of the Wodeyar kingdom of Mysore.70 During Navarātra the royal goddess Cāmuṇḍeśvarī was paraded in her chariot in full regalia. The goddess’s rathayātrā through the town remained until recently an important part of the festivities surrounding Taleju in the Kathmandu Valley, particularly during the Tenth day of the Mohanī.71 Fortresses and Urban Spaces Apart from the combative side of war, the second crucial sphere where goddesses were employed by kingdoms for empowerment was in the domain of urban protection. In order to defend itself effectively against attack, a medieval city was usually built as a fortified citadel. Most medieval citadels would have shrines installed inside to a goddess who was thought to defend the city. For example, an 8th-century inscription issued in the twenty-first year of king Nandivarman (752), a king of the Pallavas of Kāñcipuram, says that a vassal named Udayacandra had seized a fort called Kālidurga, which was ‘protected by Kāli’ (kālībhagavatīparipālitakālidurgaṃ), having defeated the army of the Pāṇḍyas, to whom, doubtless, the fort belonged.72 The term paripālita indicates that the fort had a shrine dedicated to Kali either inside or (p.204) near the gate, who was worshipped as its guardian deity. Other historical examples illustrate this use. Śivājī’s fort at Pratapgaḍ, the stronghold of his empire, Page 15 of 29 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization was protected by Tuḷjā Bhavānī herself, whose shrine was located inside the fort, while his fort in Satara was protected by the deity Manglai Devi, whose temple is in the north-eastern corner.73 This protective function remained relevant till the colonial era.74 Even today the tradition of employing goddesses amalgamated with Durgā in state defence is preserved in the worship of the fortress-goddesses of Rajasthan, many of whom serve as the clan-goddesses of the lineages commanding the forts. Although most of the Rajasthani forts have now become relics of their former power, at one point they did indeed function as the very heart of the Rajput kingdoms. Hence protecting them served an important political function. Śilā Devi’s shrine is located just before the entrance to the Amber Fort in Jaipur, because the deity is held to guard the entrance from demonic beings and thereby to protect the body of the state and the body of the king. In the Rathore stronghold, the Mehrangarh fort of Jodhpur, the principal protective deity of the citadel, Cāmuṇḍā/Rāṣṭraśyenā, occupies an.important shrine in the southern corner of the fort. It is said that so important was she for the fortunes of the royal family that she was brought to protect Jodhpur from her original site in the fortress of Mandore when the new fort was built by Rao Jodha in 1459 with the relocation of the dynasty to that city. The defensive aspect of the cult of the sovereign goddess may have been far more ancient than the function it served in military attack. Although the oldest Indic political treatise, Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra, does not grant goddesses a significant place in kingship it does appear to grant certain goddesses some role in defence as protectors of forts. It says in this regard that a shrine to the goddess Kumārī must be built in a building of four compartments, one inside the other, constructed on a lotus pool in the centre of the parapets of the fortification with canals to hold weapons.75 Furthermore, in its section on town planning, the Arthaśāstra envisions a royal city bounded by the fort ramparts in whose centre shrines to protective deities must be installed. Among this group of deities the goddess Madirā is named in conjunction with Śiva and other Vedic gods.76 Little is known about either goddess. (p.205) We know much more from Purāṇic sources. A Purāṇic myth, for instance, concerning the sacred site of Ekaliṅga in Medapāṭa (Mewar) links Rāṣṭraśyenā, a charismatic deity sacred to the Guhila lineages, with the establishment of the Medapāṭa citadel.77 Installed inside the fort as the overseer of the citadel by Vindhyavāsinī, with whom she is collocated and like whom she is worshipped at the Navarātra, she is particularly envisaged as a female falcon (śyenā) bearing a thunderbolt in her talons, protecting the city from invaders, among whom are named the ‘foreigners’ (yavanebhyo) and a host of supernatural, malevolent beings, ‘wicked Daityas, rākṣasas, piśācas, ghosts, pretas, yoginīs, demons’. At such times of invasion, Vindhyavāsinī commands her to ‘grant victory to the king of your land and likewise to citizens’.78 Elsewhere in the work it is said that ‘no fear of enemies arises in those kings who offer sacrifice to her according to rule at a time of horrific crisis. One ought to contemplate her with all his attention as a bird with a thunderbolt in its claws during battle and in violent endeavours etc., and as a gentle deity in benevolent actions.’79 Such a clearly defined role and status suggest that at some point the deity was propitiated by the Mewari royalty in the context of state defence. And indeed her shrine still stands near the Vindhyavāsinī and Ekaliṅga temples in Mewar. Rāṣṭraśyenā’s greater importance, though, is as the kuladevī of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas (Rāṭhoḍas) of Marwar, also called Lāṭanā/Mānasā/Vindhyavāsinī. Her falcon apparition, who is said to have rescued the Rathore kingdom, is emblazoned on the State Flag of the Marwar Durbar.80 The protection of forts by goddesses is more elaborately formulated in the Devīpurāṇa. Chapter 72, entirely devoted to fortresses, teaches the necessity of installing in every fortress an image

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization of Durgā as the buffalo-demon slayer, (p.206) along with Kubera, Gaṇeśa and Brahma, at the sides of the main gates (gopura).81 Furthermore, each gateway, it teaches, is named after a particular form of Durgā,82 and the scripture thereby envisions the architecture of a citadel as being ringed and sanctified at all the entrances with the protective presence of some manifestation of the goddess. Chapter 73 also teaches the building of a ‘victorycitadel’ (vijayapura) whose construction, described in technical detail between vv. 37b and 58, must only begin after the worship of Śiva, Durgā, the planets, the Mothers and Gaṇeśa, and having offered them sacrifice.83 Among these apotropaic deities, the text grants importance to the Seven Mothers as protectors of forts: they, among other gods, must for instance be installed in pavilions built inside a smaller guarded fortification underneath the victory citadel to house provisions,84 for the scripture explains that when care is taken to worship the long-established goddesses of mountain fortresses, they bestow prosperity on the kingdom of a king.85 In fact their worship, as also observed in the case of Rāṣṭraśyenā, is linked to the warding away of fears from a kingdom and the destruction of a king’s enemies, and this may explain their importance as guardian deities of citadels.86 The Devīpūrāṇa teaches that the Mothers are to be worshipped in all urban communities, in a capital, village, town and agricultural communities by those desirous of immediate (dṛṣṭa) and other-worldly (adṛṣṭa) rewards. For when (p.207) worshipped in a home, at a crossroads87 or at the edge of a market-place, they bestow wealth and sons; when worshipped before the eastern and other gateways of a city they increase the prosperity and happiness of a kingdom.88 As a goddess of fortresses, Durgā has an accentuated protective function and it is this function that finds expression in her association with forts. Linguistically there is also a suggestive overlap. Her name and the common expression for ‘fort’ in Sanskrit (durga) are the same, meaning something difficult to pass and also, particularly in her case, ‘danger’. According to the scriptural corpus, ‘Durgā’ is so named because she is ‘a saviour from danger’,89 but she was also so called as she was dangerous herself, and it is possible that the scriptures were simply stretching the meaning of her name to find another, less controversial option. The connection with danger meant that she wielded power over it—because of this, and also because of the fact that, like the fort itself, she was insurmountable, a form of Durgā was installed in a citadel. The homology between fortress and goddess was poetically evoked by scripture. An elaborate pun appears in Durgā’s legend in the Vāmanapurāṇa where the goddess’s limbs are compared to different parts of a fortress owned by Kāma—her arms to bars barricading a gate (parigha) and to siege machines (yantrāḥ); her breasts to two impenetrable fortifications (sudurgau); her waist with its three undulating folds to a staircase (sopāna) that Kāma is afraid to ascend when besieged; her navel to Kāma’s imperial seal (mudrā) affixed on his salt store, the goddess’s charming body (lāvaṇyagṛha); her hips.adorned with a girdle (mekhalā) to a well-fortified city (nagaraṃ sudurgaṃ) concealed behind a rampart (prākāraguptaṃ); her thighs to two settlements (deśau) for people to inhabit (janasyāvāsanārthaṃ).90 Such imagery evokes the deity’s (p.208) symbolism of the urban space of the citadel, and was perhaps composed bearing in mind the association between durga and Durgā. Durgā’s apotropaic dimension was conveyed via other images in Sanskrit literature and her liturgical corpus. In the Purāṇas, what was held to set Durgā apart from other salvific divinities who could grant power but remained at a distance from ordinary men was the view that she could actively and compassionately intervene in person in the world on behalf of men, to guard from worldly obstacles (durgāni) and calamities (utpāta/upadrava). In kāvya she is therefore the deity most often invoked by heroes in trouble, while the myth of the restitution of a

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization disenfranchised king drew also from this very belief. Further playing on the salvific resonance of her name, Durgā is often also figured as a ship carrying men through the stormy ocean of life (durgabhavasāgaranaus) or as a rescuer of one who is drowning in the sea of saṃsāra,91 qualities she may have inherited from the Vedic warrior-god Agni, who is also described as a ship carrying men through difficult seas and the dispeller of inauspiciousness.92 Like Agni, she is described as incandescent with an innate fire (tejas), a symbol of warding away evil. In the majority of the Purāṇic hymns, her protection is sought in arduous and treacherous situations, exemplified by the Devīmāhātmya as being in forests, on lonely pathways, trapped in fire, ringed by bandits or seized by foes, chased by wild animals, condemned to death and cast into prison by an angry king, afflicted by pain, caught in a volley of missiles in battle, indeed in any calamity (saṃkaṭa).93 And although (p.209) she is described as the granter of liberation, her worshippers, at least those envisaged in the early medieval texts, do not seem to have been primarily seekers of mokṣa, but rather of security against crisis, refuge and protection in affliction, a fact that contributed to her assimilation with protective clan-goddesses. As Headley notes about the goddess as she is worshipped in Java, ‘Durgā is associated with the consequences of creation more than as a creator: mankind makes offerings to divinities in exchange for protection.’94 Given this worldly dimension, the goddess was considered to be the proper guardian of human spaces. When the two associations in Puḷḷalūr and Aihole had issued the donations discussed in Chapter 4, it was to forms of the deity that were installed to protect their own towns.95 The practice of worshipping goddesses as deities of towns and villages is still widely observable in present-day custom.96 Function was linked to character. The forms of Durgā held to guard human spaces and enclosed areas such as fortresses were usually ferocious, such as we have seen with Rāṣṭraśyenā, for in the medieval view deities of territories were imagined as wrathful, energetic and forbidding in order to keep at bay unwanted elements. It was in these manifestations that guardian devīs were held to control ghosts, tribes of malevolent planets and frightening demons. Such goddesses were in fact considered to be partly demonic themselves, and to wander with deadly hordes who could potentially afflict a nation. In the Purāṇas, while entering the fray of battle, Caṇḍikā is depicted, for instance, as the leader of groups of dangerous yoginīs, as shown previously, and in this regard the Kālikā states that ‘wherever the goddess should roam, [they] follow her […] Caṇḍikā’s yoginīs are renowned in this world as her friends (sakhī).’97 Spirits, yoginīs and malevolent planets, controlled by Durgā in her dangerous aspect, were considered to pose a real threat to a kingdom and apotropaic rituals were taken very seriously in the medieval period. By worshipping a goddess and sating her and her fierce allies, it was believed that she, along with other demons, would not hover threateningly over an urban space, but rather would be converted to work in its favour, using her great powers for the defence of the realm. In this regard the Devīpurāṇa avers that when goddesses are worshipped by the twice-born ‘no terror (bhayaṃ) occurs in their dominions’, while ‘kings (bhūpālā) will have their enemies annihilated (nivṛttavairā)’.98 Notes: (1) See Chapter 5, pp. 142–4. (2) EI 30.45. The date is conjectured on palaeographical grounds by D. C. Sircar (EI 30, p. 274).

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization (3) EI 30.45, l. 1. The inscription has the incomprehensible Stasbheniryyā, which the editor, D. C. Sircar, interprets as Stambheśvaryāḥ (ibid., n. 8). (4) stambheśvarīla[bdha]varaprasāde śulkīkule ’bhūt kṣitipaḥ kṣatāriḥ | śrīraṇastambha iti pra[tī]taḥ sphuratpratāpodayatāpitāriḥ || EI 28.20, ll. 2–3. The date is conjectured by D. C. Sircar in EI 28, p. 108. (5) tathā ca dānam m. m. idaṃ asmadādikuladevatāṃ bhagavatīṃ surāsuravidvanmunimanujavandi[ta] śrimatstambheśvarībhaṭṭārikaṃ pramāīkṛtya pratipāditam asmai | EI 28.20, ll. 23–4. (6) Draft edition kindly allowed for use by H. Isaacson, Hamburg University (pers. comm.). The work which forms the subject of Isaacson’s current research was discussed at the Early Tantra Workshop in Hamburg, July 2010. (7) āhṛtya pakṣam ekaṃ piṇyākam girikumārikā mātā | ājyāktabilvahavanād rājyaṃ dadyān na saṃdehaḥ || mantraḥ—oṃ girikumārike māte rājyaṃ me sādhaya svāhā | durge vidurgiṇīti kṣīradrumasamidhena śatahomād | grāmaṃ dhruvaṃ prayacchati puraścaraṇanirapekṣo niśi puṃsām | mantraḥ—oṃ durge vidurgiṇi svāhā | vaṭāśvatthānāṃ samidhāṃ samānavatsāyāḥ kṣīreṇa grāmanāmagrahaṇena homānte grāmaṃ labhate | Draft edn, H. Isaacson, p. 3. (8) The work is highly corrupt and difficult to follow. The reader is warned that passages cited from the text include instances of irregular Sanskrit. A critical edition would be welcome. (9) For a full assessment of the impact of the Devīpurāṇa on Nibandha writers from the 12th century onwards see Hazra (1963: vol. 2, 71–3). The work was also apparently known to Kālidāsa, who, according to the commentator Bhagīratha, based the narrative of the Kumārasambhava on the tale of Skanda from the Devīpurāṇa (ibid., 67–8 and n. 148). (10) viśeṣeṇa tu vahnisthā āyurārogyadā matā | vijayaṃ bhūmilābhaṃ tu priyatvaṃ sarvamānavām | vidyāsaubhāgyaputrādi kuṇḍasthā saṃprayacchati | tasmān nṛpeṇa bhūtyarthaṃ vasordhārāśritā śivā | pūjanīyā yathāśaktyā caṇḍī kāmaphalapradā | Devīpurāṇa, 25.4b–6. I have maintained sarvamānavām, as it is here, instead of sarvamānavānāṃ This usage is attested in Śākta–Śaiva scriptural texts and also the Buddhist Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa (pers. comm., Alexis Sanderson, July 2011). (11) †evaṃ yugādibhir† devyo bahubhedāḥ †sabhāskarāḥ† | yas tu maṇḍalakuṇḍasthāḥ kṛtvā citre ’thavā yajet | nāsāv ādhyātmikādīni duḥkhāni kvacid āpnuyāt | ādhivyādhikṛtā pīḍā tasmin deśe ’pi no bhavet | subhikṣaṃ kṣemavairāgyaṃ gajavājisadojjvalam | hemaratnākarākīrṇaṃ rāṣṭraṃ tasya prajāyate | ibid., 50.99–103 (kuṇḍasthāṃ] edn, kuṇḍasthāḥ] em.). (12) Kathāsaritsāgara, 15.1, 12.11.5–123, 12.14.54, 7.8.53–225. (13) See Sanderson (2009: 94–5). See ibid., p. 95 n. 177 on the prominence of Cundā in Bengal and elsewhere at the period; for Tārānātha see Chimpa & Chattopadhyaya (2004: 257–8). yasmād bāṣpaṃ sṛjāmy adya viyogāc chaṅkarasya ca | pūrvadattāc ca me śāpād bāṣpo rājā bhaviṣyasi | kalau prāpte dvijāgryāṇām kule mahati pūjite | tava vaṃśasya vicchittir na kadācid bhaviṣyati | ārādhya taṃ jagannāthaṃ tīrthe nāgahrade śubhe | rājyaṃ śakra iva prāpya tataḥ svargam avāpsyasi | Ekaliṅgamāhātmya, 6.13–15.

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization (14) For further examples of royal inscriptions dating from the 10th to 17th centuries where kings are said to have had power invested by a goddess, see Sanderson (2007: 289 n. 185). Some royal lineages discussed there are the Mallas from the time of Jayasthitimalla, who claimed in their inscriptions to have gained the boon of the goddess Māneśvarī; the Hoysaḷa kings, who had gained the boon of the goddess Vāsantī; vassal-kings of the Dakṣiṇa Kosala empire, who also had gained the favours of goddesses such as Kāleśvarī and Khambeśvarī. (15) This text has been the object of much critical and textual attention since the 19th century. The first English translation appeared in 1823, followed by a Latin translation (1831) and a Greek translation (1853) (Coburn (1984: 52). Coburn’s 1984 study was the first major textual analysis of the complete work, followed by a translation in 1988. Y. Yokochi has written extensively on the subject: Yokochi (1999) is an in-depth study of the Devīmāhātmya, while Yokochi (2004) analyses the historical antecedents of the Devīmāhātmya in the Skandapurāṇa incorporating the existing iconographic evidence that Coburn had overlooked. Sohnen-Thieme (2002) has also studied the narrative components of the Mahiṣasuramardinī tale. (16) Devīmāhātmya, 1.1–48 and 13. (17) Dasgupta (1962: vol. 1, 678). Someśvara is also the author of Kīrtikaumudī, a biograhy of Vastupāla, minister of the Vaghelā princes Lavanaprasāda and Vīradhavala. I am indebted to Alexis Sanderson, who first indicated to me the existence of the Surathotsava. (18) sāmrājyam etasya punaḥ pradātuṃ saiva prabhuḥ parvatarājaputrī | †jñānād iti† jñānanidhiḥ sa matvā vaktuṃ tataḥ prakramate sma tasmai | Surathotsava, 2.39. (19) That the poem was composed in his court is confirmed by the colophon to the end of each chapter, where the author says he is the chaplain of a Gurjara king (śrīgurjareśvarapurohitaśrīso-meśvara). From the final chapter extolling the author (kavipraśasti), we know that this king was the Caulukya Bhīma II: kāvyena navyapadapākarasāspadena yāmārdhamātraghaṭitena ca nāṭakena | śrībhīmabhūmipatisaṃsadi sabhyalokam astokasaṃmadavaśaṃvadam ādadhe yaḥ || Surathotsava, 15.49. The editors identify the author thus: s´rīsomes´varadevakavih śrīmaddvitīyabhīmadevasabhāyāṃsabhāsadgaṇaṃ maṇḍayām āseti pratīyate | ibid., Afterword, p. 8. (20) Surathotsava, 15.33–7; Munshi (1944: 208 n. 75). (21) Munshi (1944: 198–219). (22) Munshi (1944: 208); Dasgupta (1962: 678). (23) This work survives in two manuscripts, of which a microfilm copy of one, MS Chambers 428, was made available to me by the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, where the original is kept. The other manuscript is designated in a handlist of 1,152 MSS of the State Library, Kota, Kota State, as Kota 920, Aufrecht (1891–1903: vol. 9, 82) (non vidi). (24) Durgāvilāsa, 1.1–12, 1.16–28, 12.1–43. (25) laghubhir api parair apāraseno nayarahitair api nītipāradṛśvā | malinakulabhavair viśālavaṃśo vidhur iva rāhumukhair vibhur vyabhartsi || atha nṛpatir atiprabhagnasainyo nijam

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization avibhāvyam api pramitya tejaḥ | galati dinakaro ’pi kālam eṣyann iti ca vicārya nijāṃ purīm ayāsīt || Durgāvilāsa, 1. 27–8. (26) For example, Kathāsaritsāgara, 7.8.53–225 narrates the granting of a magical sword by Durgā-Ambikā, also called Mṛḍāṇī, to two dispossessed princes. They had been tricked by their generals during a campaign of world conquest and consequently became powerless. In despair they escape to the Vindhya forests, the abode of Durgā. There they embark on a course of rigorous ascetic propitiation (tapas) to win boons from her. Vindhyavāsinī appears to one of the princes in a dream and grants him a sword with the command that they use it to conquer enemies hard to overcome and that whatever they desire will be theirs by means of it. Thereafter the princes subdue a mythical city, and many fantastical celestial creatures and maidens, and having completed their digvijaya campaign return home after subduing all four quarters with the help of the sword. By its powers they endow their kingdom with riches, treasures and livestock, and give the entire earth, gained from the kings they have conquered, as tribute to their father. The tale thus demonstrates Durgā’s agency, figured in the magical sword, in achieving the ideal status aspired to in Indian kingship, that of the cakravartin. (27) vijayādityanāmarājā apajigīṣayā dakṣiṇāpathaṃ gatvā trilocanapallavam adhikṣipya daivadurīhayā lokāntaram agamat | tasmin saṃkule purohitena sārdham […] tasya mahādevī muḍivemunāmāgrahāraṃ […] upagamya tadvāstavyena viṣṇubhaṭṭasomayājinā […] abhirakṣitā satī viṣṇuvardhananandanam asūta | sā tasya ca kumārakasya mānavyasagotrahārītiputradvipakṣagotrakramocitāni karmāṇi kārayitvā tam avardhayat | sa ca mātrā viditavṛttāntaḥ sannigatya calukyagirau nandāṃ bhagavatīṃ gaurīm ārādhya kumāranārāyaṇamāṭrgaṇāṃś ca saṃtarpya sāmrājyacihnāni samādāya kadambagaṅgādibhūpān nirjitya setunarmadāmadhyam. sārdhasaptalakṣaṃ dakṣiṇāpathaṃ pālayām āsa | (compilation by Satyasray 1937: pp. i–ii from inscriptions published in the Indian Antiquary 7, 8, 9 and 19). Burnell (1878: 17 n. 3) regards this event as having taken place around the 4th century, but it is difficult to find support for this hypothesis in other documents. For the emblems see Chapter 3, pp. 100–1. (28) Seven different versions of Yudhiṣṭhira’s hymn (A–G) are shown in the Poona Edition. The manuscripts consulted by the Poona editors on the basis of which these seven durgāstavas are edited are as follows: (i) D2 (Mbh IV, p. 300): Devanāgarī, date unknown but colophon reads saṃvat 74 caitre, Poona Bombay Govt Collection, No. 115 (Mbh IV, p. vi); (ii) D4 (Mbh IV, p. 300): Devanāgarī, 1700 vs (1644 CE), Baroda Oriental Institute Library 3949 (Mbh IV, p. i); (iii) D5 (Mbh IV, p. 300): Devanāgarī, 1716 vs (1660 CE), Baroda Oriental Institute Library, No. 5 (Mbh IV, p. i); (iv) Dn (Mbh IV, p. 301): the ‘Vulgate’ Devanāgarī version of Nīlakaṇṭha, of which there are two manuscripts: Dn1, dated 1606 vs (1684 CE) and Dn2, dated 1670 vs (1614 CE) (Mbh IV, p. i); (v) D7 (Mbh IV, p. 301): Devanāgarī, conjectural date given as 1550 vs? (1494 CE?), Poona Bombay Govt Collection, No. 114 (Mbh IV, p. i); (vi) D3 (Mbh IV, p. 302): Devanāgarī, Poona Bombay Govt Collection, No. 29 (Mbh IV, p. i); (vii) D6 (Mbh IV, p. 302): Devanāgarī, 1745 vs (1689 CE), Baroda Oriental Institute Library, No. 10803 (Mbh IV, p. i); (viii) D9 (Mbh IV, p. 303): Devanāgarī, Madras Adyar Library, No. 34 M8 (Mbh IV, p. ii). (29) Mbh 6, App. I, 1, ll. 42–9. (30) The manuscripts consulted by the Poona editors where this hymn appears are as follows: (i) K2 (Mbh VI, p. 710): Devanāgarī copy of the Śāradā version, dated Śaka saṃvat 1693 (1828 vs; 1771 CE), Poona, Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Mahābhārata Collection, No. 15 (246) (Mbh VI, pp. ix–x); (ii) K4 (ibid.): Bengali copy of the Śāradā version, conjecturally dated 1675 Page 21 of 29 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization aka (?), Dhaka University Library, No. 669 (Mbh VI, p. x); (iii) B (ibid.): four Bengali manuscripts form this group, three of which are from Shantiniketan, Viśvabhāratī University, and one from Dhaka University (Mbh VI, p. x.); (iv) Da (ibid.): two Devanāgarī manuscripts form this group, one from Poona, the other from Baroda (Mbh VI, p. x); (v) Dn (ibid.): the Devanāgarī ‘Vulgate’ version of Nīlakaṇṭha, of which two manuscripts were used: one from Poona (Dn1), the other from Indore (Dn2). Dn1 is dated saṃvat 1729 (1672 CE) (Mbh VI, p. xxxv), while Dn2 is stated by the scribe to have been copied between 7 November 1782 and 12 March 1783 (Mbh VI, p. xxxv). The editors conjecture that the Bhīṣmaparvan to this manuscript was copied a few months before the earlier date (Mbh VI, p. xxxvi); (vi) D2 (ibid.): Devanāgarī, Poona Bombay Govt Collection, No. 481 of Viśrāmbāg I (Mbh VI, p. x.). It is to be noted that there are no significant variants between the manuscripts of this hymn (unlike the first hymn) and the text of the stava is fairly uniform in all manuscripts. (31) The Kālikā is particularly relevant to Assam since the major part of it explains and glorifies the pīṭha of Kāmākhyā in the country of Kāmarūpa, roughly located in that region. (32) The work lists Mahālakṣmī of Kolhapur, Reṇukā of Māpurī, Bhavānī of Tuljapur, and the goddess of Saptaśṛṇga, the four most important devīs of Deccan, in 7.38.5–35 (reference provided by Alexis Sanderson). (33) See also Kinsley (1987: 107–8). The Virāṭaparvan episode was also analysed by Allen (2001). Neither author attempted dating these traditions. (34) Kālikāpurāṇa, 60.25c–38. (35) Kṛttivāsī Rāmāyaṇa, ‘Laṅkākāṇḍa’, pp. 328–89. (36) Jansen (1995: 152). (37) Ibid., p. 261. (38) A discussion of the evidence concerning Abhinanda’s date and patron appears in the introduction by Śiromaṇi to the Rāmacarita, pp. 20–3. (39) This aspect of Caṇḍī appears in kāvya. See for instance Kathāsaritsāgara, 12.6.109–10 and 15.1, where she is presented as the wrathful guardian of mountain passes. (40) In the following transliteration I have only isolated those epithets to Saramā that correspond to Caṇḍī: sarvadharmamayi sarvanamasye sarvaśaktisamavāyiśarīre | sarvatokṣimukhi sarvaśaraṇye sarvabhūtapatipatni m. namas te | duṣṭadaityakulamāri namas te […] tvāṃ jaganmātāmahāṃ […] jagatprasavinīṃ […] brāhmi vaiśraviṇi raudri kaumāri […] caṇḍi namas te […] tvaṃ sṛjasy avasi saṃharasi tvaṃ tvaṃ bibharṣi bhuvanāni bhavāni […] viprakīrṇavikṛtiḥ prakṛtis tvaṃ […] udyatā himavataḥ śikharīndrāt tvaṃ trivargaphalavallir aparṇā | Rāmacarita, 16. 57–81. (41) For instance: durgāsi durgabhavasāgaranaur asaṅgā | Devīmāhātmya, 4.10cd. (42) sā tutoṣa tuṣitaiḥ saha tasya prajñayā ca vinayena ca tena | tarhi vācam iti cāpratiramyāṃ saumyabhāvam upagamya babhāṣe | ehi yāmi pavanātmaja tuṣṭā yat tvam icchasi dadāmi tad āśu | gaccha saṃprati sukhena surais te sauṣṭhavaṃ hi viṣame ’pi sudṛṣṭam | svasti te ’stu

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization nikaṣātanayānām ekakaḥ kadanam āśu kuruṣva | dakṣiṇāṃ diśam imāṃ ciramuktām āvasantu surasiddhamunīndrāḥ | Rāmacarita, 16. 82–4. (43) Yaśastilakacampū (royal worship of Aparājitā on Mahānavamī), 3.459–61; Yaśastilakacampū (royal worship of the Tantric Caṇḍamārī with human sacrifice on Mahānavamī), pp. 26–9; Gaṅgādāsapratāpavilāsanāṭaka (royal worship of Mahākālī on Navarātra) as summarized by Kapadia (2010: 128–9, 132, 152). (44) EI 9.25. For a discussion of the benediction see Chapter 2, pp. 72–3. (45) Draft edition was kindly made available by Martin Delhey, Hamburg University (pers. comm.). Chapter 52 of the work which forms part of Delhey’s current research was discussed at the Early Tantra Workshop in Hamburg, July 2010. All citations from the scripture are from Delhey’s draft. (46) yojanaśatasthitam api śatruṃ ghātayate (Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa, p. 17); āpatsu ca mahārakṣāṃ karoti (ibid., p. 22). (47) Āndhārasundarī for instance is anekayakṣīśatasahasraparivṛtā (ibid., p. 18). (48) saṃgrāmaṃ devadaityānāṃ yudhyante ca maharddhikāḥ […] dharmiṣṭhā karuṇāviṣṭāḥ sattvakāmāḥ suvatsalāḥ || || sattvānāṃ hitakāmyarthaṃ paryaṭanti mahītale | ibid., 4.4–5ab, p. 19. (49) One of the birudas of Mahendrapāla was saṅgrāmatārā (He who has Tārā in battle), see EI 42.2, l. 54. (50) EI 34.19, ll. 35–8, cited with emendation and discussed in Sanderson (2009: 94 n. 173). (51) For the account from the Śivadigvijaya, see Sen (1920: 181–2). (52) Grieve (1909) cited in Sanderson (2007: 289 n. 187). (53) Gode (1940–1). (54) Sanderson (2007: 289 n. 185). (55) Ibid., p. 295. (56) Ibid., p. 295 and n. 202. (57) Navarātravidhi, Nepal German Manuscript Preservation Project, E2363–29, fol. 1: sarvakāryārthalābhāya sarvaśatruvināśāya ca | khaḍgasiddhijayaṃ dehi harasiddhyai namo ’stu te | (-lābhāya] corr.,-rābhāya MS;-śatru] corr.,-sattu MS; harasiddhyai] em. Sanderson, harasiddhyā MS). (58) Kinsley (1987: 110). (59) The use of a regent’s slippers as his representative in lieu of the person of the king appears in the Rāmāyaṇa: when Rāma is away on his fourteen years of exile, Bharata rules in his name, placing his slippers (pādukā) on the throne: Rāmāyaṇa, 2.107.22c.

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization (60) agastya uvāca | sarveṣāṃś caiva pātrāṇāṃ devi pātraṃ tu śaṅkarī | tāṃ tu pūjaya vidyaiṣā dṛṣṭā-dṛṣṭapradāyikā | brahmaṇāsya vidhiḥ śakre kathitā vijayāvahā | śakreti paurṇimā tāta śrāvaṇasya śubhāvahā | śakra uvāca | vijayā yā samākhyātā sarvakāmaprasiddhaye | tām ahaṃ śrotum icchāmi tattvataḥ surasattama | putrārthaṃ rājyavidyārthaṃ yaśaḥsaubhāgyato ’pi vā | vijayārogyakāmāya vijayāṃ kurvīta paurṇimām | hemaṃ vā rajataṃ taikṣṇyaṃ khaḍgañ caivātha pāduke | pratimāṃ vāpi kurvīta sarvalakṣaṇasaṃyutām | tām ādāya śubhe ṛkṣe śuklavastravibhūṣitām | yavaśālyaṅkuropetām āmrapatravibhūṣitām | devīṃ suśobhanāṃ vastraiḥ kalpayet tatra tāṃ nyaset | hutvā hutāśanaṃ mantrais tato devīṃ tu vinyaset | rocanācandanacandrair upalipya prapūjayet | nānāpuṣpaviśeṣais tu dhūpagandhānnabhojanaiḥ | pūjayed vidhivad devīṃ tathā bījāny āharet | […] . dāpayec caiva bhaktyā vai naivedyāny aparāṇi ca | phalārthaṃ tu †phalā† deyā jayārthaṃ tu yavāṅkurān | puṣpaṃ saubhāgyakāmāya ratnāny āyudhanāya ca | dhanuḥ śatruvināśāya […] annaṃ sarvārthakāmāya yathālāmbhaṃ tu dāpayet | tataḥ kṣamāpayed devīṃ […] putrārthaṃ bhojayed bālān vijayāya striyo dvijān | dharmārthañ caiva bhojyeta anayā vidyayābhimantritaṃ | dakṣiṇāṃ†guru† ācāryakanyakābrāhmaṇeṣu ca | dāpayed yāvac chaktyā tu tathā tam anugṛhya ca | Devīpurāṇa, 100.1n.–15 (bījāny] conj., bījāni edn; jayārthaṃ tu] conj. Szántó, jayārthaṃ edn). (61) Gaüḍavaho, 306; Haravijaya, 47.40 and 41; Kathāsaritsāgara, 7.8.53–225. For a discussion of several other legends in the Kathāsaritsāgara dealing with swords, the esoteric relevance of one of the tales and the association of the Tantric Kālasaṃkarṣaṇī with swords, see Sanderson (2007: 295–6). (62) Iyer (2005: vol. 2, 48, 67–8 n. 5). (63) sācāro bhaktim āsthāya dhvajayaṣṭiṃ samucchrayet | na tasya saṅgare śukra vyādhayo na ca vairiṇaḥ | na ca śastravraṇapīḍā bhaved dhvajasamucchrayāt | Devīpurāṇa, 35.32cd–33 (dhvajasamucchrayāt] em., dhajasumucchrayāt edn). (64) yāvan na dīyate śukra dhvajaṃ prāsādamūrdhani | tāvat tanu bhavet vatsa prāsādaṃ devalāñchitam | śūnyadhvajaṃ sadā bhūtā nāgagandharvarākṣasāḥ | vidrāvanti mahātmano nānābādhāṃ †karanti† ca | tasmād devagṛhadvārapuraparvatapattane | ucchritāḥ śāntikāmāya dhvajāḥ śukra sadā hitāḥ | ibid., 35.27–8. (65) aṇḍajaṃ voṇḍajam. vāpi dhvajaṃ keśavivarjitam | navaṃ samaṃ ca ślakṣmaṃ ca prāsādādaṇḍavardhitam | samaṃ ślakṣmam ṛjuṃ śubhraṃ śailaṃ vā dhātujaṃ †pi vā† | tasmin paṭe likhet siṃhaṃ sarvalakṣaṇalakṣitam | rocanāsahacandrena hemalekhanyā dūrvayā | prāsādād valimānaṃ tu kṣitiṃ †vistarataḥ karam† | dhvajāpālanakartavyā darśayed dikṣu devatāḥ | sarve vāhanalāñchena lāñchitāḥ sahajena ca | kiṅkiṇīcāmaropetān ghaṇṭādarpaṇaśobhitān | kṛtahomān mahāprājñaḥ sahakāradalānvitān | mahāmaṅgalaśabdena devyāḥ kurvaṃs tu pūjayet | sugandhapuṣpanaivedyaṃ yathāvibhavavistaraiḥ | kanyakābrāhmaṇān bhojya dadhipāyasaśarkaraiḥ | bhūtānāṃ tu baliṃ dattvā tathā tam uparohayet | sarvakāmān avāpnoti vidyādharapatir bhavet | […] athavā haimaraupyaṃ vā vārkṣyaṃ pārthivaśailajam | kārayen mṛgarājaṃ tu mahākarimadāpaham | mahānakhakarotkhātamuktāphalasamaprabham m. | evaṃ vidhaṃ tataḥ kṛtvā navamyāṃ pujayec chivām | sopavāsaḥ śucir dakṣaḥ sarvasaṅgavivarjitaḥ | kanyakāḥ pūjayitvā tu viprān vedavidas tataḥ | devyā bhaktāḥ sadācārās trikālahavane ratāḥ | te yathāśaktitas toṣyā dhvajārohaṇakarmaṇi | […] dīnāndhakṛpaṇānāṃ tu annaṃ deyaṃ m. tu śaktitaḥ | […] nānābhakṣyākṣatadadhidūrvā utkarakānvitāḥ | baliṃ vai sarvabhūtebhyo daśadikṣu nivedayet | vajraghoṇā tathā japtvā aṣṭaviṃśākṣarāpi vā | siṃhaṃ stambhe samāropya sarvamaṅgalaśabditam | vedadhvanimahāmantrakālikācarcikāpadam | nyasya siṃhaṃ paraṃ Page 24 of 29 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization dhyāyed yādṛśaṃ pūrvakalpitam | evaṃ taṃ vastrasaṃvītaṃ sarvābharaṇabhūṣitam | devyā mahādhvajaṃ nyasya śeṣāṇām api vinyaset | brahmaviṣṇvindrarudrāṇāṃ somasūryadivaukasām | Devīpurāṇa, 35.5–25ab (hemalekhanyā] conj. Szántó, hemalekhahya edn; kṛtahomān] conj. Sanderson, kṛtahoma-edn;-prājñaḥ] conj.,-prājña edn; samaprabham] conj. Sanderson, gadāprabham edn). I have followed the editor’s interpretation of valīmānam in his Bengali translation to mean ‘hanging down’ (ibid., p. 199). The editor also notes that the reading ‘Rudraghoṇā’ appears in some manuscripts instead of ‘Vajraghoṇā’ (ibid., p. 201 n. 1.). (66) Kṛtyakalpataru, Rājadharmakāṇḍā (Section on the Duties of a King), pp. 190–9. (67) atha cihnavidhiḥ | tatra devīpurāṇe […] siṃhārūḍhā dhvaje yasya nṛpasya ripuhā umā | dvārasthā pūjyate vatsa na tasya ripujaṃ bhayam | kapisaṃsthā mahāmāyā sarvaśatruvināśinī | vṛṣe yathepsitaṃ dadyāt kalabhe śriyam uttamam | haṃse vidyārthkāmaṃ tu barhiṇe ’bhīṣṭaputradā | garutmati mahāmāyā sarvarogavināśini | mahiṣasthā mahāmārī śamayet dhavajasaṃsthitā | karigā sarvakāryeṣu nṛpaiḥ kāryā triśulinī | padmasthā carcikā raupyā dharmakāmārthamokṣadā | pretasthā sarvabhayadā nityaṃ paśunipātanaiḥ | pūjitā devarājendra nīlotpalakarā varā | bhavet tu siddhikāmasya cihnāgre m. saṃvyavasthitā | gandhapuṣpārcitāṃ kṛtvā vastrahemasucarcitām | phalaśāliyavaiḥ śukavardhamānair vibhūṣitām | śobhanām ucchrayed agre patākāṃ vā manoramām | cāmaraṃ kalaśaṃ śaṅkhaṃ sātapatraṃ vitānakam | bhavet tu siddhikāmasya nṛpasya phaladāyakam | Kṛtyakalpataru, Rājadharmakāṇḍa, pp. 197–8. I have not corrected or marked the text with cruces, as the Devīpurāṇa’s particular style of Sanskrit was maintained by Lakṣmīdhara. (68) dantidantamayair daṇḍair hemabaddhaiḥ suśobhanaiḥ | vicitrapadmarāgādyair maṇibhiś copaśobhitaiḥ | rathaṃ taiḥ kārayed devyāḥ saptabhaumaṃ manoharam | dukūlavastrasaṃchannam ardhacandreṇa śobhitam | ghaṇṭākiṇkiṇīśabdāḍhyaṃ cāmaraiḥ kandukānvitaiḥ | patākādhvajaśobhāḍhyaṃ darpaṇair upaśobhitam | taṃ rathaṃ pūjayec chakra jātīkusumamandakaiḥ | pārijātakapuṣpaiś ca yakṣakardamacandanaiḥ | sugandhadhūpitaṃ kṛtvā devīṃ tatra niveśayet | pratimāṃ śobhanāṃ vatsa mahāsurakṣayaṃkarīm | pūjayed rathavinyastāṃ sarvamaṅgalamaṅ-galām | durgā kātyāyanī devī varadā vindhyavāsinī | niśumbhaśumbhamathanī mahiṣāsuraghātinī | umā kṣamāvatī mātā śaṅkarasyārdhakāyikā | prasīdatu sadā me ’stu yac ca no vāñchitaṃ hṛdi | anena balipūrveṇa namaskārayutena ca.| pūjayitvā tato neyā samastāpsaragītakaiḥ | pañcamīsaptamīpūrṇānavamyekādaśiṣu ca | tṛtīyā śivavighnena divase vatsareṣu ca | mahānadīnadasaṅgaparvatasravaṇeṣu ca | tatra maṇḍapavinyāsaṃ mahādārviṣṭanirmitam | śailaṃ vā mṛnmayaṃ vāpi kṛtvā vāstuvibhāvitam | sarvalakṣaṇasaṃpūrṇaṃ sarvaśobhāsamanvitam | pūrve ca kārayec chakra paścād yātrāṃ pracakrire | mahājanapadopetāṃ mahāstrīsaṃghasaṃkulām | sarvānnapānanaivedyaiḥ samastair api pūjayet | dadyāc ca digbaliṃ śakra sarvadikṣusamanvitaḥ | bhūtavetālasaṃghasya mantreṇānena suvrata | jaya tvaṃ kāli bhūteśi sarvabhūtasamāvṛte | rakṣa māṃ nijabhūtebhyo baliṃ gṛhna śivapriye | mātar mātar vare durge sarvakāmārthasādhini | anena balidānena sarvān kāmān prayaccha me | evaṃ dattvā baliṃ śakra tato devy avatārayet | vinyased bhadrapīṭhe tu maṇḍanair upaśobhitām | tatrasthāṃ pūjayed devīṃ haimarūpyaiś ca tāmrajaiḥ | kalaśais tu †sahasreṇa† gandhodakaprapūritaiḥ | samastaphalasaṃpūrṇair yajñiyair atha pallavaiḥ | snāpayed ekam ekena ratnagarbhair navair dṛḍhaiḥ | vedamaṅgalaśabdena śaṅkhavāditranisvanaiḥ | veṇuvīnāmṛdaṅgaiś ca ghaṇṭākiṅkiṇī-r-āvṛtaiḥ | snāpayitvā tato devīṃ nirmañchet dukūlaiḥ śubhaiḥ | gomayādikṛtaiḥ padmair dīpavartyā vibodhitaiḥ | svastikair nandikāvartaiḥ śaṅkhair nīlotpalotpalaiḥ | yavaśālyaṅkurodbhinnair yavavāsasamanvitaiḥ | pratyekaṃ ca dahed dhūpaṃ pratyekaṃ kalaśaiḥsnapet | tathā karpūrakṣodena candanaiḥ kuṅkumena ca | gorocanāsametena devīm ālipya pūjayet | hemajair jātijair mālyai ratnanyāsair

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization anekadhā | vāsobhiḥ sumanobhiś citraiḥ punar dhūpaṃ samutkṣipet | bhakṣayet tu tathā kanyāṃ dvijān dīnān suduḥkhitān | bhakṣyabhojyānnapānena tatra sarvāṃś ca prīṇayet | bhojayitvā kṣamāpeta devī me prīyatām iti | tathā devyāṃ rathe kṛtvā punar eva gṛhaṃ nayet | mahatā janasaṃghena samastavibhavānvitaiḥ | śāntareṇupathaṃ sarvaṃ puṣpadūrvākṣatair jalaiḥ | prakṣipyamāṇaiḥ kanyābhiḥ strībhir maṅgalavādibhiḥ | salilena pathi pāṃśuṃ kṛtvā paṅkaṃ pracakrire | puraśobhāṃ pathiśobhāṃ dvāraśobhāṃ gṛhe gṛhe | kārayīta tathā śakra sarvabādhāṃ nivārayet | acchedyās taravas tasmin prāṇihiṃsāṃ vivarjayet | bandhanasthā vimoktavyā †vadhyā krodhādiśatravaḥ† | Devīpurāṇa, 31.2–31 (maṇḍanair] conj., maṇḍalair edn; kṣamāpeta] conj. Sanderson based on attested Aiśa usage, e.g. Picumata, 47.23: tāṃ dṛṣṭvā tu tejavaraṃ arghahasto vicakṣaṇaḥ | aṣṭāṅgaṃ vandayitvā tu kṣamāpeta *yathåvidhi (corr., yathāvidhiḥ Cod.), kṣamāyeta edn; devyā] corr., devyāṃ edn). The use of devyā for devī is common in Śākta–Śaiva texts (A. Sanderson, pers. comm.). (69) Kṛtyaratnākara, pp. 259–64. (70) Iyer (2005: vol. 2, 59). (71) Levy & Rajopadhyaya (1992: 547–55). (72) yo jagrāha kālībhagavatīparipālitakālidurgaṃ vighaṭayitvā maṇaikuṭigrāme pāṇḍyasenāṃ […], SII 2.3.74, ll. 59–60; Mahalingam (1988: No. 76, p. 231). (73) Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency (1885: 509). (74) A 19th-century colonial account of Alexander Forbes reports the worship of a fort-goddess rather confusingly corrupted by the author as ‘Gudeychee’ by Rajput chieftains on the eve of Dussehra. ‘On their return from the Shumee [sic] worship into the city, they join together in bands, brandishing their spears, galloping their horses, and enacting in other ways the part of an army taking the field’ (cited in Kinsley 1987: 107). (75) Arthaśāstra, 2.3.54. (76) Ibid., 2.4.56. (77) Ekaliṅgamāhātmya, 11.13–22. Rāṣṭraśyenā and her legend in this work were first pointed out to me by Alexis Sanderson (pers. comm.). (78) śyenārūpaṃ samyag āsthāya devi rāṣṭraṃ trāhi trāhy ato vajrahastā | duṣṭān daityān rākṣasān vai piśācān bhūtān pretān yoginījṛmbhikebhyaḥ | †duṣṭagrahebhyo’ nyatamebhya† evaṃ śyene trāṇaṃ medapāṭasya kāryam | ye ’smin deśe pratiyotsyanti kecit te hantavyā māyayā duṣṭarūpāḥ | jayaḥ kāryaḥ svadeśīye bhūpāle ca tathā jane | asya lokasya bhūpasya nityaṃ pūjā bhaviṣyati | aṣṭamyāṃ ca caturdaśyāṃ saṃkrāntyādiṣu parvasu | pūjayet tāṃ rāṣṭraśyenāṃ tadrūpāṃ ca striyaṃ tathā | brāhmaṇān api sampūjya devīprītyai viśeṣataḥ | tena tuṣṭā rāṣṭraśyenā pūjakānāṃ varapradā | tasmāt sampūjayed bhaktyā rāṣṭraśyenāṃ vidhānataḥ | caitramāsy asite pakṣe bhaktyā nityaṃ prapūjayet | rāṣṭraśyenetināmnīyaṃ medapāṭasya rakṣaṇam | karoti na ca bhaṅgo ’sya yavanebhyo manāg api | Ekaliṅgamāhātmya, 11.13–22. All occurrences of Rāṣṭrasenā have been conjectured as Rāṣṭraśyenā (pratiyotsyanti] conj., prātiyotsyanti edn). The section marked †† is unmetrical.

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization (79) mahābhaye mahotpāte baliṃ m. tatra vidhānataḥ | rājāno ye prakurvanti teṣāṃ śatrubhayaṃ na hi | raṇe krūrādikāryeṣu vajrahastāṃ ca pakṣiṇīṃ | smaret sarvaprayatnena saumyarūpāṃ ca saumyake | Ekaliṅgamāhātmya, 29.40cd–41. (80) Reu (1933: 35), reference provided by P. D. Szántó. For a picture of a version of the flag made in the 19th century, which incorporates the falcon symbol and the Rathore motto into a European background, see Jackson & Jaffer (2009: 69). (81) durgeṣu kārayed durgāṃ mahiṣāsuramardinīm | dvārasthaṃ gajavaktraṃ m. vā dhanadaṃ vātha padmajam | Devīpurāṇa, 72.124cd–125ab. (82) The goddesses are named as follows: śriyā kāntir dyutir lakṣmīr jayā bhadrāparājitā | anantā śobhanā durgāḥ pūrveṇa parikīrtitā | śāntir vṛddhir bhavā devī kālī ghoravimohinī | vimalā ceti yāmyena pratolyaḥ śubhadāyikāḥ | rocanā maṅgalā raudrī ugrā caṇḍā yaśovatī | prāptir dīptīti vāruṇ-yāṃ vīthikāḥ sarvakāmadāḥ | icchā prītiḥ śubhā mātā yaśodā dhanadā umā | śaraṇyā ceti saumyena durge gopurikā matā | Devīpurāṇa, 72.145–8. (83) evaṃ kālavaśāt kuryād vijayākhyaṃ mahāpuram | […] pūjayitvā haraṃ durgāṃ grahān mātṛṛr vināyakān | prāsādoktavidhānena baliṃ dattvā puraṃ kuru | Devīpurāṇa, 73.37–59. (84) durgādhaḥ kṛtrimaṃ durgaṃ kiñcitkālaṃ nirīkṣayet | vijayārthaṃ prakartavyaṃ yathāvat tan nibodha me | durgāśrayaṃ samālakṣya †ūrdhvaṃ durgaṃ† balaṃ tathā | jalendhanañ ca dhānyañ ca yavamudgagavādikam | tathā kuryān mahābāho kṛtrimaṃ vijayottamam | kāṣṭhaiṣṭham athavā śailaṃ khātikāracitaṃ tathā | drumavallīlatopetaṃ garbhaṃ toyasamanvitam | bāhyatoyaṃ surakṣyaṃ vā durgayantropalādibhiḥ | kartavyaṃ gṛhaprākārais toraṇair upaśobhitam | vīthipūrakasaṃyuktam athavā maṇḍapānvitam | maṇḍapaṃ śatadaṇḍeṇa dviguṇaṃ triguṇaṃ pi vā | mānād vṛttam atha tryasram āyatendu yathāśubham | anekagarbhagarbhāḍhyaṃ devatāmātarānvitam | Devīpurāṇa, 73.30–6a (nirīkṣayet] conj. Sanderson, nirakṣayā edn;-mudgagav-] conj. Sanderson,-yumudgav-edn). (85) cirantanās tu yā devya giridurgeṣu saṃsthitāḥ | tāḥ pūjaya dvijaśreṣṭha nṛparāṣṭravivṛddhidāḥ | Devīpurāṅa., 117.4–5b. (86) anye ’pi ye dvijaśreṣṭha dvijā rājaviśo ’balāḥ | śūdrā vā bhaktim āsthāya pūjayiṣyanti mātaraḥ | na teṣāṃ vipra rāṣṭreṣu bhayaṃ kiñcid bhaviṣyati |[…] nivṛttavairā bhūpālā bhaviṣyanti na saṃśayaḥ | Devīpurāṇa, 117.1 and 2cd (ājaviśo] em. Sanderson; rājyaviśo edn). (87) The meaning of catvara, besides ‘crossroads’, is also an enclosed courtyard in Bengali (cātāl) and Gujarati (cācar) usage (A. Sanderson, pers. comm.). It can also mean a brick platform in front of a tree or built on a crossroads in Nepali (cautāro). The Devīpurāṇa may also be implying any of these other meanings. (88) For the text and translation see Chapter 3, p. 110 and n. 25. (89) A number of Purāṇic attestations interpret ‘Durgā’ as ‘a saviour from danger’: durgāt tārayase durge tat tvaṃ durgā smṛtā janaiḥ | Mahābhārata, 5.5.31d.40 (Virāṭaparavan); […] durgāsi durgabhavasāgaranaur asaṅgā | Devīmāhātmya, 4.10cd; durge smṛtā harasi bhītim aśeṣa jantoḥ (ibid., 4.19ab); durgāyai durgapārāyai (ibid., 5.10a); durgā durgatināśinī (ibid., 9.29b).

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization (90) The passage where the pun appears is in a speech made to Mahiṣa by his two messengers Caṇḍa and Muṇḍa, who had seen the goddess in the Vindhya mountain, and were enchanted by her beauty: dṛṣṭvaiva śailād avatīrya śīghram ājagmatuḥ svaṃ bhavanaṃ surārī | dṛṣṭvocatus tau mahiṣāsurasya dūtāv idaṃ caṇḍamuṇḍau ditīśam | svastho bhavān kiṃ tv asurendra sāmpratam āgaccha paśyāma ca tatra vindhyam | tatrāsti devī sumahānubhāvā kanyā surūpā surasundarīṇām | jitās tayā toyadharālakair hi jitaḥ śaśāṅko vadanena tanvyā | netrais tribhis trīṇi hutāśanāni jitāni kaṇṭhena jitas tu śaṅkhaḥ | stanau suvṛttāv atha magnacūcukau sthitau vijityeva gajasya kumbhau | tvāṃ sarvajetāram m. iti pratarkya kucau smareṇaiva kṛtau sudurgau | pīnāḥ saśastrāḥ parighopamāś ca bhujās tathāṣṭādaśa bhānti tasyāḥ | parākramaṃ vai bhavato viditvā kāmena yantrā iva te kṛtās tu | madhyaṃ m. ca tasyās trivalītaraṅgaṃ vibhati daityendra suromarāji | bhayāturārohaṇakātarasya kāmasya sopānam iva prayuktam | sā romarājī sutarāṃ hi tasyā virājate pīnakucāvalagnā | ārohaṇe tvadbhayakātarasya svedapravāho ’sura manmathasya | nābhir gabhīrā sutarāṃ vibhāti pradakṣiṇāsyāḥ parivartamānā | tasyaiva lāvaṇyagṛhasya mudrā kandarparājñā svayam eva dattā | vibhāti ramyaṃ jaghanaṃ mṛgākṣyāḥ samantato mekhalayāvajuṣṭam | manyāma taṃ kāmanarādhipasya prākāraguptaṃ nagaraṃ sudurgam | vṛttāvaromau ca mṛdū kumāryāḥ śobheta ūrū samanuttamau hi | avāsanārthaṃ makaradhvajena janasya deśāv iva saṃniviṣṭau | Vāmanapurāṇa, 20.2–11 (svaṃ bhavanaṃ] conj. Sanderson, svabhavanaṃ edn). Note the use of the double sandhi in toyadharālakair in the fourth verse given in the edition, no doubt done to keep the metre. The pre-sandhi form is toyadharāḥ+alakaiḥ. Also note the śleṣa with lāvaṇyagṛha to mean both a storehouse of beauty and a store of salt stamped by the mudrā, the seal of royalty. A salt store would certainly have been common in a king’s domain. (91) Devīmāhātmya, 4.10ab. See also Baijnath Praśasti (EI 1.16), l. 11: saṃsārasāgarāc ceto bhīru me nīyatāṃ śamam. m. (92) sa naḥ parṣadati durgāṇi viśvā nāv eva sindhuṃ duritāty agniḥ | Taittirīya Āraṇyaka, 10.1; viśvāni deva savitur duritāni parāsūva | yad bhadraṃ tan na āsūva | Ṛg Veda, 5.81. Here the deity referred to is Savitṛ, the Sun, whose flames too are believed to ward away evils. I am indebted to Elizabeth Tucker for providing me with these references. (93) araṇye prāntare vāpi dāvāgniparivāritaḥ | dasyubhir vā vṛtaḥ śūnye gṛhīto vāpi śatrubhiḥ | siṃ-havyāghrānuyāto vā vane vā vanahastibhiḥ | rājñā kruddhena cājñapto vadhyo bandhagato ’pi vā | āghūrṇito vā vātena sthitaḥ pote mahārṇave | patatsu cāpi śastreṣu saṃgrāme bhṛśadāruṇe | sarvabādhāsu ghorāsu vedanābhyardito ’pi vā | smaran mamaitac caritaṃ naro mucyati saṃkaṭāt | Devīmāhātmya, 12. 24cd–12.28ab (mucyati] em. Sanderson, based on attestations in epic and Śaiva literature; mucyate edn). (94) Headley (2004: 533). (95) See Chapter 4, pp. 126–7. (96) The residents of Kogrām, for instance, a short distance away from Shantiniketan, on the banks of the Ajay river, worship a form of Caṇḍāī called Bahalā/Bahulā as the deity of the village (seen by myself in situ). (97) Kālikāpurāṇa, 61.115cd–116. (98) Devīpurāṇa, 117.1–2.

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Heroic Śāktism and the Myths of Civilization

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights Bihani Sarkar

DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.003.0008

Abstract and Keywords Fundamental in making the myth of civilization meaningful in Indian culture was the performance of the Navarātra, the festival of the Nine Nights, which was intertwined with Durgā's cult. This final chapter deals with how the cult functioned in creating the spectacle of ‘public religion’ through a reconstruction of this ritual in which the goddess was worshipped by a ruler in the month of Āśvina. A detailed exposition of the modus operandi of the Nine Nights shows us how the religion of the goddess was spectacularly brought to life in an event of grand theatre and solemnized before its participants, the king and the entire community. The development of the Nine Nights from a fringe, Vaiṣṇava ceremony in the month of Kṛṣṇa's birth under the Guptas, to a ritual supplanting the established autumnal Brahmanical ceremonies of kingship and finally into a crucial rite in Indian culture for consolidating royal power, formed a crucial motivation for the expansion of Durgā's cult. The chapter isolates and analyzes in depth the principal early traditions of the Navarātra in East India and in the Deccan by an assessment of the available ritual descriptions and prescriptions in Sanskrit and eye-witness sources from a later period, used to fill in the gaps in the earlier sources. The most elaborate description of a court-sponsored rite emerges from the Kārṇāṭa and Oinwar courts of Mithilā, which embody what appears to be a ritual that had matured a good few centuries earlier before it was recorded in official literature. Among these the account of the Oinwars by the Maithila paṇḍita Vidyāpati is the most extensive treatment of the goddess's autumnal worship by a king, and attained great renown among the learned at the time as an authoritative source. His description portrays a spectacular court ceremony, involving pomp and pageantry, in which horses and weapons were worshipped, the king was anointed, and the goddess propitiated as the central symbol of royal power in various substrates over the course of the Nine Nights. Vidyapati's work also reveals the marked impact of Tantricism on the character of the rite, which employed Śākta mantras and propitiated autonomous, ferocious forms of the goddess associated with the occult, particularly on the penultimate days. Maturing in eastern India, the goddess's Navarātra ceremony was proselytized by the smartas further to the west and percolated into the Deccan, where, from around the 12th century, it attained an independent southern character. Whereas the eastern rite focused on the goddess as the central object of devotion, the southern rite focused on the Page 1 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights symbolism of the king, attaining its most distinctive and lavish manifestation in the kingdom of Vijayanagara. Throughout this development, the Navarātra remained intimately associated with the theme of dispelling calamities, thereby augmenting secular power in the world, sustaining the power of the ruler and granting political might and health to a community. It remained from its ancient core a ritual of dealing with and averting crises performed collectively by a polis. Such remains its character even today. Keywords:   Navarātra, Durgā Pūjā, history of the Navarātra, Mithilā, Deccan, Bengal, Nepalese, Vijayanagara

śūlaprotād upāntaplutamahi mahiṣād utpatantyā sravantyā vartmany ārajyamāne sapadi makhabhujāṃ jātasaṃdhyāpramohaḥ | nṛtyan hāsena mattvā vijayamaham ahaṃ mānayāmiti vādi yam āśliṣya pranṛttaḥ punar api purabhit pārvatī pātu sā vaḥ || Caṇḍīśataka, 16 When drowned in red appeared the heavenly way Once deluged the neighbouring earth had grown In streams that gushed from trident-gashed Mahiṣa, Delighted Śiva, thinking it was Dawn, Began to dance. Then grasping he had erred, Exclaimèd he—‘I mark your victory-fest!’ And that Mountain’s Daughter clasping he danced. May she he had embraced watch over you. In medieval India, royal cults were meaningless unless brought to life in the sphere of ritual. In this chapter I will present the politically most important enactment of the cult of Durgā so far examined in terms of its mythology, the patronage it secured, its local manifestations, its core symbols and beliefs. This ritual was the spectacular autumnal ceremony of the Nine Nights (Navarātra/Navarātri), also known as the Festival of Durgā (Durgotsava). In the various rites of the Navarātra marking Durgā’s victory over Mahiṣa that transferred power and kingship from sovereign goddess to king and thence to all citizens, the visible climax of the relationship between goddess and ruler was attained and publicly expressed. Held at the end of the monsoon, at a (p.211) time heralding both the campaigns of kings and the onset of disease, illhealth1 and inauspiciousness, the festival held a double significance: it was thought to bring military success in the former case and to ensure the protection of the realm from the latter. The autumnal Nine Nights festival of the cult of the sovereign goddess was therefore essential for the periodical rejuvenation of the entire kingdom by averting potential crises.

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights It was at this time that the affinity between Śakti—Durgā in her pluralistic aspect—and the ruler was singularly evoked, and temporal power was made sacred. To draw an analogy with the ceremonials of the cult of the Roman emperor in Asia Minor, which served a function similar to the goddess’s Navarātra: ‘It was at festivals and their ritual that the vague and elusive ideas concerning the emperor […] were focussed in action and made more powerful […] Here the conceptual systems of temple, image and sacrifice found their living embodiment.’2 During the Navarātra the range of symbols and beliefs evoking the regality of the sovereign goddess, which we observed in the previous chapter, were similarly ‘focussed in action and made more powerful’. It was also a time when the collective nature of the cult was most visible, when the ceremonies honouring the goddess alone, complementing and finding at every stage of the Nine Nights their human counterparts in parallel ceremonies centred on the king, were shared with all the people of the kingdom. Certain groups fulfilled particular ritual responsibilities; some honoured members renewed their allegiance to the throne by being allowed to pay tribute at the court, while others simply participated as observers in the grand public rites, or celebrated individually with rituals in their homes. Such an understanding of the Navarātra as an ‘incorporative ritual’ has largely been guided by an influential article written by Burton Stein. Stein was the first to locate the importance of the festival as a communal rite of kingship.3 His detailed and convincing argument was, however, based on two uncritically held assumptions: one was that the Vijayanagara empire was where the first reports of the Navarātra emerge (and also the implicit view that it was the only place where this ritual was performed),4 and the second was that eyewitness reports composed by travellers (Niccolò de’ Conti, Abdur Razzak, Domingo Paez and Fernão Nuniz) to the Vijayanagara court in the 15th and 16th centuries would tell us everything about the festival. In fact, his conceptual edifice was primarily erected on the basis of these observational accounts. Though otherwise informative and meticulous, these travellers’ (p.212) reports carry a singular danger: they may impute to a tradition meaning its own practitioners would not have recognized. Reports written by visitors who saw only the public, and not private, dimension of the rite unfolding in the durbar hall and the arena had influenced Stein to view the Navarātra as entirely focused on the Vijayanagara king.5 Accordingly, he does not explain fully either the rituals (which the reporters did not see) of worshipping the goddess in whom royal power was seen to be fully concentrated during the Navarātra, or how the worship of the king was necessarily tied in with the goddess’s worship at this time. For without the worship at Navarātra of a form of śakti for whom the rites were principally offered, a king’s worship was believed to be meaningless, simply a secular act of homage that had little ritual validity without a transcendent power energizing it. If Stein’s account of the south Indian Navarātra is compared with other southern Navarātras celebrated in the Tamil kingdoms of Śivagaṅgai and Ramnad, successors to the Vijayanagara kingdom, a secondary layer of rituals is revealed, in which the king would either worship the goddess himself or would have her incorporated into his own worship, but which unfolded inside the palace and not within public arenas. These were not seen by Stein’s witnesses, debarred from the crucial ritual areas as all outsiders were. Had Stein looked beyond eyewitness accounts, and considered accounts in Sanskrit from all over India that pre-dated the Vijayanagara accounts by much more than a century, he might have reconsidered his belief that the Navarātra was spurred solely by the rise of that south Indian kingdom. These accounts in Sanskrit may be considered, in contrast to travellers’ reports, as ‘insider-texts’, being composed by and for the class of ritual specialists who were directly involved in the performance of the Navarātra and in determining the ritual sequence that was to be followed by a kingdom. Describing the ritual sequence in detail (including the all-important Page 3 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights liturgy that would be recited during ritual action and contained the key concepts of the ritual process), the Sanskrit sources embody indigenous views on what constituted ritual meaning and ritual structure. It is therefore necessary to rely on these insider accounts for conceiving how the ritual was performed. Eyewitness reports, where available, are to be used, supplementarily, to verify the Sanskrit and to fill in the gaps. Of these insider accounts of the Navarātra in Sanskrit there are plenty, and from a number of regions and scriptural traditions, attesting that the ritual was truly pan-Indic in scale. There are firstly the Purāṇas, the scriptural authorities for the rite, and, secondly, treatises or chapters in larger works based on these scriptures, composed mainly by the Dharmaśastric cognoscenti, the smārtas (brāhmaṇa experts in the Smṛti, the orthodox legal (p.213) corpus), who were located at various courts throughout India as advisors to kings.6 There is also evidence of the Navarātra in ritual literature that was not strictly Brahmanical but syncretic in character, assimilating Tantric elements. Sanderson revealed the existence of certain Orissan ritual texts of this type teaching a version of the Navarātra that had developed in the context of the Orissan Atharvavedic traditions and propitiated the goddess Bhadrakāli/Jayadurgā with mantras from the Śākta Kālīkula.7 Although, the Purāṇas and the smārta treatises are prescriptive and not factual in language (‘this should be’ rather than ‘this was’), they form by far our best and only sources for describing the rite.8 No other sources in the form of eyewitness accounts from a period preceding the 15th century exist and, in this absence, it is crucial to rely on prescriptive literature as evidence for how the medieval Indians conceptualized ritual and their relation to the gods. The great importance of this literature is attested by 9th-century inscriptions from Southeast Asia which conclusively confirm that prescriptive sources in Sanskrit were employed by medieval royal courts in directly shaping their ritual practices.9 The charge of idealism, though at first sight imputable to such writings, can thus be laid to rest where one is dealing with a culture as indebted to the sacred books and as respectful of sacred learning in all religious activities as the medieval Indic one. Regional traditions regarding the Navarātra directly influenced Purnāṇic descriptions and these local traditions are reflected in the juridical literature by smārta writers originating in particular regional courtly environments. The smārtas drew from the Purāṇas as authorities. They include in their works vast passages on Navarātras from particular Purāṇas that doubtless were seen as forming important religious traditions in the regions of composition. Were it otherwise, those Purāṇas would not have been cited in the smārta treatises, which, being primarily legislative and constitutional in function, sought to embody the principles and religious systems guiding the kingdom. In smārta writings one discerns therefore real historical contexts for the dateless and protean Purāṇic accounts of the Nine Nights ceremony. One can also see an attempt by their authors, hired to create ritual curricula for their employer kingdoms that would be put into action, to make sense of and coherently interpret the mystical descriptions of the Purāṇas. However, examples from (p.214) this literature are quite late, since they were composed only from the 12th century onwards, at a mature phase of the Navarātra ceremony, when it had stabilized after centuries of change. I thus take them to mark the termini ante quem for periodicizing the Navarātra. The terminus post quem is difficult to ascertain given that very few Purāṇic sources have been edited properly and the most ancient manuscripts are either unknown or have not yet been utilized: the reader is warned that the historical sequence outlined below is only provisional and remains in large part open to discussion and querying. Only a detailed examination of the manuscripts of some of the key scriptures, which I have been unable to undertake in the present

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights work, could enable one to ascertain a sound chronological history. It is hoped that this effort will be undertaken in future studies.10

Circa 200–300 CE: The Propitiation of Nidrā and a Festival of the Polis in the Month of Kṛṣṇa’s Birth Previously in this book I have suggested that although it is difficult to envisage Durgā’s cult before the 2nd century given the lack of materials, it is possible that she was a non-Brahmanical deity, though no firm conclusions can be made about this. This is why I began my analysis with Durgā’s emergence within Vaiṣṇavism in the Gupta period, with roots in the cult of Kṛṣṇa in the Kūṣana period. However, with regard to her ritual, the later sources preserve what appears to me to be an archaic core that would enable us to support the hypothesis that she was originally an aboriginal deity. According to the sources we have available (namely the Harivaṃ śa, the Mahabharata, the old Skandapurāṇa, the Kādambarī, Harṣacarita, Caṇḍīśataka, Gaüḍavaho and Purāṇic citations in juridical compendia from Bengal11), the earliest core of the Navarātra, anteceding its Vaiṣṇava form, was a popular propitiatory tradition external to Brahmanism that pacified dangers and publicly exhibited the heroism of rulers. The goddess, known primarily as Nidrā, Kālaratri or Kālī, (p.215) was placated by buffalo sacrifice and acts of ritual selfmutilation by rulers of tribal groups in what must have been communal affirmations of the spirit of a polis (nagara). The old Skandapurāṇa provides one of our earliest templates of the ritual. This passage, old Skandapurāṇa, 60.46, says: ‘You are propitiated by kings, who have laid their arms and knees on the floor, with the heads of buffaloes, whose eyes, bloodshot in the margins, are [still] spinning.’12 Buffalo sacrifice formed the earliest ritual worship of the goddess, and when her rituals changed over time it continued to serve as one of the most crucial propitiatory acts, the core of the ceremony, on which the reconstitution of the very nature of the polis centred. Since myth and ritual are intimately connected in the case of the Navarātra, the sacrifice evokes the story of Durgā slaying the buffalo-demon Mahiṣa. Let us recall the story as it is narrated in the later old Skandapurāṇa, the earliest record of a full dramatization: After her re-incarnation of ‘Kālī’, Pārvati’s black former self, her coronation by all the gods, her adoption by Indra as his sister, and her assignment of vassals to different regions, the goddess was invited to attend a sacrifice (yajña) at the hermitage of Śaradvat Gautama. Knowing of her arrival there, Mahiṣa, the valiant son of Sumbha (sunuḥ sumbhasya) quickly followed her, intent on avenging his father, whom Kauśiki had slain in the previous chapter. He was large-bodied, with a great chest (pṛthūraska), broad neck (mahāgrīva), fine tail (suvāladhiḥ), pointed horns (vakraśṛṅgaḥ) and a lofty head (viśālocchṛtamastakaḥ). His roar resembled a clap of thunder (vajraniṣpeṣaparuṣaṃ nardamāna). He was like a mountain of split antimony (añjanādrisamaprakhyaḥ). Blocking her path he stood waiting for her. Learning of his arrival the goddess went where he waited. When he saw her, he dashed towards her like a dark mountain (asitādrikalpaḥ) with his tail lifted aloft and his horn bared. The goddess resolutely stood her ground. When his horn grazed the rolling necklace on her breast, she grasped it, lifted him high up, whirled him about and in fury dashed him to the ground. Grabbing his tail, she trampled his head with her foot and, piercing her trident through his back, robbed him of his breath. Showered by flowers, the goddess then returned to her mountain abode. What is striking here is that the scene evokes hunting with Durgā seeking out her prey. The symbolism of the hunt as an image of the triumph of the religio-political order over anti-order is ubiquitous in mythologies across cultures. To quote the historian of religions Jonathan Z. Smith in his influential study on ancient rituals:

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights Within agricultural, urban societies, the religious symbolism of hunting is that of overcoming the beast who frequently represents either chaos or death. The hunt is perceived, depending on the symbolic system, as a battle between creation and chaos, good and evil, life and death, man and nature. The paradigm of such a symbolic understanding is the royal hunt which persists from ancient Sumer (p.216) and Egypt to the contemporary Queen of England, mythologized in legends such as Saint George and the Dragon and partially secularized in the relatively recent ceremony of the Spanish bull fight. The king, as representative of both the ruling god and the people, slays the beast.13 In the myth of Durgā and Mahiṣa and in its ritual enactments, it is this very theme of the sacrificial hunt being played out which becomes an allegory, dramatized in sacrificial mahiṣabali rituals during Durgā’s festival, for cleansing the polis of disruption and inauspiciousness, Mahiṣa being an embodiment of them. In the Indian version of this pervasive and ancient mythic trope, the hunt develops over the centuries from the simple core structure we read about above and goes down more expansive narrative pathways, in which notably, among other developments, the hunted beast acquires a thinking personhood. In interpretations in the Vāmanapurāṇa (18.39–21.52), the Kālikapurāṇa(60.56–164) and also the Devīmāhātmya (Adhyāyas 2–3), Mahiṣa’s part is gradually expanded from the kernel of the old Skandapurāṇa to include: an account of his origin through Rambha’s copulation with a she-buffalo (Vāmanapurāṇa, Kālikapurāṇa); an elaboration of heaven in chaos after his attack and the gods’ plea to a council of higher gods (Devīmāhātmya, Vāmanapurāṇa); an elucidation of the birth of the goddess in tejas in the council (Devīmāhātmya, Vāmanapurāṇa); Mahiṣa’s falling in love with and courtship of the goddess (Vāmanapurāṇa), an intricate sub-plot unfolding in the Vindhya mountain involving messengers, love speeches, a proposal and a condition; and the battle itself, which in the Devīmāhātmya stretches for at least seventy verses and in the Vāmanapurāṇa for at least sixty-one, and involves besides Mahiṣa in each of his successive transformations, the slaughter of sundry demon-generals and paltry subordinates. The most unconventional and ingenious reconfiguration of the tale appears in the Assamese Kālikāpurāṇa (c. 10th century) in which a non-linear, layered style of narrative is employed, whereby Mahiṣa’s death is replayed both retrospectively and prospectively through dreams and visions, and he is portrayed as the unwilling victim of a curse cast by the seer Kātyāyana, on account of his tricking a pupil in the guise of a woman. His disposition and fate are thereby shown to be pre-ordained and the notion of his demonic culpability overturned. Moreover, he is no less than an aṃśāvatāra, a ‘portion-incarnation’, of the great god Śiva himself and a model devotee of the goddess, who welcomes his bloody death at her hands to ensure his eternal proximity to her feet. His death is first revealed to the gods by the goddess on the eastern shore of the Ocean of Milk, and they are then asked to go to Kātyāyana’s hermitage, (p. 217) where Durgā is formed through the light of all the gods, and the conventional plot of the Devīmāhātmya takes over. Once he is killed, the story does not end. There follows a ‘flashback’ in which we discover that Mahiṣa had been murdered previously, in other ages. In this flashback Mahiṣa witnesses in a dream his head being cleft and his blood drunk by the goddess in an aweinspiring, sixteen-armed form, Bhadrakālī. After this, he worships Bhadrakālī for a long time, and when propitiated she appears to him. He expresses his readiness to be killed by her if that is his fate, according to the curse, and also reveals that his father was a worshipper of Śiva and that he too is a devotee, thereby casting himself as the pious bhakta. The goddess then reveals his deaths in three successive kalpas by three ferocious forms: an eighteen-armed Ugracaṇḍā in a previous birth, Bhadrakālī in a second birth and, in the present age, a ten-armed Kātyāyanī. Terrified—for he is no longer the invulnerable, impersonal force of older literature—Mahiṣa Page 6 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights expresses unwillingness to fight with the gods and to be slain in this horrific manner. And on account of his devotion to Śiva, Durgā relents and gifts him two boons, whereby after the gods regain their kingdom, he escapes rebirth for a vast period of aeons and secures a permanent place at her feet during her worship. In this way, a paradox develops across the trajectory of stories about the demon-goddess battle: Mahiṣa is an animal of sacrifice, a metaphor of Disorder, but he is also a cognisant being who reflects on his experience and even grapples with his demonic nature, questioning the way he is put to death. He becomes more and more manlike in later Śākta traditions—in fact, myths, for example, the Devīmāhātmya (3.37–9) and also art, conceive of him as a man exiting a wound on the buffalo’s body holding a sword—though his death reminds inevitably of his inalterable nature as the paśu. We also find that in later Śākta versions, for instance in the Devīmāhātmya, the narrative of ‘Dharma threatened’ is made much more prominent, thereby enlarging his cosmic symbolism as Adharma, so that the sacrifice itself acquires greater solemn significance: Mahiṣa is not bent on exacting simple vengeance as he is in the old Skandapurāṇa, but has larger ambitions to destabilize and subsume heaven. He defeats the armies of Indra and takes over, and his death by the goddess is therefore conceived as action for the greater weal. It is important to note that such was Mahiṣa’s conception even within a strand of mythology connected to Skanda, discussed above in Chapter 4. Accordingly, all Śākta myths of the buffalo-demon, after the old Skandapurāṇa story, particularly the Devīmāhātmya, turn, like Skanda’s version, on the notion of Dharma restored. At the same time they show significant tensions within this concept: both Skanda and Durgā, though saviours of Dharma, manifest deadly and uncontrollable shades which oppose, or keep in check, their aspect as the Dharmic sovereign. During battle they are depicted as self-proliferating— (p.218) their bodies sprout forth hordes of terrifying beings, antithetical in disposition to the gods of heaven. The appearance of these beings functions as a pretext for the manifestation of infernal sides in the two deities’ characters (see Part II above). There is a constant sense, simmering beneath the surface, that trickery and the black arts come naturally to them, in spite of the fact that they fight the mythic counterpart of those very dimensions. When the goddess was absorbed by the more elite faiths from what was a popular ritual context centred on the buffalo sacrifice, it was in Vaiṣṇava literature that she was first described, and provided with the identity of Kṛṣṇa’s sister, the dark and hallucinatory Nidrā, or her cosmic counterpart the Black Night of Death, Kālarātri (see Chapter 1). Even within Vaiṣṇavism she sits uneasily as there is always the underlying sense in the literature that she and her rituals are from some other time and space. According to the testimony of Bāṇa’s works and the earlier Harivaṃśa, Nidrā’s principal worship within the Vaiṣṇava tradition was associated with one, rather than nine, ceremonial days identified in the Sanskrit as Navamī or Mahānavamī14 and Vijayamaha (the festival of victory), the Special Ninth lunar day commemorating the festival of the goddess’s victory over demons.15 This Ninth day is particularly identified by both Bāṇa and the Harivaṃśa as sacred to the goddess, though none of these witnesses mention her worship on previous days. The silence of these works on that account suggests that the large-scale eight-day preamble, widespread in the later ritual, was either unknown or not widely followed at this time. The myth of the Harivaṃśa identifies the Ninth lunar day as falling in the dark half of the rainy month of Śrāvaṇa, a month sacred to Kṛṣṇa. The importance of this ascription is explained by the Harivaṃśa as owing to the time of the goddess’s birth: according to the myth of the goddess presented here, she was born from Yaśodā at midnight on the dark Eighth lunar day, that is on the first hour of the dark Ninth lunar day.16 The dark quarter of the month may have been

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights associated with her dark colouring, and the fact that she conceptually evoked sleep and the night of pralaya when the universe was to be annihilated. The clearly ancient importance of the dark Ninth as the proper time for worshipping the goddess affected the medieval Gauḍiya Navarātra which, in addition to beginning from the bright First, the more widespread practice, was also taught by eastern treatise-writers to commence from the dark Ninth of the lunar month (kṛṣṇanavamī) because of the goddess’s (p.219) birth on that occasion. Even today particular traditions of the Durgā Pūjā in Bengal begin on the dark Ninth.17 At the primeval stage hinted at in these Sanskrit accounts, the festival was primarily apotropaic, seeking to placate spirits who could otherwise cause disease or impose horrific siege on villages. It was also associated with protecting men in dangerous situations, exemplified by the Harivaṃśa as being trapped in a forest, deluged in a great ocean or imprisoned by robbers.18 This practical function of protecting a community from crises, war or supernatural dangers, pacifying omens and obtaining blessings and good fortune remained the most important reason for worshipping the goddess during the autumnal ceremony even in the later tradition, attested in a number of later scriptural passages. The hallmark of this early Vaiṣṇava rite was offering blood to the goddess, a substance she greatly relished and nursed an insatiable craving for. The Harivaṃśa states that the goddess’s worship on the Ninth lunar day must be accompanied by the offering of domestic animals (sapaśukriyā), for the goddess herself was, like the hordes of ghosts who attended her, ‘always fond of offerings of flesh’ (nityaṃ māṃsabalipriyā). Bāṇa’s Harṣacarita associates Mahānavamī particularly with buffalo sacrifice—a metaphor used by the author to describe a Śabara, suggesting, through the use of the aggregate-indicator-maṇḍalānam̄, that the sacrifice of many buffaloes occurred on this occasion during his time.19 In addition to animal sacrifice on Navamī of the month of Kṛṣṇa’s birth, Bāṇa’s Kādambarī also describes rites of self-affliction such as the offering of blood from one’s body, given that the ferocity of the deity was a potentially benevolent and thus venerated characteristic in this early form of the Navarātra.20 There are also accounts of sacrificing one’s own head to the goddess—kāvya is full of such accounts21—or even gouging out one’s eyes, as Rāma was about to have done on Mahānavamī in the Kṛttivāsī Rāmāyaṇa of Bengal.22 The figure of the self-sacrificing king is one that appears with frequency in Indic literature and sculpture on the warrior-goddess, as we have noted in Chapter 1. Baldissera notes, ‘as supporters and legitimizers of royal power goddesses appreciate the rājasika qualities that characterise victorious kings … [they] reward passion and fervour’.23 Rituals of self-mutilation would have been viewed as ennobling demonstrations of heroism and self-sacrifice towards the deity. Besides self-mutilation, the Ninth (p.220) was also marked by the performance of human sacrifice, when the head of a human victim would be offered to please the goddess.24 This practice of propitiating Nidrā was continued, along with the practice of self-mutilation, into the Mahānavamī ceremonials of the later courtly Maithila Navarātra, discussed later. In fact, the later Purāṇas earmarked Mahānavamī for the custom of offering human blood, and, though carefully distancing themselves from the ritual by calling it the practice of barbaras and mlecchas, taught the offering of human blood by dvija kings as a highly effective, albeit eccentric, means of propitiating Caṇḍī. It was in fact advocated by Bengali smārtas as late as the 15th century.25 Joyous, incorporative revelry involving the community would also have been performed. Purāṇic literature and its commentarial tradition discuss a festival called Śābarotsava, the Festival of the Śabaras, to be celebrated on the following lunar day, the Tenth (Daśamī), joined with the asterism Śravaṇa, a constellation believed to be governed by Viṣṇu as its three stars are said to

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights form Viṣṇu’s three footsteps. This custom was associated particularly with Mithilā, Assam and Bengal since all the literature on the festival hails from those regions. According to the main witness, the eastern Kālikāpurāṇa, the festival is envisioned as a celebration of communal identity when everyone, including outcastes, is taught to join together in ecstatically paying farewell to the deity at her departure from the world at the end of the rite. Dancing, celebratory fanfares, bacchanalian game-playing and making conversation and songs about the male and female sexual organs were encouraged at this time, as the Kālikā, and the Bengali smārta commentarial tradition, suggest.26 (p.221) Though the Kālikā’s teaching of the Śābarotsava speaks not of a tribal festival, but rather to a conscious cultivation of a tribal celebration, it seems possible that the Śābarotsava mentioned in this text was a fossilized remnant, or memory, of an older non-Aryan cultic bacchanal performed at the end of the goddess’s worship that had been absorbed within the Vaiṣṇava festivities on the dark Ninth of Śrāvaṇa following Kṛṣṇa’s birth. The requirement that people ought to behave like Śabaras may have been, therefore, based on tribal customs broadly genericized as Śabara practice, which had been assimilated into urban communities along with the cult of Nidrā. It is difficult to localize this indigenous tradition although all the literature summarized thus far associates it with the Vindhya region, which to me appears to be a symbol of its originally peripheral status as recalled by the Vaiṣṇavas, rather than the real provenance of the festival. Circa 500–1000 CE: Incorporation with a Brahmanical Military Festival in Āśvina With the rise of the early medieval kingdoms and the increased sophistication of courts promoting lavish ritualism as a key feature of culture and politics, the Navarātra spread from the Vindhyas, or the peripheries where it had been performed, and was incorporated by upcoming kingdoms. From a small sectarian festival, it became a more popular nondenominational celebration and, very soon, the key political ceremony performed by any medieval kingdom in order to attain the beneficence of the goddess in its regular activities. This development is reflected in the flowering of Sanskrit normative literature on the subject from around the 5th to 12th centuries, prescribing the ‘how’ and the ‘when’ of ritual conduct and guiding governments eager to regulate themselves in a respectable manner. Revealing the appropriation of the ceremony by courts, these, mainly early Purāṇic, scriptural sources on the ceremony continually emphasise that the goddess’s annual worship was rājyārtham, ‘for the sake of (that is to acquire) sovereignty’ or rāṣṭravṛddhaye, ‘for the increase of the kingdom’s [prosperity and power]’.27 The primarily (p.222) religio-political purpose of the Navarātra is explained by these sources as its special ability to destroy fears and great enemies, grant great wealth and magical attainments, neutralize the bad effects of planetary conjunctions, bring rain, heirs, long life and sovereignty and prevent poverty and untimely deaths in the kingdom.28 All these rewards would have been thought to particularly sanctify a medieval kingdom, its towns and their inhabitants. After death, the goddess’s worshipper is promised not liberation from the world but rebirth in it as ‘an overlord of kings over kings, a patron, good-looking and beloved, having sons and wealth’.29 Without stating this directly, the scriptures nevertheless make it clear that the intended audience of their prescription of the Navarātra was the segment of society who owned and ruled over land. Stimulated by this courtly appropriation, military rituals either blessing the army and weapons or prognosticating victory emerged as the most important feature of the goddess’s Navarātra, performed with great pomp on Navamī. However, in contrast to sanguinary sacrifice, these

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights rituals were not, it seems, an archaic constituent of the Navarātra. They appear rather to be derived from Brahmanical military traditions performed annually in the month of Āśvina. Vedic military traditions practised by an Indian kingdom would for long be performed during this lunar month in autumn initiating battle. Such calendrically performed military rituals blessing the king’s army and weapons, such as the lustration of the troops and state animals (nīrajana), which would later become necessary components of Caṇḍī’s autumnal worship, were already well established as civic ceremonies performed on Navamī in Āśvina, before the appropriation of the Śākta Navarātra by the early medieval kingdom. They are taught, for instance, in the Bṛhatsaṃhitā of Varāhamihira (chapter 43), the Kāṭhakagṛhyasūtra (57.1) and the Arthaśāstra (2.30.51), but the goddess does not appear in this non-Śākta tradition honouring sovereignty.30 It seems that the cult of the warrior-goddess was (p.223) only later accreted to this antecedent martial tradition centred on Āśvina, when her worship was integrated with the annual royal ceremonies associated with the replenishment of a Brahmanical kingdom’s power. In this way we find that after beginning as a popular propitiatory ritual, and then being appropriated within Vaiṣṇava celebrations in the month of Śrāvaṇa, the tradition of worshipping the goddess was transposed onto this pre-existing stratum of autumnal military sanctification. From the 6th century onwards, the time from which the first Purāṇic accounts of the Navarātra appear (as we shall see), the structures of the goddess’s black Navamī had begun to subsume the function once served by the old Brahmanical kingship rituals on Āśvina. It formally marked the advent of the military calendar in autumn and was believed to organize and set in motion an army’s success, the regeneration of the kingdom and the pacification of omens and crises, all practical goals any kingdom did well to achieve before a period of potential uncertainty. In this newly enhanced ritual structure providing civic sanctification, the Śākta influx was significant— the goddess’s role became central in causing the efficaciousness of the military ceremonies. However, even though an external goddess-oriented popular tradition was thereby coalesced with a Brahmanical tradition, in its female-centric, purity-negating core the former was in many aspects at odds with its orthodox substrate, the principal deities of which were all masculine and which was ordered by a strict regard for conceptions of purity. Neither played much of a role in this external tradition, which as a matter of fact sought to subvert orthodox beliefs in order to assert superior status. Despite the important role of kings, the early medieval Navarātra was not an elitist political ritual intended just for the powerful or for the army. Perhaps as a consequence of its unorthodox beginnings in folk religion, and Durgā’s assimilative nature, the festival retained even in its most courtly heyday an ecumenical character. Though the main sponsor—given the high costs involved—would have been the king, anyone, of whatever religious background or degree of purity, could participate. Rājās, kṣatriyas, low-castes including Śūdras, Jainas, outcaste tribes, their rulers, foreign warrior clans, even women, along with the armed forces of the kingdom all would have joined together in propitiating the sovereign goddess, or various goddesses as one optimal entity. Many lower groups had special ritual responsibilities to fulfil.31 Understood as the substance of power, the goddess in her forms was thought to permeate through the king into all levels of society binding the community of the kingdom together into a sacred whole. Indeed, early (p.224) normative literature makes quite a pointed note of the integrative aspect of the ancient rite.32 In the later medieval period, the ceremony became more restrictive with increased Brahmanization such that, as the Dharmaśāstrin Viṣṇubhaṭṭa Āṭhavaḷe stringently noted, ‘mlecchas etc. do not have the authority to perform [worship] such as japa even through

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights the agency of brāhmaṇas. However, they must only make mental offerings of various gifts such as alcohol and animal sacrifice to the goddess.’33 Among the Purāṇic sources, the earliest to mention autumnal goddess worship appears to be the Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa (c.500–600, but acquiring its present form possibly as late as the 9th century),34 a work composed in southern Kashmir or its immediate vicinity35 and frequently employed in ancient Indian kingship for programmes of royal sanctification. The Viṣṇudharmottara formed the litany for a great part of the later Navarātra: verses accompanying the consecration of royal animals such as horses and elephants and accoutrements like weapons, the lion-throne, insignia etc., are all attributed by the smārta treatise-writers to this work. It teaches the worship of the goddess Bhadrakālī, a form of ‘Kātyāyanī, beauteous, free-willed and boon-bestowing who goes to a Lord of the World when worshipped with all objects of desire’.36 Her worship is spread over two lunar days in the bright half of Āśvina: the Eighth (Mahāṣṭamī) and the Ninth (Mahānavamī). On Mahāṣṭamī a shrine to the goddess draped with various cloths was to be built in the north-east part of a military encampment (śibira). The goddess was to be painted on a cloth and worshipped therein.37 This was to be followed by the worship of all weapons—the royal armour, parasol and ensigns—with flowers, perfume, fruits and sumptuous food. Then, offerings to the deity in the form of various staged entertainments were to follow. The king was to remain awake that night. On the following Mahānavamī, the same worship was to be repeated and concluded with a (p.225) parade.38 Animal sacrifice is not discussed, in all likelihood because the Viṣṇudharmottara is a Vaiṣṇava text. From this description, it is clear that the Brahmanized form of the goddess’s ceremony, now in autumn, was primarily military in character, unfolding in an encampment pitched for battle. Mahānavamī initiated military campaigning and occasioned a cult of heroism sacred to warriors. Legends of its power in granting omnipotent kingship appear in examples of Purāṇic literature: the Varāhapurāṇa describes the practice of fasting followed on the day as being a śauryavrata, ‘An Observance of Valour’, so called because ‘a [king] who has lost his kingdom assuredly gains his state, when this is performed’.39 The Bhaviṣyapurāṇa explained it as a day of cosmic victory, when the goddess slew the buffalo-demon and was consecrated as the ruler of heaven,40 further mythicizing its monarchical relevance. Her slaughter of the buffalo-demon was to be enacted on earth by her most favoured devotees: the Kālikā teaches that all kings must perform animal sacrifice on Mahānavamī.41 Given its archaic importance both in tribal customs of goddess worship and also in certain Tantric texts (to be shown below), it seems to have been this particular tithi, rather than the nine nights of the Navarātra, that was ubiquitously performed in the Indic world as the foremost ritual of prestigious kingship. One of the earliest smārta writers, Lakṣmīdhara, who was counsellor to king Govindacandra (1114–54) of the Gāhāḍavāla kingdom, whose nominal capital was in Vārāṇasī and Kanyakubja, codifies only the Mahānavamī rites,42 and this seems to be an indication that only this lunar day was celebrated in that kingdom. The Mahāṣṭamī-Mahānavamī rites described in the Viṣṇudharmottara as sacred to Bhadrakālī were by no means insignificant: they find their way into the Agnipurāṇa (267.13cd–16ab), a further scripture of significance for Indian kingship. This later work based, along with various other sections, this particular autumnal ritual of the goddess on the Viṣṇudharmottara,43 and circulated it among a wider clientele of monarchs. As in the ritual of the Viṣṇudharmottara, on Mahāṣṭamī Bhadrakālī’s picture was to be painted on a cloth; weapons, crests, banners and parasols were to be worshipped on the (p.226) Eighth; and the worship was to be concluded Page 11 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights with a bali, followed by a night vigil.44 The same rituals were to be repeated on Navamī. The text specifies that the worship is for the sake of acquiring victory (jaye) and for the pacification of dangers (śāntau).45 Here too the martial context for the early ceremony deriving from the Viṣṇudharmottara is underlined.

Expansion and Inclusion of Tantric Ritual Aspects in Eastern Court Traditions: The Navarātras of Gauḍa, Kāmarūpa and Orissa The Mahāṣṭamī and Mahānavamī traditions of the Viṣṇudharmottara and the Agni centring on Bhadrakālī are also paralleled in two influential eastern scriptures—the Devīpurāṇa (henceforth Devī) and the Kālikā. The composition of these eastern Purāṇas coincided with the Navarātra attaining its fullest shape in the regions where these texts were written—east India (Bengal and Assam). Later, these scriptures formed the chief viaduct channelling the rites of the Navarātra into other parts of India (as will be shown below). The main innovation of these texts is that they present a Navarātra that is syncretic in nature, incorporating Tantric with Purāṇic ritual features, and, though never fully Tantric in that they did not arrogate to themselves the status of esoteric revelation but represented always accessible religion, firmly embedded the autumnal worship of the goddess in an unmistakeably Śākta46 framework. This Tantricization was no doubt owed to the indigenous Śākta traditions that enjoyed great popularity in east India and suffused all other sectarian currents in that area.47 The Śākta character of the earlier of these two texts, the Devi, was clearly recognizable to early Indian authors, for it drew remarks from the Dharmaśāstrins Aparārka (c.1127–48) and Vallālasena (c. 1160–79).48 The latter, in fact, a paragon of Vaidika respectability, poured scorn on the Devi since, in his view, it ‘conformed to heretical [i.e. Tantric] doctrine’ and excluded the scripture, which he felt was of ambiguous Purāṇic pedigree, from his list of the eighteen Purāṇas ‘because.it included foul rituals’.49 (p.227) This controversial and ambivalent text was composed between the latter half of the 6th century and the 9th century approximately,50 in Bengal51 around Tamralipti (present-day Tamluk), the site of an ancient shrine to Vindhyavāsinī (now known as Barga Bhīmā) dating from at least the 7th century.52 Instead of worship solely on Mahāṣṭamī and Mahānavamī, the text envisions a build-up starting from the First lunar day of the bright quarter of Āśvina, when the Sun and the asterism Kanya (Virgo) are joined, and climaxing on the Eighth and Ninth. The Devi therefore attests that the content of the ceremony had developed in the east from an archaic, martial core centred in Mahānavamī to a more capacious celebration spanning nine (or even four or ten) lunar days beginning from the First of the bright fortnight. The sequence of the moon’s waxing marked at every phase a subtle transformation of the goddess’s energy while the final two tithis coincided with her fullest expansion—this sequential process of transformation would be most apparent in the Maithila court rite, where Durgā was made to metamorphose from substrate to substrate during the course of the Nine Nights (to be shown below).53 The worshipper is taught to observe a vow of restricted eating for the first seven nights, to worship Śiva thrice daily, recite mantras, perform oblations in fire and feast a maiden. On the Eighth the text teaches the worshipper to build nine wooden shrines, or one (should the worshipper lack means). There the goddess was to be established in a gold or silver image or in a sword or trident. Gifts of clothes, jewels and fruits were to be offered to her, and she was to be worshipped splendidly with chariot festivals, palanquin processions, bali and (p.228) the offering of various flowers. Then the worshipper was to fast and recite a mantra before the goddess.54

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights Next, the work includes rites for kings with the specific object of attaining victory in battle. These resemble occultic power (siddhi) bestowing rituals particular to non-soteriological Tantric practice and were a blood sacrifice resembling a pacificatory (śāntika) ritual and another sacrifice, a śatrubali (a sacrifice of the enemy), resembling a destructive (māraṇa) rite. Both sets of magical rituals took place at midnight and are thus called ardharātrapūjā (Worship at Midnight). The same rites are paralleled in the Agni,55 indicating that this occultic military tradition at midnight was a popular one, performed by a wider orbit of kings than those who followed the Devi. According to the two accounts, the ceremonies can be summarized as follows. At midnight closing the Eighth and ushering in Mahānavamī (specified as when Aṣṭami is joined by the asterism Kanya), a sacrificial animal (paśu) was to be slain by the king and its blood was to be offered to pacify and dissipate the demons in the four quarters: Pūtanā in the south-west, Pāparākṣasī in the north-west, Carakī in the north-east and Vidārikā in the south-east. The invocation which the king was to chant to salute the deity as he performed the sacrifice is kāli kāli vajreśvari lauhadaṇḍayai namaḥ (O Kālī Kālī, Goddess of the Thunderbolt, Homage to Her who bears a sceptre of iron). By addressing Caṇḍī as Kālī, the litany conveys their unity. Having thus satisfied her with blood, the king should then bathe in front of the goddess and decapitate a dough-doll of his enemy, offering the torso to Skanda and Viśākha. Through this aggressive magic by a proxy, his wishes to subdue his rivals are fulfilled. Its great popularity for kings in the east is evinced by the fact that it appeared in the Navarātra treatises of the Mithilā court between the 14th and 15th centuries. The worship is then concluded with an incantation of a verse intoning various names of the goddess beginning with Jayantī, Maṅgalā, etc., bathing the goddess with five nectars (pañcāmṛta), chariot processions (rathayātra) with festal images of the goddess, and hoisting royal ensigns (particularly, as specified by the Devi, in the shrine of Carcikā) accompanied by offerings of bali.56 (p.229) Making its Śāktism even more overt, the Devi strengthens the position of many other goddesses in the ritual, envisioning them as the ultimate sources of concentrated power in all aspects of a kingdom. It promotes, for instance, kumārīpūjā, the veneration of young maidens transformed into the goddess, and envisages an ambitious Navarātra programme held every Āśvina for a full Jupiter cycle (sixty years), involving the placation not only of Durgā, but of a vast number of female divinities with distinct characteristics. As the ritual progresses during the course of the sixty years, these deities, beginning as pacific, become incrementally more violent and martial in form and character—and thereby more powerful—towards the finale.57 Caṇḍī’s figurations as malevolent, crisis causing and quelling, occult deities with power over grahas and dangerous divinities take a central place in the early form of the ceremony celebrated in the east, for it was thought that the more deeply the worship entered into the sphere of the darker and more dangerous aspects of the deity, the greater the power and rewards obtained from her, her violence being understood as nothing other than a dynamic manifestation of her gnostic and magical energy. This Śākta tonality is not restricted to the Devi, but is also observable in other early eastern Purāṇic scriptures. The Agni, a further Purāṇa conjectured as emerging in the east, in Orissa or in West Bengal,58 and also decried by Vallālasena for its Tantric content,59 specially dedicates Mahāṣṭamī to worship that syncretizes Śākta elements with its mainstream Purāṇic framework. The work multiplies the number of female divinities appearing on that night. All (p.230) are envisaged as emanations of Caṇḍī, surrounding her and unaccompanied by consorts. They are named as the Nine Durgās, terrific forms of Caṇḍikā of various colours, holding different weapons in the act of slaying the buffalo, showing the threatening (tarjanī) gesture and depicted

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights in a warrior stance, with their left knee raised as they place their foot on the back of the buffalodemon. Their worship is described in great detail. Such open reverence for a kaleidoscope of autonomous goddesses (i.e. unaccompanied by consorts) as supreme beings in their own right was in keeping with the theological attitude of proper (esoteric) Śākta worship.60 This tendency would be emphasised in the later medieval eastern Navarātra. In later eastern scripture, such as the Kālikā, Mahāṣṭamī included, besides the worship of the Nine Durgās, the placation of a wider retinue of māṭrs and yoginīs.61 A legend developed in the Purāṇic corpus associating Mahāṣṭamī.with the manifestation of the goddess in her Tantric form, ‘extremely horrifying with her countless yoginīs’ (mahāghorā yoginīkoṭibhiḥ saha) who descended on that day hungry for blood.62 In that legend the goddess of Mahāṣṭamī is identified, in accordance with the Viṣṇudharmottara and the Agni, as Bhadrakālī, and it is claimed that on this day she was the antinomian ‘destroyer of [the Seer] Dakṣa’s sacrifice’ (dakṣayajñavināśiniṃ).63 This myth that the goddess obstructed Vedic yajña on the most important day of the autumnal festival shows that—at least in east India where this legend was primarily circulated—Mahāṣṭamī was understood to mark the day on which the goddess’s threatening and disruptive powers escalated and were even thought to become wildly uncontrollable. It was for this reason that the pacific rites of the Navarātra become, from this day on, chiefly placatory in character, such that sanguinary sacrifices become more frequent in order to make peace with the deity and to calm her volatile nature, protective and yet capable of massacre. In fact all the rituals performed on the day transition to adopt a more overt Tantric character to fully propitiate the transformed, more powerful, temperament of the goddess. The later Gauḍīya Navarātra of the 16th century would allocate Mahāṣṭamī for all practices associated with Tantric worship, such as the bhūtaśuddhi (purification of gross matter), nyāsa (installation of mantras on the body), the worship of Mātṛs and contemplative Tantric rites of visualization and self-identification with the deity.64 In Nepal, (p.231) Mahāṣṭamī would involve special occultic rituals such as the performance of the siddhi-bestowing, magical Rite of the Sword. In addition, overtones of the esoteric Śāktism that flourished in Kashmir can be found in the Navarātra of Orissa, where a Tantricized Bhadrakāli was well established as the central goddess in the royal rituals celebrating the final nights of the Navarātra. In the Orissan manual Bhadrakālimantravidhiprakaraṇa, the ‘Observance of Bhadrakālī’ (bhadrakālivrata) is taught to kings on the Ninth day of the bright fortnight with mantras that are derived from the Śākta Kālīkula tradition.65 The text teaches that Bhadrakālī, also referred to in that work as Jayadurgā or Āsurī, the bestower of victory, must be worshipped by a king with a lengthy, complex and systematic array of rituals, some of which included the daily repetition of Bhadrakālī’s mantras; oblations of parched grain and ghee into fire; a nightly fire-ritual; sacrifices of buffaloes and other animals; fire-sacrifices to empower the royal weapons starting from the dark Eighth lunar day and continuing for a fortnight till the bright Ninth. The king is given four mantras of the goddess to choose from, each corresponding to a particular visualization of Bhadrakālī. As a necessary part of the worship, he was required to immerse his imagination in the form of the deity prescribed by the work while reciting the mantra. The first form is as a serene, dark-hued beautiful maiden on a lotus, bearing a skull filled with blood, with three copper-coloured eyes, wearing red garments.66 The second is horrific, with fangs, lolling tongue, a large-nose ‘spewing fire from her mouth, terrifying the three worlds, running towards and slaughtering his [the king’s] enemy’.67 The third is her lotus-seated form showing a fierce expression.68 The fourth stands on a lotus resting on the back of a corpse, five-faced ‘with three large, copper-coloured eyes in each of her five faces. With the force of her great anger she crushes [the king’s] enemy Page 14 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights again and again, holding him face-down in her two uppermost arms, tortured by the twenty fangs of her five faces.’69 Only after the worship of the goddess is the king taught to proceed to battle: if during the battle he simply chants a special mantra of Bhadrakālī or wears an amulet containing the mantra, he will secure victory and effortlessly destroy all his enemies.70 Bhadrakālī’s Tantricization was by no means restricted simply to the sphere of syncretic Orissan practice. That her worship (p.232) on Mahāṣṭamī and Mahānavamī seems also to have occurred in Kashmir within the domain of royal Tantric practice is suggested by the fact that she appears, apart from the Kashmirian Viṣṇudharmottara, in the Śaiva scripture known as the Netratantra in the context of the autumnal military ceremonies sacralizing the king and his weapons and insignia. This work, composed sometime between 700 and 850, teaches Bhadrakālī’s propitiation in the king’s sword with mantras of Amṛtalakṣmī, consort of the chief deity of the text, Amṛteśvara, on Mahānavamī in Āśvina.71 Given that this process of Tantricizing the ritual framework of the final two nights of the goddess’s Navarātra was thus attested in contemporary examples of Tantricized and properly Tantric literature, it is not surprising that the Eastern Purāṇas should have articulated the conception of dangerous, hot-blooded and power-bestowing goddesses appearing from Mahāṣṭamī onwards. The Mahāṣṭamī and Mahānavamī tradition of the Viṣṇudharmottara, the Agni and the Devi then appear in a further influential eastern Purāṇa, the Kālikā, composed sometime between the 7th and the 12th century72 in Assam, as much of it eulogizes the Śākta sacred site of Kāmākhyā.73 Not only does this work advocate the eastern traditions of worshipping Bhadrakālī and the Navadurgās,74 it also strengthens the Śākta overtones first glimpsed in the Devīpurāṇa, including new features such as the homology of the warrior Caṇḍika with the erotic deity of the eponymous shrine Kāmākhyā,75 the identification of the sacrificial buffalo with Śiva,76 and a myth about the sixteen-armed Bhadrakālī and her other forms the eighteen-armed Ugracaṇḍā and the ten-armed Kātyāyanī,77 and it encourages the accompanying worship of a vast number— sixty-four, but preferably incalculable koṭis in its language—of Mātṛs and yoginīs. At a time either contemporaneous with or pre-dating the emergence of the Kālikā, a Tenth lunar day, Daśamī or Vijayā Daśamī, celebrating the return of the goddess to her heavenly home, came to be added between the 9th and the 11th century. The Kālikā gives the earliest testimonia for Daśamī and teaches releasing the goddess in water (visarjana) accompanied by illuminating descriptions of a joyous civic festival, described previously, where citizens (p.233) became caste-less for the day and were encouraged to imitate the ecstatic abandonment of social distinctions and decorum of the Śabaras. This tradition of immersing the goddess in water on Daśamī was perhaps Assamese in its origin, given that its main witness is the Kālikā, but it is performed de rigueur in Bengal even today. Daśamī appeared much later in the Deccan, particularly promoted by the Vijayanagara empire, and was marked differently, according to Vaidika norms deriving from the Gopathabrāhmaṇa (to be discussed below). It had little to do with venerating Durgā. What was common between both the eastern and Deccan traditions of Daśamī was that it was a festival of the people. Although the king, and in the south the army, had a prominent role, the point was that everyone else in the capital and outside it had to join in. The festival elevated the idea of a singular rather than a stratified social system, where all members were integrated as one working unit. From the 12th century we find expressed in literature a tendency to view goddess-rites as disreputable, a reaction perhaps against their non-Aryan beginnings or their association with Tantric practice. Both the most important scriptures shaping the eastern Navarātra, the Devi and the Agni, were roundly condemned as spurious works, Tantras thinly disguised as Purāṇas,

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights by Brahmanical stalwarts like Vallālasena.78 Perhaps roused to action by this opprobrium, the juridical smārta paṇḍitas in the east patronized by Assamese, Gauḍīya and Maithila kings began to circulate Purāṇic testimonia of the Navarātra from 1100 (the first among them being the Gauḍīya Jīmūtavāhana, who was active c.1090–1130). They initiated a programme accommodating the rite, and the dubiously thaumaturgical texts teaching it,79 within a more flexible model of Brahmanical orthodoxy, transforming the Navarātra into a ceremony of licensed antinomianism (as indeed evidenced in the teachings concerning the Śābarotsava) which a Brahmanical kingdom could indulge in within the strict limits of a single day in the religious year. It is owing to their proselytizing efforts that eastern Purāṇas such as the Devi, the Kālikā and the Bṛhannandikeśvarapurāṇa were popularized.as the most authoritative sources for the Navarātra, and, via these eastern Purāṇas, the ceremony percolated into other medieval kingdoms further to the west. A leading role in promulgating the eastern Navarātra was taken by the dharmaśāstrins in the court of the medieval kingdom of Mithilā/Tirhut, straddling the present Indo-Nepalese border. The scheme described in the Maithila treatises was that which had the greatest influence on the later (p.234) Gauḍīya Āśvina rite, and thereby on rites elsewhere in India, given that several features of the Gauḍīya durgāpūjā percolated into conceptions of kingship in southern and western kingdoms. This influence may have been enabled in part by the high esteem Maithila Brāhmaṇas enjoyed at the time. It is also from Mithilā that the earliest evidence of a distinctive court-ritual based on the early scriptures just discussed emerges. Though they date only from the 14th century, we must bear in mind that the sources were written at a late stage of the ceremony, after it had been performed for many generations. They may therefore show us the Navarātra in that kingdom when it had already departed substantially from the form it had when it was first adopted.

The Navarātra of the Kingdom of Mithilā The most detailed account of the Navarātra in Mithilā is from the court of the Oinwars, but the precursor to the ritual of that court is to be found in the ceremony performed by their predecessors, the Kārṇāṭas. Not much can be inferred, though, about the Kārṇāṭa ceremony, for the available descriptive account is unsystematic. But clearer assumptions can be made about the historical context of the Kārṇāṭas’ Navarātra, and a few words are necessary, by way of a preamble to the Oinwars. Circa 1314–24: The Rite of the Kārṇāṭa Lineage The earliest Maithila source is the chapter on the Āśvina rites in the Kṛtyaratnākara of Caṇḍeśvara, son of Vireśvara and learned ‘Composer of Dharmaśāstric Digests’ (nibandhakāra), whose approximate floruit may be placed between 1314 and 1324. Parallel to his scholastic side, Caṇḍeśvara had a significant political role: he held the important office of the sāṃdhivigrahika,80 the minister for war and peace, in the Maithila capital Simraun Gadh under the Kārṇāta sovereign Harisiṃhadeva. His family, a baronial one designated by their surname Ṭhakkura, was well known to have held political power in Mithilā, for his uncle Gaṇeśvara had headed the council of feudatory leaders in Mithilā, while several members, including Caṇḍeśvara, had made donations and commissioned buildings, acts generally associated with eminent landlords or kings.81 Some time in 1314, Caṇḍeśvara made incursions into Nepal for Harisiṃhadeva, promulgating the new rule with various administrative acts such as donations of lands to brāhmaṇas, the building of (p.235) a tank in Abhirāmapura and the performance of a

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights tulāpuruṣa rite, the ceremonial gifting of gold equalling a man’s weight, on the Vāgmatī, a gesture he records in the closing of his Vivādaratnākara.82 Such a conspicuous public role lends greater credence to the assumption that the chapters on goddess worship in the Kṛtyaratnākara had a significant bearing on the codification of the religious activities of the state. The smārta writers’ works profoundly influenced social matters such as medieval legislation—Caṇḍeśvara’s Vivādaratnākara, for example, formed the prominent authority in the Maithila school of law for six centuries.83 The idea of worshipping a goddess associated with a king’s power is clearly central to the functioning of the society envisaged in that work, and its legislative authority prompts us to imagine a scenario in which the Kārṇāṭa state regularly performed various rituals of a public character honouring akti, which were eventually codified in Brahmanical socio-religious compendia impacting on social policy. The goddess’s worship, a monthly affair, is described in three weighty sections: a durgāvrata, a sequence of observances for Durgā, to be performed on the Aṣṭami of every month, usually involving bathing the goddess, making offerings of flowers, incense and food, and feeding young girls and dvijas, based on the Devīpurāa;84 a public chariot procession with a festal image of Durgā on the dark half of Bhādrapada to the outskirts of the city based on the Bhaviṣyapurāṇa;85 and the Āśvina rites for the goddess forming the grand culmination of these ceremonies.86 But the exact ritual sequences whereby this idea that the goddess was important for the sanctification of the kingdom was put into practice are unclear, for the work is encyclopaedic, rather than systematizing, in character. A rough scheme can be gleaned from it as follows. Apart from the monthly worship of the goddess derived from the Devīpurāṇa, the kingdom would have performed Mahāṣṭamī and Mahānavamī during the Navarātra festivities also according to that work, for Caṇḍeśvara cites the Mahānavamī passage contained in the Devi. The kingdom may have begun worship on the Sixth of the bright half of Āśvina, for Caṇḍeśvara, in a statement explaining a scriptural passage, seems to advocate initiating the ceremony from this tithi. He also explains, on the basis of that passage, that a worshipper was to eat once a day on the Fifth, to follow observances of fasting, controlling the senses, and to gift cows and recite the mantra whose presiding deity was Durgā, having made an Oath on (p.236) the morning of the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth lunar days.87 In addition, he teaches the worship of the Nine Durgās, the Śābarotsava, the worship of Aparājitā, the lustration of the army (nīrājana) and the ritual sighting of a white wagtail (khañjanadarśana) on Daśamī. A large number of these rituals would be continued with greater pomp in the Oinwar ceremony.88 Circa 1375–1450: The Rite of the Oinwar Lineage The next source from Mithilā emerges, after the decline of the Kārṇāṭas, in the court of the Oinwar lineage (14th–16th century). It drew directly from the tradition first outlined in the Kṛtyaratnākara, which derived from the early medieval tradition of the Devīpurāṇa, explicitly acknowledging the older work as the source of many rites, such as the worship of the Nine Durgās, the offering of a human head, the worship at Midnight (ardharātrapūjā), the Śābarotsava, and the format for Vijayā Daśamī. This is not surprising as its author Vidyāpati Ṭhakkura was indeed a descendant of Caṇḍeśvara, a great-great-great-nephew, and enjoyed a similar status at the Oinwar court. His composition, the Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī (‘A River of Devotion to Durgā’), forms the most detailed and comprehensive historical record of the court Navarātra so far available. It gained a reputation of being one of the foremost authorities on the autumnal worship of the goddess among other writers of Navarātra treatises, influencing in great measure the later Gauḍa smārta Raghunandana Bhaṭṭācarya89 and Kamalākara Bhaṭṭa of

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights Vārāṇāsi. The latter in fact in his Nirṇayasindhu teaches rites attributed to the Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, such seems to have been the stature enjoyed by its Maithila author.90 On the whole the Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī can be said to represent the eastern tradition (excluding Nepal)—minor differences emerge from treatise to treatise, but its general pattern conforms to the rites described in most eastern treatises, preserving their quintessential features: the rites of adorning the goddess from the First to the Sixth lunar days, the rites centring on the bel tree, the rites (p.237) worshipping the goddess in nine leaves from crops, and the celebration of Daśamī with the goddess’s immersion in water and the Festival of the Śabaras.91 Beginning with a lengthy dedication to his king and patron Rūpanārāyaṇa/Dhīrasiṃha, Vidyāpati states at the very beginning that the rite he is about to discuss was one commissioned by the king, who perhaps, as the verse suggests, was even involved in its composition.92 This courtly emphasis is made apparent in the very first ritual: the kalaśapūjā, the conferral of celestial substance to water contained in a vase (kalaśa) with which the king was to be anointed later. A king’s consecration by this holy water was one of the most important rites of kingship, conferring divine fitness on him as a ruler. The ceremony preparing the water was to take place on the First lunar day of the bright phase of Āśvina in a shrine built of timber (in keeping with the Devīpurāṇa tradition) suitable for the goddess’s worship, appointed with a square altar four square cubits in length and made smooth by being rubbed over with a mixture of water and cow dung so as to ‘resemble the reflective surface of a mirror’ (-darpaṇodaranibha-). At an auspicious ritual hour in the forenoon, the king, identified as the chief sponsor (yajamāna) of the rite, having bathed and fulfilled preliminary practices, wearing two white garments and seated facing east or north, was to draw, or have drawn by means of some other brāhmaṇa, a lotus-shaped maṇḍala with powders of five colours. On this he was to install a previously unused (navaṃ) strong vase without blemishes (avraṇam), smeared on the outside with yoghurt mixed with barley and filled with the five jewels and clear water, their necks wrapped with two cloths, each adorned with a garland, with their mouths filled with five kinds of leaves and a platter of barley set atop each of their mouths. These actions were to be accompanied by mantras. He was then to fill the pots with water with a chant invoking the pots as Varuṇa’s supports, pillars and proper loci.93 (p.238) Then the officiant was to install the sacred waters in the vase by sacralizing the water already present inside by means of the invocatory invitation ‘Oṃ May all rivers beginning with the Gaṅgā, oceans, lakes and ponds that destroy the sins of the sacrificer enter [the vase].’ The ingredients used to infuse the water are identified as follows: seven kinds of earth from the stable, the elephant shed, a street, an anthill, a confluence of rivers, a lake and a cowshed; eight types of medicinal herbs; water from a sacred bathing place; fruit, dūrvā blades and unhusked barley. On four corners of the altar he was to install four vases on top of barley, filled with water and covered with a platter of barley. He was then to worship Brahman in the water of the central vase surrounded by the other four. First, he is instructed to summon Brahman in the vase with flowers, barley and a mantra, and offer the deity the water and flowers in a chalice, three kinds of guest-water (pādyādikaṃ), unguents, a cupped handful of flowers thrice and a garment.94 According to another passage appearing in an earlier section of the Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, other deities besides Brahman were also to be summoned in the waters of the vase, including Bhavānī herself and the Mothers. The summoning of the goddess to be present in the waters of the vase was in keeping with a wider tradition, for it is taught in other ritual manuals.95 From what we can understand from the Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī passage,96 the king (p.239) must bathe in those

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights sacred waters permeated with the presence of Brahman, Bhavānī, the goddesses and the other deities on the First lunar day, and he would also be consecrated with the empowered water on Daśamī. Next follows the worship of the goddess in a chalice of gold or another precious metal (sauvarṇādyarghapātre), and this was to be done daily until the Sixth lunar day, when the substrate for worship changes into a branch of a bel tree (as we shall see).97 Taking flowers with barley the officiant must summon Durgā and install her in the chalice. Placing in it water, flowers, unhusked barley, dūrvā and kuśa grasses, sesamum, turmeric and bilva leaves, he must recite the mantra from the Devīpurāṇa (‘Jayantī, Maṅgalā, Kālī, Bhadrakālī, Kapālinī, Durgā, Śiva, Kṣamā, Dhātrī, Svāhā, Svadhā, Homage to you’). He must then offer the goddess the three kinds of guest-water with the mantra known as the Durgā of Victory (Jayadurgā), ‘Oṃ.. Durgā Durgā Protectress, Svāhā’ (oṃ durge durge rakṣani svāhā),98 followed by the incantation ‘Oṃ.. Homage to Durgā’ (oṃ durgāyai namaḥ). Then he must offer unguents such as sandalwood and turmeric with the latter incantation, having first anointed the chalice with those substances. Next with the same mantra he must worship the deity by offering a handful of flowers thrice, followed by offering perfume, flowers, incense, lamps, food offerings, betel nut and a garment. Then bilva leaves must be offered with the incantation: ‘O Empress of the Gods, I offer you this auspicious bilva leaf from the bilva tree born from nectar and eternally adored by Śiva.’ Then he was to offer droṅa flowers with the incantation: ‘O Durgā, I give you this droṅa flower eternally adored by Brahmā, Viṣṇu, Śiva and others to accomplish all my wishes.’ Then having sung a hymn, he must bow down and ask for boons with this verse: ‘Oṃ.. Slayer of the buffalo, Mahāmāyā, Cāmuṇḍā, garlanded with heads, Grant me wealth, health and victory, Goddess. Homage to you. O one auspicious with all good portents, benevolent, fully replete in wealth, bestow beauty, bestow fame, bestow good fortune on me, O Goddess. Bestow sons, (p. 240) bestow wealth, bestow all my desires on me.’ Then he was to sacrifice goats, sheep and buffaloes for the goddess, for the attainment of his wishes, and was to keep lights, filled with clarified butter or oil, lit day and night in the goddess’s shrine. He is also instructed to offer, if he can, cosmetics to the goddess: sandalwood and turmeric to dress the hair on the First lunar day; a silken thread to tie the hair on the Second; red lac to dye her feet, vermilion to anoint her hair and a mirror on the Third; madhuparka, collyrium for her eyes and powders of silver etc. for her tilaka on the Fourth; four kinds of unguents, a bed and jewels on the Fifth.99 From the Second lunar day up to the Ninth, the royal horses were to be worshipped daily in the palace stables as their celestial prototypes Uccaiḥśravas and Revanta, simultaneously with the rites centring on the goddess. The importance of the ceremony lay in empowering the warhorses for battle. The stable is perfumed, anointed and decorated with flowers. A space for worship is prepared to the south of the horses, by being ringed with a circuit of three mounds and inscribed with two maṇḍalas with sandalwood etc. In these maṇḍalas the deities Uccaiḥśravas, the son of Śurya and Chāyā depicted on horseback, and Revanta, Indra’s celestial horse, are summoned and worshipped for pacifying all catastrophes, for long life and wealth. Offerings, excluding water and flowers, are made to propitiate them. The king’s horses are then bathed, decorated and worshipped in the stables with offerings. A cloth pouch filled with five jewels and various grains is tied around their necks in order to protect them. Special care is taken of them—they are guarded by (p.241) weapon-bearing soldiers and are not allowed to be hit or to act as mounts. The stables are filled with music and sweet singing. Offerings of neem leaves, clarified butter and mustard seeds are made to the horses; a cow, a bull, a sheep and a goat are placed in the stables; it is ensured that the horses are protected from sunlight; and an

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights oblation in fire for warding away and counteracting all types of dangers (śāntihoma) is performed, accompanied by Vaidika mantras.100 On the evening of the Sixth lunar day, either conjoined with the asterism Jyeṣṭha or without it, Durgā is ritually summoned into a bilva tree. Her presence ritually manifested in the tree, she is then worshipped with offerings and musical fanfare. Since autumn is regarded as the time that gods sleep, she is ceremonially roused from her slumber with hymns in which the supplicator asks her to rise and slay Rāvaṇa. Then the bilva tree, infused with the presence of the deity and embodying her nature (durgāsvarūpataḥ), is ritually invited to enter the timber shrine of the goddess.101 (p.242) On the Seventh lunar day, either conjoined with the asterism Mūla or without it, the officiant was to go to the sacred tree and, having eulogized it, sought its permission and prayed that it will feel no pain, was to cut off a single branch with two fruits, chanting ‘Oṃ tear tear’ (phaṭ phaṭ hūṃ svāhā), a mantra attributed to the Gauḍanibandhas. Then the branch is brought to the shrine and installed on a seat (pīṭha) in the forecourt of the temple and then washed. Offerings are presented to it. The goddess is then summoned to enter the branch and a clay image of herself that will function as her main substrate from the evening onwards, and worshipped thereafter. A goat, a sheep or a buffalo must be sacrificed. The branch and the clay image are then carried in a palanquin to the door of the shrine. Worship commences, propitiating ghosts and obstacle-causers in the ritual space with offerings of beans placed in a circle made of cow dung. White mustard seeds and barley empowered with mantras are then scattered to clear the room of these obstacle-causers.102 Then the goddess is worshipped as the deity Cāmuṇḍā in the bilva branch..The following hymn of visualization is invoked: I must bring you Śrīphala tree abode of Śrī, born on [the mountain] Śrīśaila, Go! You must be worshipped as the true form of Durgā. Oṃ.. Dark as the petals of a blue lotus, fourhanded, holding a skull-topped staff and a scimitar in the right hands, in the left a shield and a noose in the top and bottom hands, garlanded with a skull garland and wrapped in a tiger hide, emaciated, with long fangs, extremely tall and very frightening, a lolling tongue, sunken and bloodshot eyes, with a horrific shriek, seated on a corpse, with long ears and gaping mouth—She is known as Kālī and Cāmuṇḍā. (p.243) Having thus contemplated the bilva branch as having the form of Cāmuṇḍā, the officiant must hold the branch and impel Durgā collocated with the goddess to move with ‘Oṃ O Cāmuṇḍā Move! Move!’, and enter the shrine with the clay image accompanied by songs and music. Then having worshipped the goddess in the branch and in the clay image, the officiant requests her presence to become stable in those substrates and in the place of worship (sthirīkaraṇa). Then the officiant should worship nine leaves (nava patrikāḥ). These are bound with a vine of the aparājitā creeper and the goddess is also worshipped therein in nine different forms. Each form is summoned to enter a different leaf and the fivefold offerings (lights, incense, flowers, fruits and food) are made to her: Brahmāṇī (in a plantain leaf), Raktadantikā (in a pomegranate leaf), Lakṣmī (in the rice leaf), Durgā (in the turmeric leaf), Cāmuṇḍā (in the mānaka), Kālikā (in the kacu), Śivā (in the bilva leaf), Śokarahitā (in the aśoka leaf) and Kārttikī (in the barley leaf). Once these deities have been summoned into these leaves and worshipped there with the five basic offerings, a goat, a buffalo or a sheep is sacrificed. All royal weapons, musical instruments, royal ensigns and pictures are installed in their proper place at the door of

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights the shrine. A festal archway (toraṇa), pillars and flags are erected at the doors of the temple of the goddess.103 The following lunar day, Mahāṣṭamī, signals a change in the rituals, so far centred on plants. Their focus now becomes military rites. Durgā herself transforms on this occasion into a ferocious deity befitting the martial context. On Mahāṣṭamī the sacrificer, the king himself, having bathed and performed the preliminary practices, was to sit on a purified seat facing east or north. He was then to meditate on the goddess by reciting numerous hymns eulogizing her functions, opening each hymn with a formal declaration of intention (saṃkalpa) in which he states the action to be performed and the purpose for which he is undertaking it. The context of kingship is underlined during these (p.244) recitations. The first three hymns invoke the goddess’s protective, worldly aspect with images of crises, declaring, for instance, that no fear of enemies arises in kings who recollect Durgā in times of affliction, such as while enchained, being threatened by tigers, snakes, thieves, [rival] kings, and fires, or that those who recollect her do not drown in the impassable ocean of transmigration.104 The last oath is intended specifically for the heirless king: by observing a preliminary observance of fasting and then declaring the oath, he was thought to obtain heirs. Here the royal context is particularly revealed by the wording, which runs thus: ‘Oṃ.. Today on the Special Eighth lunar day, I, who have fasted, desirous that famine and sorrow shall end, of long life, of the attainment of the supreme state, of ascending an excellent chariot adorned with crests and many garlands and travelling to the world of Brahma, followed by continuous happiness lasting for the year [that will follow] and victory free of misery, will perform the worship of the goddess Durgā’. The king’s wishes are not for liberation but for attaining verisimilitude with a celestial prototype of the victorious ruler on the march. In this way every element of the ritual liturgy of Maithila Navarātra functions in elevating and magnifying the sovereign power of the king. After taking oaths, the worshipper was to restrain his breaths while repeating the mantras that begin with ‘Jayantī’ and contemplate the form of Durgā as evoked in several verses attributed to the Matsyapurāṇa. In these verses she is described as the slayer of the buffalo-demon, adorned with masses of matted locks piled high on her head, with a digit of the moon embellishing them, three-eyed, her face like a lotus and the moon, her colour dark blue like the atasī blossom, richly endowed with [the physical attributes of] newly acquired youth105 and bejewelled, with charming teeth, full and uplifted breasts, in the tribhaṅga posture, arrayed with a trident, a sword, a discus, a sharp arrow and a lance in descending order in her right hands, with a shield, a fully drawn bow, a noose, an elephant goad, either a bell or an axe in her left hands, the headless body of a buffalo at her foot, a dānava emerging from the hole of the torso brandishing a sword, pierced through the heart by her trident, his limbs reddened with his blood, disgorging his entrails, his eyes bloodshot and his eyebrows furrowed in anger, (p.245) the locks of his hair seized by Durgā. The right foot of the deity was to perch on a lion vomiting blood, while the left toe was to alight on the buffalo. When the king had contemplated the goddess in this her heroic form, she was to be summoned to enter the image, asked to protect the worshipper and to grant all desires, and was addressed in her omnipotent aspect as the Empress of the Universe (viśveśvari). Then the base-worship (mūlapūjā) commences. Various offerings are made to the deity accompanied by her base-incantation (mūlamantra), either the ‘Jayanti, Maṅgalā’ verse or the mantra ‘O Durgā, Durgā, Protectress, Svahā’ followed by ‘Oṃ homage to Durgā’ (oṃ durgāyai namaḥ).106

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights As Mahāṣṭamī progresses, and the power of the Navarātra gradually escalates, Tantricized rituals, more effective in bestowing martial powers and killing enemies, were performed. Befitting her name, Durgā is truly dangerous on this occasion. She was to be worshipped in her occultic form ringed by a circuit (āvaraṇa) of female accomplices, with whom she was said to manifest herself on this lunar day. A group of eleven divinities invoked in the mantra beginning with Jayantī and ending with Svadhā and Svāhā was first to be installed to the south. This was to be followed by the installation of nine goddesses (the Navadurgās) in the east, eight to Durgā’s left beginning with Ugradaṃṣṭrā and ending in Jayā, sixteen before her beginning with Maṅgalā and ending in Sunandā, and a group of sixty-four along with thirty-two, sixteen or eight to the south.107 Each goddess is summoned to enter the ritual (p.246) space and, in keeping with her more powerful temperament, is propitiated with mantras that are properly Tantric, that is to say that include the syllable Hriṁ, a typical Śākta seed-syllable, between the opening Oṃ and the name of the goddess.108 The use of distinctly Śākta mantras serves to clearly mark the transformed character of the Maithila ritual from Mahāṣṭamī onwards. Next, the Seven Mothers are summoned and installed in the east with Caṇdika in the centre, and Bhairava is worshipped at the forefront of these deities. Worship commences, propitiating the innermost circuit of divinities surrounding the central goddess, embodied by the ancillary (aṅga) mantras. Then points of the body of the central goddess, followed by her whole body, are worshipped with the five brahma mantras. Then the goddess’s weapons and the royal lion-throne are propitiated.109 Then the goddess is bathed with clarified butter (ghṛta), milk (dugdha), yoghurt (dadhi), the five products of the cow (pañcagavya), i.e. milk, yoghurt, butter, dung and urine, the same from a tawny cow (kapilāpañcagavya), five nectars (pañcamṛta) (though unspecified by the text, typically milk, yoghurt, (p.247) ghee, honey and molasses110), sugar-cane juice (ikṣurasa), honey (madhu), water (udaka), diluted sandalwood (candanavāri), water infused with fragrant flowers (surabhipuṣpatoya), water mixed with droṇa flowers or some other appropriate plant (droṇapuṣpādyānyatamayutaṃ vāri), water compounded with gold (hemavāri), water compounded with jewels (ratnavāri), water compounded with camphor (karpūravāri), and water compounded with fragrant aloe wood (aguruvāri).111 These are performed for specific wishes (kāmyāni) that are declared in the oaths preceding each bathing (for instance, bathing with the five nectars is said to confer on the king ‘an incomparable royal consecration that surpasses the heavenly enjoyment of Indra’s kingdom lasting for one aeon of the gods’).112 In case her image was of clay, which could disintegrate on contact with water, the same substances were either offered or poured on her reflection in a mirror.113 Then welcoming offerings (argha) are presented to the goddess envisioned as an honoured guest: water with flowers (puṣpodakārgha), perfumed water (gandhodakārgha), pañcagavya, an argha formed of twelve constituents (dvādaśāgārgha)114 and one of eight (aṣṭāgārgha),115 offerings presented in three chalices of wood (dārupātrārgha), earth (mṛtpātrārgha) and copper (tāmrapātrārgha), lotus, palāśa and other suitable leaves (palāśapadmapatrānyatamārgha), in two chalices of silver (raupyārgha) and gold (sauvarṇārgha), in one gold chalice for all the gods (sāmānyahemapātrārgha), in silver (raupyārgha) and in a copper (tāmrārgha) chalice. Each offering, presented to the deity as if she were a newly arrived guest, is connected to a specific royal reward.116 Next gifts (dāna) are given to her and the list is unrestrictedly lavish: unguents (anulepana), flowers (puṣpa), varieties of incense (dhūpa), lamps (dīpa), food offerings (naivedya), clothes (vastra), ornaments comprising a crown, and optionally gold earrings, a necklace, a bracelet, an armlet, a ring, a girdle, anklets, a foot ornament, toerings,117 gold tilakas (hematilaka), a pair of gold eyes (hemalocanau), gold (suvarṇa), gold vessels (bahuhemapātra-), a copper vessel (tāmrapātra), an earthen vessel (mṛṇmayapātra), vases and other accoutrements for her bath (p.248) (devīsnānopayogikalaśādi-), a clear, jewelled, garlanded and anointed mirror (-darpaṇa), a Page 22 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights parasol (chattra), a white parasol with a gold handle (kanakadaṇdadhavalachattra), a chowrie with a copper handle (tamradaṇḍacamara), a chowrie with a gold handle (kanakadaṇḍacamara), a chowrie made only of gold (suvarṇamātraghaṭitacāmara), a chowrie with a jewelled handle (maṇidaṇḍacamara), an appointed jewelled bed (sopakaraṇaratnānvitaśayyā), an awning (vitāna), a pair of shoes (upānahau), a horse (aśva) or a palanquin (dolā), a cow (go) and a milch cow (dhenu), a white bull (śvetavṛṣabha), a slave-girl (dāśī), an ensign (dhvaja), another large ensign strung with a five-coloured cloth banner decorated with white lotuses and strung with a row of bells,118 another strung with a white banner (śvetavarṇapātākanvitamahādhvaja), one with a banner of five colours (pañcavarṇapatākānvitamahādhvaja), a row of flags (dhvajamālā), a further eight Mighty Crests (mahādhvajāṣṭaka), land measuring four cubits119 and crops (dhanyadi-).120 This is followed by sanguinary offerings, of which the work presents a number of options, and the oaths to be sworn in each case by the king.121 It seems that all the options were followed.122 No vegetable substitutes are given, in contrast to the other Gauḍīya paddhatis,123 suggesting that the Maithila rite was completely sanguinary. Provision is made for the sacrifice of one buffalo (mahiṣa), several goats (bahuchāga-), several buffaloes (bahumahiṣa-), several sheep (bahumeṣa-), an offering of blood mixed with other liquids (rudhirādimelaka-), sheep’s blood (meṣarudhira-), goat’s blood (chāgarudhira-), buffalo blood (mahiṣarudhira-), blood from both the king’s arms and thighs (svabhujajaṅghadvayarudhiraṃ), and finally a human head (naraśiras).124 The last two are extolled by the text as incurring for the king merit for the greatest period of time, blood from his own body a thousand years, the head-offering one hundred thousand.125 (p.249) The offering of blood formed the main power-bestowing ritual in the autumnal rites of any kingdom; till recently the principal courtyard (Newari Mū Cuka, Nepali Mūl Cok) in Hanuman Dhoka, Kathmandu ran red every Mahāṣṭamī with the blood of 116 sacrificed buffaloes and many goats.126 It enacted a transaction: in return for blood that was thought to fully satisfy the goddess in her terrible aspect and formed the most effective offering as far as śāktism was concerned, the king received his political status from the deity, universal dominance (sarvavaśyatā),127 offspring and several other rewards (these reasons were formally enunciated during the taking of oaths prior to the sacrifice).128 The animal sacrifice taking place at midnight on Navamī was specifically for victory. Blood, not only the essential stuff of life, was believed to be composed of the element rajas, a quality that dominated both in the virile warrior and in the passionate nature of the goddess herself.129 It is also a symbol of sex, being highly redolent of female sexuality and fertility. In this way, the martial and the erotic, both aspects of passion, are interconnected in the image of blood. Thus, worship of her in autumn with blood came to be identified in certain Purāṇic texts and its commentarial literature as a rājasīnpuja, and associated most particularly with the obligations of a kṣatriya.130 (p.250) Caṇḍī was thought to be propitiated by blood, and certain examples of litany even seem to suggest that she was believed to be nourished and replenished by means of it.131 In classical Sanskrit literature, the topos of blood formed the most evocative symbol of the goddess, appearing in numerous obeisance poems to Caṇḍī, in which the red of the slain animals’ vital fluids is most often poetically juxtaposed to the lac adorning the goddess’s feet,132 contrasted and deepened by the white light said to radiate from her toenails,133 or likened, in lyrical flights of poetic fancy, to the fiery tint of the sky at the Juncture.134 Such was her appetite for this substance that the Gaüdavaho includes several gory verses playing with the idea: one describes how Caṇḍī’s tongue was ever pinned to her rows of nail-like teeth in her greed for a juicy bone (v. 328), while another wonders how her temple embellished with red-coloured banners seemed to spew forth Page 23 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights blood that she had drunk from the daily decapitations of animals (v. 322). In the medieval conceptual universe, blood was therefore profoundly redolent of Caṇḍī and her passionate, insatiable and more dangerous nature. In addition, offering blood to Caṇḍī also satisfied and prevented the advances of other malevolent spirits, planets and disease which goddesses like herself in their more dangerous aspects were seen to control. (p.251) Following the singing of hymns (stuti) commences the worship of weapons (and other royal insignia) (śastrapūjā), resulting in empowerment, with invocations attributed to the Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa. These royal weapons and insignia are named as the royal sword (khaḍga), dagger (churikā), cutlass (kaṭṭāraka), bow (dhanu), lance (kunta), armour (varman), chowrie (cāmara), parasol (chattra), ensign (dhvaja), banner (patākā), kettle-drum (dundubhi), conch shell (śaṅkha), lion-throne (siṃhāsana) and royal horses (aśva).135 This was done to ensure the effectiveness of the army in the battles that were to ensue with the beginning of the military calendar. Then follow sacrificial offerings of peas to propitiate Durgā’s retinue of female deities, followed by a sanguinary offering combined with peas and pumpkins to propitiate all the deities in the various directions—the guardians of the worlds, planets, constellations, minor gods, ghosts, jackals and malevolent demons and demonesses.136 At midnight, on the onset of Mahānavamī, the Great Ninth lunar day, a king wishing victory in battle was to perform a further animal sacrifice to propitiate Durgā, now in her wrathful form as Kali. A translation of the text’s description of this ritual of military power (conforming exactly to the method of the Devipurāṇa and the Agnipurāṇa) is as follows: Next [follows] the animal sacrifice after worshipping the goddess [Durgā], performed at midnight on Mahāṣtamī, the Splendid Eighth lunar day [of the bright fortnight], by a king wishing victory in battle. Provisioned with all offerings, having made diverse worship as before with cloth, jewels, fruits and the like, and with droṇa, bel, mango, jāti, punnāga and campaka flowers, having performed a spectacular worship exactly as before, having uttered the base-mantra before Durgā as many times as he can, having eulogized her, having asked for a boon after bowing down, having taken kuśa grass, sesame seeds and water, [a king must declare the Declaration of Intention with the words:] ‘Today at Midnight on the Eighth lunar day in the bright fortnight of Āśvina, I, desirous of victory, shall slay this buffalo, a sheep or a goat, aged five years as an offering to the goddess Durgā.’ Thus declaring his intent, having taken a sword [he says], ‘Oṃ O Kali, Kali, Goddess of the Thunderbolt, Iron-Stake, Homage to you!’ Having thus recited the mantra, he must slay the buffalo adorned with sweet-smelling flower garlands and the like with the sword. He (p.252) must offer the sacrifice along with the flesh and blood from that [sacrifice] empowered with the Mahākauśika mantra to the deities beginning with Pūtanā. The procedure in this is as follows: having worshipped Pūtanā in the south-west direction of Durgā’s temple with offerings beginning with the water for the foot (pādya); having brought forward the bali offering of blood and flesh; having recited the Mahākauśika mantra as follows, ‘Oṃ hrāṃ throb, throb! Oṃ tear, tear! Oṃ shred shred. Oṃ gulva gulva. Oṃ cover, cover. Oṃ dhulva dhulva. Oṃ kill kill. Oṃ drive away, drive away. Oṃ shake, shake, pura pura, fill, fill. Oṃ ha. Oṃ hūṃ bhaṃ vaṃ hūṃ phaṭ phaṭ crush crush. Oṃ hūṃ. Oṃ hūṃ’; he must offer [the flesh and blood] to [Pūtanā] in the south-west direction [while saying] ‘Here is the flesh and blood offering. Homage to Pūtanā.’ In the same way [he makes the offering] to [Pāparākṣasī] in the north-west [while saying] ‘Here Page 24 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights is the flesh and blood offering. Oṃ homage to Paparakśasi’, to [Carakī] in north-east with ‘Here is the flesh and blood offering. Oṃ Homage to Carakī’; to [Vidārī] in the south-east with ‘Here is the blood and flesh offering. Oṃ homage to Vidārī.’ In the same way he must make the offering to the demon Pilipiñja, carrion-eaters (kravyāda), and crunchers (jambhaka) with ‘Oṃ Homage to Pilipiñja; Oṃ Homage to carrion-eaters; Oṃ Homage to Jambhaka’ beginning with the east. Next, having made an image of his enemy out of dough; having sliced off its head with a sword; he must offer the head to Skanda with ‘Oṃ homage to Skanda’ and the trunk to Viśākha. Then, the king having washed while clothed, dressed in white, carefully washed his hands and feet and sipped water, was to worship the goddess again towards the close of midnight. First the deity was to be washed with the various fluids each measuring 108 palas, to the accompaniment of music, the recitation of the base-incantation and offering of lamps and incense in between. Once again, gifts of the scale and nature presented before are made to the goddess. Having sung a hymn, the king was to offer a goat, a sheep or a buffalo as sacrifice. In this way the worship at midnight was to be completed.137 (p.253) Then the Navadurgās (yellow Rudracaṇḍā, tawny Pracaṇḍā, dark-complexioned Caṇḍdogrā, blue-coloured Caṇḍdanāyika, fair-complexioned Caṇḍā, smoky Caṇḍavatī, yellow Caṇḍarūpā, white-hued Aticaṇḍdikā, and, at their centre, flame-faced eighteen-armed Ugracaṇḍā) were worshipped on an eight-petalled lotus.138 Then ancillary mantras were installed in the petals of the lotus, followed by the worship of the goddess’s weapons, the king’s lion-throne, the propitiation of the ten guardians of the world, their weapons and the seven Mātṛs/Śaktis. Further gifts of clothes and ornaments were to be given accompanied by the hymn to the goddess asking her for boons, particularly sons. Then the king and his court were to maintain a night-vigil, spent in dancing, singing and music—these were entertainments said to delight the goddess. On Mahānavamī, the martial element of the rite is amplified. In the morning, the officiant having completed his preliminary rituals and oaths, was to install a trident of wood or another substance on bare ground—Caṇḍikā was to be worshipped in this substrate. She was first washed, then summoned to enter the trident and given various offerings. Then the trident, adorned with jewels and gold, is placed on the back of a horse and taken, with fanfare and the flourishing of standards, to the shrine of goddess and there installed before her image. In this martial form she is worshipped again. First the same sequence of rites as performed on the Great Eighth was to be followed, for the sake of the goddess now in the form of a trident, the weapon with which she was renowned for having slain the buffalo-demon.139 (p.254) This is followed by further sacrifices of a number of goats, sheep and buffaloes.140 Then the circle of Mothers, the goddess’s attendants in her war with demons, are propitiated in an eight-petalled lotus drawn with sandalwood paste, with Caṇḍikā in the centre. These goddesses were Brahmāṇi, Māheśvarī, Kaumāri, Vaiṣṇavī, Vārāhī, Nārasiṃhī, Aindrī, Śivadūtī and Cāmunḍā. The reasons for this worship, as stated in the oath, once again evoke the context of the kingdom: the Mothers are worshipped for the removal of fears everywhere in the king’s palace and in the kingdom, for plentiful milk from cows, the brāhmaṇas’ being intent on the performance of sacrifice, the destruction of the king’s enemies, abundant supplies of food, wealth, good health, appropriate rainfall and an abundance of grains. This is followed by a second worship at the evening-juncture propitiating the Mothers in order to destroy all dangers in another lotus-shaped maṇḍala with an offering of rice mixed with pulses and flesh to each

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights goddess in turn.141 Then three (p.255) virgins are treated with care and fed with all honours, and their forgiveness is elicited at the end of the worship. In the same way brāhmaṇas and young women are fed with all courtesy. The Devīmāhātmya is recited aloud and the reciter is remunerated at the end of the reading. The king was to have 108 oblations of sesame seeds anointed with clarified butter, honey and thickened milk made into a fire established according to the Gṛhyasūtra followed by the tradition of the patron (svagṛhyoktavidhināgnisthāpanaṃ).142 On Mahānavamī the final worship of the king’s horses was to take place. First Revanta was to be summoned in an open ground, installed, offered guest-water, a cupped handful of flowers thrice, and a hymn. Then a goat, a buffalo or a sheep was sacrificed and offered to the deity for ‘quelling all calamities and afflictions of horses, for health, long life and growth’. Then boons were to be asked from the deity. The divine horse Uccaiḥśravas was to be summoned and installed in the same spot, and worshipped likewise. All the king’s horses, their manes trimmed, washed and embellished, were to be assembled fronted by the chief horse. Offerings of guestwater were to be made to them and they were to be worshipped with perfume etc. Then eulogistic verses were to be recited in the horses’ ears, exhorting their growth through the power of all the gods and their protection, as divine offspring of gandharvas, at all times in battle.143 Indeed, it is to be noted that the worship (p.256) of horses had a special place in the sequence of the Maithila Navarātra, and this was to ensure their sanctity and power before they were led into the battlefield. On Daśami, the goddess is ritually bade to depart by being carried with the Śābarotsava ‘with singing, dancing, musing, the chanting of invocations, games, amazing spectacles, and auspicious hymns’ to flowing water, and then submerged in it.144 The goddess’s rites therefore continue into Daśamī in the eastern tradition. After this the king is to return to the shrine and the officiant is to be remunerated. After Caṇḍī has been made to depart by the submerging and releasing of her image in flowing water, the goddess Aparājitā (‘The Unconquered’) is worshipped for success in the military campaign that is to begin after the completion of these rites. This deity seems to have been well connected to rituals initiating military campaigns throughout the subcontinent, for her courtly worship during the final tithis of the Navarātra is attested in the literary work Yaśastilakacampū, composed in 959, in Gaṅgādhārā, the capital of Vāgarāja (Vaddiga), the eldest son of the Cālukya Arikesari, feudatory of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa Kṛṣarājadeva (III). In this work she is described in a hymn (3.459–61), sung at the court of a king Yaśodhara by a royal bard, in order that she could ‘bestow immediate triumph’ on the king, and as in the worship described in the Maithila text (see below), seems to have been viewed as incarnating a king’s personal weaponry and parts of his body: present in the sword as the corpus of sword, in arrow as fused with arrow, in bow as form of bow, in arm as arm, in body as armour, in war as the victory-granting wish-fulfilling jewel. A warrior is thereby imagined as transformed and incorporated into the deity herself before he goes into the battlefield.145 In the Maithila rite, Aparājitā was also figured as a king, and similarly invoked in a protective talisman that the king was to wear during the battle. After he had declared the initiatory oath, an eight-petalled lotus was to be drawn with sandalwood paste. Aparājitā and her attendants Jayā and Vijayā were to be summoned and installed in the maṇḍala with invocations. She was to be visualized by the king as four-handed, robed in yellow, adorned with all (p.257) ornaments, carrying a sword and a shield in the top hands, showing the gesture granting boons and the gesture of protection, three-eyed, slightly smiling. She was to be summoned, installed and offered guest-water with ‘Oṃ Hrīṃ Homage to Aparājitā’. Then having worshipped her with many aparājitā blossoms, droṇa blossoms and bilva leaves, he was to worship the goddess’s

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights heart-mantra and weapon-mantras with ‘Oṃ Hrīṃ Homage to Aparājitā’s Heart’ and ‘Oṃ Hrīṃ Phat to the Weapon’. Then having paid homage to Jayā to her right and Vijayā to her left, the king was to make them offerings and sing them hymns. Next he was to bind according to custom white mustard seeds and dūrvā grass in cloth dyed yellow with turmeric, place this ‘Armlet of Aparājitā’ on the goddess’s heart, and with his desired object in mind, was to tie this on his own body. Having then worshipped his weapons, he was to take his sword, circumambulate and empower the Armlet with the following invocation: ‘Oṃ Since you, Aparājitv, are renowned as supreme among all vines, I wear you in order to fulfil my wishes. O Goddess, bestow on me all prosperities. When worshipped grant me fortune for my general prosperity, [and may] my sin be destroyed.’ The king must then wear the Armlet with the invocation ‘O Goddess, granter of victory, granter of boons, Unconquered I wear you on my right arm on Daśamī for increased victory. O Armlet grant me might and my enemies defeat. By tying you, may there be wealth, crops and prosperity for my benefit.’ The goddess is then invited to depart to her supreme abode and the rites honouring her are concluded. The Navarātra is then concluded with the ritual consecration (abhiṣeka) of the king. With water from the vase installed in the beginning of the ritual, brāhmaṇas would sprinkle the king with invocations from the Puraas. The water containing the powerful substance of the goddess and other deities is thereby transferred into his being. In the rituals of the Maithila Navarātra, the goddess took central place as the prototypical monarch presiding over the king, given gifts and paid tribute, just as he would be. At the same time, a relationship between the deity and king was established throughout the ceremonies. Opening with the preparation of the consecratory waters of the ruler, the Maithila Navarātra frames the worship of the goddess within kingship rituals sanctifying the human king and his army, thereby visually setting up a ritually encoded analogy between devī and ruler. Each ritual accessing the goddess’s energy is simultaneously paralleled with an accompanying ritual vivifying the energy of the military forces of the kingdom and the ruler.146 (p.258) It should be noted that the Nepalese tradition of the Navarātra, though deriving in the main from the Maithila tradition as embodied in the Kārṇāṭa royal ceremony of the Kṛtyaratnākara and Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, is much more Tantric in character, involving mantra elements from the Kubjikā cult. Given the unique nature of this tradition, it will be excluded from the present discussion.

The Southern and Western Court Traditions: The Navarātras of Devagiri, the Nāyaka Domains, Vijayanagara and Madras The Deccan seems to have followed in the wake of the eastern form of the Navarātra outlined in the Devi and the Kālikā until at least the early half of the 14th century. For instance, our earliest source, from the kingdom of Devagiri (present-day Daulatabad in Mahārāṣṭra), the Caturvargacintāmaṇi (the Wishing-Jewel of the Four Aims of Man), by the court scholar Hemādri (1260–1309) attributes the greater part of the ceremony to the Bengali Devī, particularly its celebration of the core martial lunar days of Aṣṭamī and Mahānavamī. But independent elements that would later characterize the southern rite and distinguish it from the eastern Navarātra are also in clear evidence in this work: for instance, the Devagiri rite eschews the rites of adornment between the First and the Fifth, worship of the Navadurgās (Rudracaṇḍā etc.) and the goddess’s visarjana in water and Śābarotsava on Daśamī. In fact Daśamī is (p.259) not mentioned at all in the context of the goddess’s worship in the Caturvargacintāmaṇi: unlike the older eastern tradition where the goddess’s concluding rites continued on the day, here it was celebrated as a festival dedicated mainly to the king and the Page 27 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights town, and this was a feature that would be perpetuated in the later southern tradition.147 Also in distinction from the eastern rite, the Caturvargacintāmaṇi includes the worship, attributed to the Skandapurāṇa, of nine forms of the goddess summoned in the person of young girls aged between two and ten spread over each of the nine lunar days for the accomplishment of the king’s tasks: the goddess Kumārikā summoned in a little girl aged two; Trimūrtinī in a threeyear-old girl; Kalyāṇī in a four-year-old girl; Rohiṇī in a five-year-old girl; Kālikā in a six-year-old girl; Caṇḍikā in a seven-year-old; Śāmbhavī in an eight-year-old; Durgā in a nine-year-old; Subhadrā in a ten-year-old virgin.148 This practice would also appear in other southern treatises, which teach the worship of each deity inside a little girl on every lunar day. The gradual independence of the southern tradition and its advocacy by the 15th century of a Navarātra that was qualitatively different from the eastern tradition, in that it celebrated Daśamī differently and eschewed rites that were Tantric in their tone, are attested by the eyewitness accounts of the Navarātras of the Vijayanagara kingdom,149 of Mysore under the Wodeyars,150 of Ramnad and of Śivagaṅgai in Tamil Nadu.151 Unlike the rite of Devagiri, the ceremonies of these kingdoms bear little resemblance to the earlier eastern (p.260) traditions. In addition to the distinctions first glimpsed in the Caturvargacintāmaṇi, these ceremonies did not incorporate the goddess’s awakening in the bilva tree, the rites invoking the goddess in the bilva branch and the nine leaves, the occultic Ardharātrapūjā drawn from the Devi and the Agni, the worship of the Mothers, the yoginīs, the Navadurgās and Aparājitāpūjā. The authority of the Devi, the Agni and other eastern scriptures did not hold as much weight in the south, where other scriptures traditionally commanded greater respect. The Śākta element is also, in complete contrast to the eastern ceremony, significantly diminished here—wild and autonomous goddesses celebrated in the east for magical powers do not make their presence felt in the rituals of the south—or were manifested more covertly. Among themselves the ceremonies of the four southern kingdoms share a great many similarities, from which it can be inferred that they collectively formed a common religious heritage going back, possibly, to the 12th century, and hence can be treated in totality. All, for instance, incorporate rituals such as the consecration of the king (abhiṣeka) on the First or Tenth lunar days; the king’s wearing of a thread as an oath of commitment; the sanctification of the throne; the presentation of the sword; the holding of court assemblies (durbars); the payment of tributes to the ruler; parades of troops and war animals followed by entertainments in an arena; worship of weapons; the worship of the śamī tree with arrow-shooting according to the Gopathabrāhmaṇa tradition on the Tenth lunar day. Foremost among these similarities was the central position of the king and the visible forms of his power: in large court assemblies as the recipient of honours from his subjects and emissaries, ritually crowned on the sanctified lionthrone, holding the State Sword,152 the southern king affirmed his position as the locus of a divine cult of the ruler. The eastern Navarātra, in contrast, tended to focus its ceremonies on the goddess as monarch, who received all the homage and tributes usually reserved for the real king, as observed. Rather than being a worship of the monarch per se, it was an enactment of the cult of the sovereign at an archetypical level. But the king was treated as god-like in the southern Navarātra, and was, as the goddess in the eastern rite, continually on display. The emphasis on the king was by far the most significant innovation to have occurred when the Navarātra penetrated southwards into regions where Śākta sectarianism was less pervasive than in the east.

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights If the later southern Navarātra celebrated a cult of the ruler, what became of the goddess to whom the nine lunar days were dedicated? The reports on the ceremonies of these kingdoms, with the exception of the two on Ramnad.and Śivagaṅgai, do not fully explain how the symbolism of the goddess was incorporated in the framework of a festival ostensibly devoted to the human (p.261) king, how, that is to say, her form was seen to empower and merge with the ruler. This is because the reporters of these accounts saw, as the rest of the subjects and the king’s courtiers did, the public dimension of the rite embodied in the displays of dancing and singing, the splendid processions and the colourful parades of elephants, horses and troops that were viewed by everyone as entertainments or as demonstrations of the might of the kingdom.153 But in these spectacles the king alone, and not the deity, took centre stage, like a god at the centre of his or her universe. The greater part of the goddess’s symbolism unfolded privately in a palace shrine154 or inside a pavilion (maṇḍapa) built specially for the occasion, guarded from the view of the outside world and attended only by the king and his family members. It was inside this private shrine and maṇḍapa that the ceremonials investing sacred power from goddess to king were evoked, that in fact the most crucial rituals energizing the state, such as the abhiṣeka, occurred, to which only priests, king, family and perhaps a few key courtiers were privy.155 These more private rituals occurred in tandem with the public ceremonies open to other members of the durbar and the kingdom: every occasion when the king was presented to his or her subjects as a singular (semi-)divine presence was followed by trips to the goddess where his or her156 divine substance was reconstituted. In this way the worship of king and goddess was integrated. In Mysore the ruler would worship Cāmuṇḍeśvarī in the palace shrine immediately after the first durbar session where the whole court was assembled, and was required to do so regularly through the course of the nine lunar days.157 In the 1893 Navarātra of Ramnad, the Setupati king visited his presiding deity Rājarājeśvarī’s shrine on three occasions, before and during the durbar on the First lunar day, worship that was also seamlessly (p.262) interlinked with the other public ceremonies for the remaining days.158 Similarly at Vijayanagara, in between the parades, the wrestling matches, the procession of the State Elephant and the State Horse in the arena and the durbars at court, the king would also visit the shrine and worship the deity,159 in all probability Bhuvaneśvarī, the goddess established by their founder Vidyāraṇya at the establishment of the city in 1334.160 It is important to understand the south Indian courtly Navarātra not just in terms of display, as it has been thus far analysed,161 but also as a choreography of two different but complementary ritual sequences: one which was a public sequence unfolding in the parade arena, court room and the city streets that focused on show, on opulence, on, that is to say, secular forms of power; the other a private sequence in which the relationship between king and goddess unfolded more discreetly in enclosed chambers of the palace, where divine kingship was renewed by association with the deity, and with comparatively less pomp. In order to access these inner rituals, one must look once again at the religious treatises available describing the details of the rites. Two such later treatises are available which corroborate the rites of the four kingdoms observed by the eyewitness reports and, in addition, fill in their gaps by providing greater details on the sequence and inner workings of each ritual. These treatises are the scripture Śāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā (approximately 17th–19th century) and the dharmaśāstric work Puruṣārthacintāmaṇi (composed during or after the 17th century by Viṣṇubhaṭṭa Aṭhavaḷe162). Of these the former will be dealt with in greater detail as it conforms

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights more closely to the earlier Vijayanagara ritual, and parallels in the second are indicated in footnotes. The Śāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā was a manual of south Indian kingship employed by the Maratha kings of Thanjavur, and, at least until the 1950s, personal copies of several kings, with their signatures inside, were held by the (p.263) Saraswati Mahal Library in Thanjavur.163 This work describes the Navarātra in the following way. It teaches first the building of an audience hall (āsthānamaṇḍapa) in front of the king’s apartments. This hall is likened by the scripture to Sumeru, the centre of the world, and for the duration of the ceremony it would serve as the main locus for the king, the node inside the centre. It was to be elevated (mahonnataṃ), with a staircase fashioned from coral (pravālamayasopānaṃ), an altar of cat’s-eye gem (vaidūryamayavedikaṃ), pillars encrusted with pearls (mauktikastambha-), with a domed roof enclosing a jewelled room (māṇikyavalabhīpuṭa). It was to be appointed with ensigns, banners, canopies and arched entrances, and the ground before it was to be cleared for entertainments and sumptuously appointed with lanterns and rows of chariots.164 On the northern side of his palace the king was to have a flower pavilion (puṣpamaṇḍapaṃ) built for worshipping goddesses such as Durgā and Ramā (Lakṣmī) (durgāramādipūjārthaṃ), perfumed with incense etc., where he was to sit on his throne. Both structures were integral to the layout of the Vijayanagara rite, forming a permanent part of the palace, and their ruins still remain at Hampi.165 It was from these two buildings that the Rāya kings would overlook the arena where spectacles occurred. Having thus taught the necessary architectural preparations, the Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā says that a king was to begin worship from the First lunar day of the bright phase of Āśvina. Having risen at an auspicious hour, having purified himself with the preliminary purificatory rituals (kṛtaśaucakriyaḥ śuciḥ), having summoned the priests, he was to undergo the consecration ritual by being bathed with holy waters from sacred sites, poured from golden pots.166 Then adorned in white (śuklāmbaradharaḥ), bedecked in white garlands and unguents, he was to complete all his obligatory rituals, worship the priest, the aged, the twice-born and married women with his chief queen (mahiṣyā sahitaḥ), and meditate on his chosen deity (sveṣṭadevaṃ). Next the priest was to place a gold amulet (pratisaraṃ) on a chalice of gold and worship it with flowers. Then he was to ceremonially enthrone the king on his lion-throne, and tie on his right arm the amulet, chanting invocations.167 This amulet was meant to be worn by the king as long as the rites lasted as a sign of his commitment, and he was to take a vow of abstinence and fasting for the (p.264) duration.168 The ceremonial tying of the amulet, or in other cases a thread, was common in the south. In 1893, for instance, the king Bhaskara Setupati of Ramnad had his wrist tied with a thread called in Tamil kāppu (synonymous with the Sanskrit pratisara) and took an accompanying oath of abstinence and restricted eating on the First lunar day of Navarātra in just such an opening ceremony. The ceremony also included the presentation to the king of his sword and sceptre which had been placed at the base of the image of the Setupati tutelary goddess Rājarājeśvarī, enacting thereby her granting permission to the king to rule and be the bearer of the state weapons.169 In Mysore, the Wodeyar kings would also have to wear a thread made of silk and make a vow before the commencement of Navarātra, and here the ceremony was known as the kaṅkaṇadhāraṇa (‘bearing the band’).170 In the Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, the priest was next to perform the most crucial ritual investing the king with divine substance, thereby transforming him into a sacred being worthy of the worship that was to be lavished on his person in the next nine days. This was the summoning

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights (āvāhana) of the goddess into the king and his being made cognate with her. With a number of powerful invocations, the priest was to exhort the goddess ‘Imperial Fortune’ (Sāmrājyalakṣmi) to enter the body of the king.171 Her summoning was to enable the king ‘to rule the earth up to the girdle of the ocean’, ‘to protect the cultured’ and ‘to instantly slay the wicked’. The magical potency of the invocation was to have a tangible effect. When the goddess had completely entered the king’s person, there was to be an immediate and visible transformation of his appearance, which was to become lustrous like the goddess. ‘As a result of summoning Lakṣmī,’ explains the text, ‘the king blazes with tejas, might and valour like a jewel polished on a whetstone, as a tree that has borne little fruit becomes fruitful when its craving [is satisfied by the touch of beautiful woman].’ In several successive similes, the goddess is viewed as the flame or the light of a kingdom’s power. Union with her alone enables the king to shine with this light.172 He is thereby made into a god-like being. (p.265) Having been caused to prosper with benedictions (āśis) chanted by the priest173 and radiant with the goddess in his body, the king was to be instructed on his duties (rājadharma) by the priest.174 More esoteric knowledge was then to be imparted to the king on the nature of reality (tattvopadeśa).175 This was to be followed by the chanting of hymns by brāhmaṇas, the offering of empowered barley to the king and the making of benedictions to cause him to flourish.176 Then the king, carrying his sword, shield and armour and bedecked in all his jewels, was to be led by two brāhmaṇas chanting auspicious hymns, while he meditated on his chosen deity (sveṣṭadeva), to the flower pavilion built before the commencement of the ceremony. Here he was to sit on a beautiful seat, restrain his breaths, and summon the deities Durgā, Lakṣmī and Vāgdevī (Sarasvatī) in lidded pots of gold, silver, copper or earth, narrow-waisted, filled with turmeric and rice. Having first worshipped the three goddesses in the water of the pot, he was to worship Revanta, the king of horses, with incense, flowers, circumambulations, prostrations and hymns.177 In the 1893 Navarātra of Ramnad, the Setupati king worshipped water in nine clay pots on the First lunar day in a pavilion (maṇḍapa) built specially for the ceremony, followed by the worship of nine metallic pots. Throughout the ritual, the king had to remain seated between the green stone representing Rājarājeśvarī, the Setupati lineage-goddess, and her icon, an eight-armed Mahiṣāsuramardinī, thereby symbolically evoking his unity with her.178 In the Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, the worship of the goddess in pots was to be followed by the worship of thirty-two weapons with naivedya, food and hymns, and then the worship of royal insignia: the lion-throne, the white parasol, a pair of chowries, a key, a pot, a palm-leaf fan, a blanket with gems, palanquins, swings, crest, flags, kettledrum, saddle, the bridle-bit and whips.179 Weapons were consecrated in this way during the Vijayanagara rite.180 Next the king would have to worship his horses and elephants with offerings, and to tie around their necks protective amulets.181 Such acts of homage to the state animals were customary in the Vijayanagara rite, during which state (p.266) horses were the particular objects of reverence, circumambulated by an array of the king’s women gorgeously dressed in their finery.182 The state horse and elephants were also paid obeisance during the opening durbar of the Navarātra in Mysore.183 The Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā then teaches that, having bowed down and circumambulated the animals, the king was to witness the dance of the court courtesans. The work envisages a grand court assembly at this point at the flower pavilion, with bards, vassals, poets, singers, dancers and musicians paying homage to the ruler.184 The court assembly and the entertainments of the First lunar day formed the spectacular and much-vaunted highlight of the Vijayanagara ceremonies,185 of the festival in Mysore (during which, in the 1920s, three

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights terrific rounds of gunshots used to be fired to add to the grandeur of the proceedings)186 and also in the 1893 Ramnad Navarātra.187 In the latter ceremony, in addition to the assembling together of a large entourage, richly dressed and obsequious as the occasion demanded, tribute was paid to the king by priests of temples controlled by the king, representatives of the important monasteries, brāhmaṇa scholars, singers and British officials.188 In the Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, the king was then to ascend the state elephant and travel in great pomp to the assembly hall. Alighting, helped by the hand of a trusted person, he was to ascend a ceremonial platform inside the hall, accompanied by his close coterie, facing east in a restrained manner, and contemplate his chosen deity.189 Two women were to fan him with yak-tail whisks, and shining in their midst he was to resemble ‘Sumeru, the king of mountains, surrounded by many flowing waterfalls’.190 Held above him was to be a white parasol, emblem of sovereignty, with clusters of radiant pearls, that was to resemble ‘the moon together with the stars who had arrived there to serve him’.191 From his seat at the symbolic centre of the world, he was then to observe entertaining performances (vinodadarśana) by poets, singers, jesters, dancers, astrologers, courtesans and bards, with much fanfare from the priest and ministers, contemplating all the while his chosen deity in his heart.192 This (p.267) court assembly would have even included a public display of the goddess’s image in affinity with the king: spectators would have seen her either sharing his throne with him, or placed near him, as they did in the 1893 durbar on the evening of pratipat in Ramnad193 and also, it would seem, in Vijayanagara.194 The Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā’s description of spectacles performed for the king on the great assembly on the First lunar day is indeed a magnificent one, including magical wonders in its vision of court splendour. Included are a chariot concourse, an elephant concourse, an array of horses, all the foot-soldiers, elephants gifted by governors, the dancing of the principal courtesans, wondrous spells (vidyās), drama of different genres, puppet shows depicting ancient legends,195 performing poets, a ship,196 marvellous magic shows, rites stopping rain and fire, wrestling matches, ram fights, contests between wild buffaloes, aerial deer artificially made from wood, cloth, hide and other substances, an image of Hanumat depicting his swift oceancrossing,197 a pair of ghosts, lanterns in the shape of chariots, a wooden model of a chariot and finally trees of arrows. The end of the spectacles was to be heralded by the sound of shooting arrows. All these delights would unfold in the arena prepared before the assembly hall where the king was seated.198 Such carnivalesque performances staged in arenas, observed by the king and his court in the āsthānamaṇḍapa, were customary in the Mysore199 and Vijayanagara rites.200 It was to be a daily affair held in the evenings and was to be followed by the distribution of gifts by the king. At the end of the court assembly, the king would depart the hall and return to the palace on his elephant. At his entrance to the inner compartments, the women of his harem were to lustrate him with lights.201 In addition to the court assemblies, the following lunar days would have included, as they did in the case of the Mysore ceremony, the worship of the goddess in her shrine, her worship as Mahiṣāsuramardinī on the Eighth lunar day (Mahāṣṭamī), further worship of the state arms and (p.268) animals, and an oblation made to Caṇḍī in fire (caṇḍīhoma) on the Ninth lunar day, accompanied by the removal of the thread or the amulet signifying the king’s oath.202 On Vijayadaśamī the king would have to worship a śamī tree with the arrow-shooting ceremony. The tree, also known as a vanni tree,203 was to be planted in a hall or shed specially built for the ceremony inside the palace grounds. In the 1863 Vijayadaśamī rites of Śivagaṅgai, an enclosed shed was built inside the open grounds of the palace, and the tree was visible through a gate.204

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights Having awoken on the morning of the Tenth lunar day of Āśvina, a day auspicious for undertaking new endeavours, and having performed his preliminary purificatory rituals, having honoured the priest, worshipped several deities, including Jayadurgā and his lineage-deity, and remunerated the priests, the Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā teaches that a king was to ask the royal priest to bestow on him the royal sword, shield and arrows. The priest, having empowered the weapons with invocations, would have to hand them to the king.205 Such was the importance of the ruler’s role that, in the 1863 Śivagaṅgai rite, the queen Kathama Nachiar, unable to emerge in public from the purdah, asked her son, the crown prince, to officiate in proxy, and ceremonially gave him the five arrows she would otherwise have had to carry in public, to present to the priest.206 In the Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, the king was then to ask the priest to install the weapons at the foot of the śamī tree and was then to ask him to worship the weapons. Having done so, the priest was to return to the king. Having sung eight hymns to various gods asking for their might and auspiciousness in the campaign to come, the king was to recollect the guardian of the direction in which he was headed, and surrounded by his army and princes was to go with all ceremony to the śamī tree. Evoking the march of the victorious sovereign, such was the symbolic significance of this, doubtlessly short, journey, that the Śivagaṅgai prince’s procession to the grounds where the tree stood was made on the palace elephant, followed by the priest on another elephant, trailed by a cavalcade of family members, dancers and crowds of people.207 Having worshipped Lakśmi, Nārāyaṇa and the weapons installed under the tree, the Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā says that a king was to proceed to the eastern direction, contemplate the guardian deity of that direction in his heart, and shoot the arrows, thereby killing his enemies in that direction. In the same way arrows were to be shot in all the other directions, (p.269) and his dominion over enemies everywhere was thus ensured. Animal sacrifice was also occasionally performed at each point where the arrows landed.208 He was then to proceed with all his troops to the city and return to the assembly hall. At night another grand assembly would take place with various entertainments.209 The rite of worshipping the śamī followed by an opulent evening court assembly was performed not just in Śivagaṅgai210 but also in Ramnad211 and Mysore.212 Despite being an integral part of the later southern Navarātra, śamīpūjā on Daśamī drew not from the ancient Śākta conventions concerning the goddess (that describe her dispatch in water), but from a military ritual attributed to the Gopathabrāhmaṇa that was essentially unrelated to the goddess’s autumnal festival. We know this from Viṣṇubhaṭṭa’s Puruṣārthacintāmaṇi, which, while introducing the Daśamī tradition, clarifies to this effect: ‘the [ceremony] taught for a king on the bright Tenth lunar day of Āśvina is in the Gopathabrāhmaṇa’. The work then goes on to cite the passage from that Vaidika scripture.213 It may be inferred that this tradition drawing from Brahmanical works must have been united at some period with the autumnal festival of the goddess, and outside the east, for śamīpūjā was not performed at all in Gauḍa and Mithilā, where custom dictated a less Vaidika, more Śākta, goddess-oriented military ceremony. In the southern Navarātra, the goddess’s role ceased on Mahānavamī. Parallel to the rituals centred on the king, the worship of various manifestations of the goddess would have taken place continuously throughout the Nine Nights. These manifestations were believed to enter the person of pre-pubescent girls (kumārīs) whose bodies formed the vessels for the deities. The worship is called kumārīpūjā. Through its magical power, the girls underwent a radical transformation into the divine nature of the deity. The Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā describes the worship of nine virgins transformed as the goddess on each day of the Navarātra, which agrees in all points of detail (p.270) with the Skandapurāṇa kumārīpūjā described by Hemādri and the Puruṣārthacintāmaṇi.214 On a maṇḍala strewn with rice and grains, the king, having Page 33 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights bathed and anointed himself, was to summon the nine goddesses in the girl with invocations.215 The same goddesses were also to be worshipped inside nine virgins in periods of state crisis. The work also gives some details which formed the criteria for selecting the girls in whom the deities were to be summoned. Each girl could come from any of the four castes, and certain defects of appearance are stipulated that would proscribe a girl’s eligibility.216 Methods are also described as to how they were to be dressed for worship. In addition, the work describes the merits of worshipping each goddess. Kumārī grants wealth and heirs; Trimūrti/Trimūrtinī destroys enemies and pacifies evil effects; Kalyāṇī grants good fortune; Rohiṇī fame, wealth, knowledge and a kingdom; Kālikā grants victory in battle and kingship; Caṇḍikā mastery over a hottempered rival, the removal of poverty and pain and the satisfaction of the ancestors; Śāmbhavī grants mastery over a rival’s fort and destroys sins; Durgā destroys dangers; Bhadrā grants slaves and slave-girls: for all these reasons the goddesses were considered sacred for a king’s power.217

Conclusion Originating as a popular placatory ritual associated with tribal communities, particularly those non-Aryan groups resident in the Vindhyas and genericized as the Śabaras, the ceremony of the goddess was absorbed into the Vaiṣṇava tradition in approximately the 2nd century. During this time it was performed as a ritual cleansing the polis on the dark Navamī closing the festivities marking Kṛṣṇa’s birth in the rainy month of Śrāvaṇa. From this relatively small-scale festival in the Gupta empire it developed into a rite of civic sanctification performed by upcoming kingdoms around the 6th century, from which time Purāṇic accounts of the Śākta Navarātra begin to emerge. This was the time when, in the process of kingdoms forming, local goddesses thought to hold territorial power over them were merged into Durgā and attained their classical identity. Original military rituals from an earlier period of classicism performed during autumn were replaced by the goddess’s rite. The ritual thereby grew from an archaic apotropaic ritual core centred on Navamī in the monsoon, to Mahāṣṭamī and Mahānavamī in the autumn. From this it grew further into an expansive ceremony of Nine Nights in the east, for the earliest (p. 271) testimony of the nine night programme emerges from that region, from around the 8th or the 9th century. The most elaborate description of a court-sponsored rite emerges from the Kārṇāṭa and Oinwar courts of Mithilā, which embody what appears to be a ritual that had matured a good few centuries earlier before it was recorded in official literature. Among these the account of the Oinwars by the Maithila paṇḍita Vidyāpati is the most extensive treatment of Caṇḍī’s autumnal worship by a king, and attained great renown among the learned at the time as an authoritative source. His description portrays a spectacular court ceremony, involving pomp and pageantry, in which horses and weapons were worshipped, the king was anointed, and the goddess propitiated as the central symbol of royal power in various substrates over the course of the Nine Nights. Vidyāpati’s work also reveals the marked impact of Tantricism on the character of the rite, which employed Śākta mantras and propitiated autonomous, ferocious forms of the goddess associated with the occult, particularly on the penultimate days. Maturing in eastern India, the goddess’s Navarātra ceremony was proselytized by the smārtas further to the west and percolated into the Deccan, where, from around the 12th century, it attained an independent southern character. Whereas the eastern rite focused on the goddess as the central object of devotion, the southern rite focused on the symbolism of the king, attaining its most distinctive and lavish manifestation in the kingdom of Vijayanagara. Throughout this development, the Navarātra remained intimately associated with the theme of dispelling calamities, thereby augmenting secular power in the world, sustaining the power of the ruler and granting political might and health to a community. It remained from its ancient core a ritual

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights of dealing with and averting crises performed collectively by a polis. Such remains its character even today. Notes: (1) Iyer (2005: vol. 2, 57, 59, 60). (2) Price (1984: 102). (3) Stein (1983: 78). (4) ‘The Mahānavamī is first reported in the greatest south Indian kingdom of medieval times, the Vijayanagara kingdom’, ibid., p. 77. (5) ‘In all cases the focus of the ceremonies is upon the reigning king and the revitalization of his kingship and his realm’, ibid., p. 78. (6) For a chronological assessment of smārta literature on the Navarātra and an account of the Bengali rite known as the Durgā Pūjā between the 12th and 15th centuries, see Sarkar (2012). Besides Raghunandana, whom the article directly concerns, other early and important Gauḍiya Dharmaśastric writers on the goddess’s pūjā, such as Jimūtavāhana and Śūlapāṇi, are assessed in that article. (7) Sanderson (2007: 255–76). (8) Reasons for this are discussed in greater depth in Sarkar (2012: 326–7). (9) Sanderson (2003–4: 353, 355–7). (10) Valuable work has already been accomplished in systematizing this mass of Purāṇic sources: descriptive studies by Kane (1994: vol. 5, part 1, 155–95) and Hazra (1963: vol. 2, 2–15), along with Einoo’s tabulation and genericization of Purāṇic passages on the Navarātra, are foremost in the field. These studies succeed in illuminating the great diversity in ritual programmes, showing that there was no monolithic template that the ceremony followed. However, given the difficulty in securely dating Purāṇic texts that changed and grew over the 1st to 6th centuries, these studies have, with some reason, tended to avoid chronology. Furthermore, with the exception of Hazra, they tend to see the rituals not as forming different regional traditions, but as isolated textual descriptions. (11) Harivaṃśa, 57.35–6; Mahabharata, 4.5.29 ff., 6.22.6 ff.; old Skandapurāṇa, 60.46; Kādambarī, pp. 30n.–1; Harṣacarita, p. 126; Caṇḍiśataka, 16; Gaüḍavaho, 318, 319; Purāṇic citations in later Gauḍanibandhas. (12) śirobhir mahiṣodbhrāntaraktaparyantalocanaiḥ | nṛbhiḥ kṣititalanyastakarajanubhir ijyase || (13) Smith (1980: 118). (14) Harṣacarita, Ucchvāsa 8, p. 126, 1. 4: mahānavamīmahaṃ. (15) See epigraph to this chapter.

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights (16) Harivaṃśa, 57.35–6; 48.13. Kauśikī is said to have been born from Yaśodā at the same time as Kṛṣṇa was born from Devakī. She then exchanged places with Kṛṣṇa so that she would be dashed against a stone by Kaṃsa in lieu of Kṛṣṇa. (17) Durgāpūjātattva, pp. 47–8. The Purohitadarpaṇa, the ritual manual currently most in use in Bengal, still teaches this option (Purohitadarpaṇa, p. 227). (18) See Chapter 1, p. 48. (19) See the Introduction, p. 15. (20) See the Introduction. (21) For example, see the Kuvalayamālā and the Tilakamañjarī discussed in Chapter 5, pp. 144–5. (22) See Chapter 6, p. 191 and n. 35. (23) Baldissera (1996: 86). (24) Kālikāpurāṇa, 61.14 describes the worship of the goddess ‘with [offerings] of Great Flesh’ on Aṣṭamī: aṣṭamyāṃ rudhiraiś caiva mahāmāṃsaiḥ sugandhibhiḥ | pūjayed bahujātīyair balibhir bhojanaiḥ śivām || Kālikāpurāṇa, 61.14. See also Gaüḍavaho, 318 and 319, the worship of Danteśvarī in Bastar (see Chapter 5, pp. 157–60) and of Caṇḍamārī with human sacrifice in the Yaśastilakacampū, pp. 26–9. (25) Offering blood from one’s body on the Navarātra is taught, for instance, in Raghunandana’s Durgāpūjātattva as follows: svadeharudhiradāne tu eṣa svagātrarudhirabaliḥ oṃ mahāmāye jaganmātaḥ sarvakāmapradāyini | dadāmi deharudhiraṃ prasida varadā bhava | ity uktvā oṃ jayantītyādinā dadyāt (Durgāpūjātattva, p. 57).

(26) visarjayed daśamyāṃ tu śravaṇe śābarotsavaiḥ | antyapādo divābhāge śravaṇasya yadā bhavet | tadā sampreṣaṣṇaṃ devyā daśamyāṃ kārayed budhaḥ | suvāsinīkumārībhir veśyābhir narttakais tathā | śaṅkhatūryaninādaiś ca mṛdaṅgaiḥ paṭṭahais tathā | dhvajavastrair bahuvidhair lājapuṣpaprakīrṇakaiḥ | dhūlikardamavikṣepaiḥ krīḍākautukamaṅgalaiḥ | bhagaliṅgābhidhānaiś ca bhagaliṅgapragītakaiḥ || bhagaliṅgādiśabdaiś ca krḍeyur alaṃ janāḥ | parair nākṣipyate yas tu yaḥ parān nākṣiped yadi || kruddhā bhagavati tasya śāapaṃ dadyāt sudāruṇ am | Kālikāpurāṇa, 61.17cd–22. The Śābarotsava passage in the Kālikāpurāṇa is commented on by the Gauḍīya smārtas in the following way: Jīmūtavāhana writes: śabaravarṇa iva parṇādyāvṛtaḥ kardamaliptaśariro nānāvidhāsambaddhavalgitanṛtyagītādiparo bhūtveti śābarotsavapadārthaḥ | kṛidākautakaman.galair ity asyāpy ayam evārthaḥ (Kālaviveka cited in Durgāpūjāviveka, p. 33). Śūlapāṇi writes: atra bhagaliṅgābhidhanānṛtyagītādikaṃ kartavyam | (Durgotsavaviveka, p. 24). Raghunandana writes: tato dhūlakardamavikṣepakrīḍākautukamaṅgalabhagaliṅgābhidhānabhagaliṅgapragītaparākṣiptaparakśepakarup śābarotsavaṃ kuryāt | (Durgāpūjātattva cited and translated in Sarkar 2012: 386–7). (27) The Devīpurāṇa uses the term rājyārthaṃ to explain why Vasu, Brahmā and Viṣṇu performed the Navarātra: rājyārthaṃ vasunā kṛtvā brahmaṇā hariṇā a tathā | rudreṇa tripuraṃ dagdhaṃ viṣṇunā śarabho hataḥ | Devīpurāṇa, 50.81 (p. 290). The use of the term rāṣṭravṛddhaye in the context of the Navarātra is to be found in a quoted passage from the

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights Jyotiḥśāstra in Jīmūtavāhana’s Kālaviveka: ṛkṣatraye tu mūlādau navamyām āśvine site | caṇḍikām upahārais tu pūjayed rāṣṭravṛddhaye | Kālaviveka in Durgāpūjāviveka, p. 35. (28) mahābhayavināśāya mahāripuvadhāya ca | mahābhyudayakāmāya mahāsiddhiphalāya ca | pūjayed yājayed deviṃ ṣaṣṭidhā parameśvarīṃ | ṛtunāgakṛtā pīḍā yakṣarakṣograhodbhavā | saṃvatsaramahādoṣajanmarkṣa-m-upamardakāḥ | ketūtthā śaśirāhūtthā bhaumārkisitabhānujāḥ | śamayed yajamānasya devīhomaratasya ca | Devīpurāṇa, 50.4–9 (p. 282). avṛṣṭau kṛtavān āsīt kratur daśarathena ca | anyaiś ca muniśārdūla prajāyurājyakāṅkṣibhiḥ | kṛtavān suragandharvair yakṣarakṣomahānṛpaiḥ | ibid., 50.83 (p. 290). na tatra deśe durbhikṣaṃ na ca duḥkhaṃ pravartate | nākāle mriyate kaścit pūjyate yatra caṇḍdikā | anena vidhinā yas tu devīṃ prīṇayate naraḥ | skandavat pālayet tam. tu devī sarvāpadi sthitaṃ | putradāradhanarddhīnāṃ saṃkhyā tasya na vidyate | bhuktveha paramān bhogān pretya devīgaṇo bhavet | Bhaviṣyapurāṇa cited in Durgotsavaviveka, pp. 1–2. (29) evaṃ yaḥ pūjayed arcāṃ durgāyāḥ śraddhayānvitaḥ | […] punar etya mahābhāgo rājarājādhipo bhavet | dātā surūpaḥ subhagaḥ putravān dhanavān bhavet | Bhaviṣyapurāṇa cited in Kṛtyaratnākara, p. 349. (30) Texts given in Sanderson (2005: 258 nn. 70–1). I am grateful to him for having pointed out the importance of this evidence (pers. comm.). (31) For example, during the Navarātra ceremony of Berar, only a member of the Mahār tribe could officiate at the killing of the buffalo (Russell & Lal 1916: vol. 4, 131–2). (32) kartavyaṃ brāhmaṇādyais tu kṣatriyair bhūmipālakaiḥ | godhanārthaṃ viśair vatsa śūdraiḥ putrasukhārthibhiḥ | Devīpurāṇa, 22.5. See also Bhaviśyapurāṇa cited in Kane (1994: 157 n. 401). (33) mlecchādīnāṃtu brāhmaṇadvārāpi japādau nādhikāraḥ kintu surādyupahārasahitatattadupahārāṇāṃ paśvadibaleś ca devīm uddiśya manasotsargamātraṃ taiḥ kartavyaṃ | Puruṣārthacintāmaṇi, p. 81 (discussion on the Navarātra). See also Kane (1994: 157). (34) Scholarly opinions conjecturing dates for the compilation of this huge work are summarized as follows: Hazra (1963: vol. 1, 205–12) suggests it was composed between 400 and 500 CE; Buhler conjectures that its composition was no later than 500; Winternitz dates it between 628 and 1000 (ibid., 212 n. 250); Pingree (1990: 276) dates it to the 6th or 7th century on the basis of astronomical material datable from the period; Sanderson conjectures that the iconographical sections of the work took shape around the second half of the 9th century (pers. comm. to Pratapaditya Pal, 27 April 2010, kindly made available to me for this research). (35) Hazra (1963: vol. 1, 216). Buhler and Winternitz are of the same opinion (ibid., and n. 263). See also Sanderson (2005: 275–6). (36) Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa, 2.158.6cd–7. (37) For how a cloth (paṭa) is to be prepared for ritual worship see Sanderson (2005: 251 n. 50). (38) Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa, 2.158.1–8; Einoo (1999: 43); Sanderson (2005: 256).

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights (39) evaṃ kṛte bhraṣṭarājyo labhed rājyaṃ na saṃśayaḥ | Vārāhapurāṇa cited in Kṛtyaratnākara, pp. 364–5. (40) Bhaviṣyapurāṇa cited in Kṛtyaratnākara, p. 356. (41) Kālikāpurāṇa, 60.1cd. (42) Kṛtyakalpataru, vol. 11 (Rājadharmakāṇḍa), pp. 191–5. (43) Agnipurāṇa Adhyāyas 259–72 were based on the Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa. The dependency is identified in Hazra (1963: vol. 1, 209). In addition to the section on Mahānavamī, other influxes into the Agnipurāṇa from the Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa are also discussed ibid. This dependency was also noted by Sanderson (2003–4: 382 n. 115; 2005: 256 n. 65). (44) Agnipurāṇa, 267.13cd–16ab. (45) Ibid., 267.15cd–16ab. (46) I use this term in the widest possible sense. (47) Sanderson (2009: 225–42). (48) Hazra (1963: vol. 2, 73 and n. 167); Sanderson (2009: 250 and n. 585). (49) tattatpurāṇopapurāṇasaṃkhyābahiṣkṛtaṃ kaśmalakarmayogāt | pāṣaṇḍaśāstrānumataṃ nirūpya devīpurāṇaṃ na nibaddham atra | Dānasāgara, v. 67 cited in Hazra (1963: vol. 2, 73 n. 161). See also Sanderson (2009: 250 and n. 585). (50) Hazra (1963: vol. 2, 73) is of the opinion that it was composed no later than 850. The upper limit for its composition is conjectured as 500 (ibid., pp. 76, 77). (51) Ibid., pp. 79–90. (52) The shrine to Vindhyavāsinī at Tāmralipta is described in Daṇḍin’s Daśakumāracarita, Ucchvāsa 6. Dan. din was active around 680–720 (date clarified by Alexis Sanderson, pers. comm., August 2011). (53) According to the table in Einoo (1999: 36), another early witness for the programme beginning on the bright First is Skandapurāṇa, 21.2.47.77–82. But Einoo was following a reprint of the Shree Venkateshvara Steam Press edition of 1910 and this edition is not, as pointed out by Bakker et. al., representative of the original text. The old Skandapurāṇa does not make any reference to the nine-night programme: the parts of the original so far published by Bakker et al. do not seem to be familiar with the nine-night programme in autumn, and the edition by Bhattarai likewise makes no reference to it. The programme seems to have been associated principally with the Śaktism of eastern India. It was seldom publicized by a wider tradition before the Gauḍīya jurist Jīmūtavāhana (c.1090–1130) first advertised it in his Kālaviveka (Durgāpūjāviveka, pp. 30–9)—from which one may infer that it was already in practice in Bengal —and thereafter the later Maithilas and Gauḍīyas promoted it in a much more aggressive way. Thereafter, other dharmaśāstrins, further to the west, popularized this ritual structure, on the basis of testimony originating in the east.

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights (54) kanyāsaṃsthe ravau śakra śuklām ārabhya nandikām | ayāci tv atha ekāśī naktāśī athavā ghṛtam | prātaḥsnāyī jitadvandas trikālaṃ śivapūjakaḥ | japahomasamāyuktaḥ kanyakāṃbhojayet sadā | aṣṭamyāṃ nava gehāni dārujāni śubhāni ca | ekam. vā vittābhāvena kārayet surasattama | tasmin devī prakartavyā haimā vā rajatāpi vā | mṛḍvākṣī lakṣaṇopetā khaḍge śūle’ tha pūjayet | sarvopahārasampannā m. vastraratnaphalādibhiḥ | kārayed rathadolādipūjāṃ ca balidaivakīm | puṣpādidroṇabilvāmrajātīpunnāgacampakaiḥ | vicitrāṃ racayet pūjām aṣṭamyām upavāsayet | durgāgrato japen mantram ekacittaḥ subhāvitaḥ | Devīpurāṇa, 22.7–13ab (sarvopahārasampannā] conj., sarvopahārasampanno edn). (55) Agnipurāṇa, 185.12–13a; Einoo (1999: 41). Hazra (1963: vol. 2, 81–2) is of the opinion that the Agnipurāṇa drew these rites from the Devīpurāṇa. (56) tad ardhayāminīśeṣe vijayārthaṃ nṛpottamaiḥ | sarvāṅgalakṣaṇopetaṃ gandhapuṣpasragarcitaṃ | vidhivad kāli kāliti japtvā khaḍgena ghātayet | tasyotthaṃ rudhiraṃ maṃsaṃ gṛhītvā pūtanādiṣu | nairṛtāya pradātavyaṃ mahākauśikamantritam | tasyāgrato nṛpaḥ snāyāc chatruṃ kṛtvā tu piṣṭajam | khaḍgena ghātayitvā tu dadyāt skandaviśākhayoḥ | tato deviṃ snāpayet prajñaḥ kṣirasarpijalādibhiḥ | kuṅkumāgurukarpūracandanaiś †carghya† dhūpayet | […] dhvajacchatrapatākādim ucchrayec carcikāgṛhe | rathayātrābalikṣepaṃ baṭu-r-ādyavarākulaṃ | Devīpurāṇa, 22.17cd–22ab. Compare with Agnipurāṇa, 185.12–16ab, where the invocation is described (185.11cd) and the names of the other demonesses (185.12–13ab). The sentence stating the rule—tasyagrato nṛpaḥ snāyāt […] (also found in Agnipurāṇa, 185.13cd) would suggest that the king should bathe before the slain animal (tasya+agrato). However, Hazra (1963: vol. 2, 81 and n. 202) argues that incorrect saṃdhi has been used in this verse for tasyāh+agrataḥ ‘before her, i.e. the Goddess’. (57) Devīpurāṇa, Adhyāya 50, pp. 283–318. For a summary see Hazra (1963: vol. 2, 51–2). (58) Hazra (1963: vol. 2, 82 and n. 203) presents evidence from inside the Agnipurāṇa which indicates the possibility that it was composed in the east, this being exemplified by numerous references to Puruṣottama in Auḍra/Odra (modern-day Puri in Orissa) and a reference to a Vidyā named bhelakhi, widely known in Bengal as bhelki. He also points out that the text was known initially only in the east: it was familiar to Vallālasena, to whom he attributes the earliest reference to the Agnipurāṇa, and later, was first popularized by the dharmaśāstrins in the east, in particular by Viṣvanātha Kavirāja (c.1300–84), Narasiṃha Vājapeyin (15th century) and Govindānanda Kavikankan. ācārya (c.1520–60). It attained the recognition of writers outside Orissa and Bengal much later. (59) Ibid, n. 203. (60) For a discussion of the autonomy of goddesses in the Vidyāpiṭha and in Buddhist Tantric scriptures, see Sanderson (1988: 670 ff.; 2009: 173 ff.). (61) Kālikāpurāṇa, 60.52–3; Einoo (1999: 41). (62) Brahmapurāṇa cited in Kṛtyaratnakara, p. 350. (63) Ibid. (64) This is most evident in the Durgāpūjātattva (Sarkar 2012: 375 ff.).

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights (65) Text, translation and discussion of this work in Sanderson (2007: 255–95). The mantras deriving from the Kālikula are as follows: oṃ khphreṃ/hriṃ mahācaṇḍayogeśvari phaṭ and hskhphreṃ (ibid., p. 278). For an analysis of the relation between this work and the texts of the Kālīkula see ibid., 276–87. (66) Sanderson (2007: 258–9). (67) Ibid., p. 261. (68) Ibid., p. 263. (69) Ibid., p. 268. (70) Ibid., pp. 272–3. (71) Sanderson (2005: 255–62). For the date and Kashmirian provenance of the Netratantra, see ibid., pp. 273–94. (72) Hazra (1963: vol. 2, 245) dates the present form of the text to the 12th century, and elsewhere locates an early core originating in the 7th century (p. 241). A citation identifiable from the Kālikāpurāṇa appears in the Kālaviveka by Jīmūtavāhana (Durgāpūjāviveka, p. 33), composed probably 11th–12th century. This means that the Purāṇa was well known by his time. (73) For more analysis see Hazra (1963: vol. 2, 231–59). (74) Kālikāpuraāṇa, 59.22–3. (75) Ibid., 65.30–2ab; Sarkar (2012: 339–40). (76) Kālikāapurāṇa, 60.146. (77) Ibid., Adhyāya 59. (78) For Vallālasena’s denunciation of the Devīpurāṇa, see above, p. 226 and n. 49. Like the Devi, the Agni too came within Vallālasena’s firing-line in the Dānasāgara for being a spurious Purāṇa concerned with pāṣaṇḍayukti, the arguments of heretics (Hazra 1963: vol. 2, 82 n. 203). (79) Besides the spurious ‘Purāṇas’, there were even certain Tantras. Caṇḍeśvara, for instance, bases the Navadurgāpūjā on a Skandayāmala. See Sarkar (2012: 335). (80) The colophon to the Rājanītiratnākara reads: saprakriyamahāsāndhivigrahikaṬhakkuraśriVīreśvaratmajaśriCaṇḍeśvaraviracite (p. 87). (81) Jayasvāla’s Introduction to Rājanītiratnākara, pp. l–m. (82) Ibid., p. k. (83) Ibid., p. i. The Dāyabhāga of Jīmūtavāhana is another significant example, shaping legislation in Bengal even to the present day. (84) Kṛtyaratnākara, pp. 238–53. (85) Ibid., pp. 253–64. Page 40 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights (86) Ibid., pp. 301–75. (87) Kṛtyaratnākara, p. 361. (88) The parallels are indicated in nn. 98, 124, 137, 138, 144 and 146 below. (89) Parallels in Raghunandana’s Durgāpūjātattva appear as follows: rites centring on the bilva tree, rites of adornment from the First to the Fifth, the visualization from the Matsyapurāṇa, worship in the nine leaves, the prayer for boons, the worship of the goddess’s retinue, worship of the Navadurgās, the worship of weapons, release in water on Daśamī with festivities. For an English translation of these rites from the Durgāpūjātattva see Sarkar (2012: 358–61, 365–87). The Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī is also referred to on four occasions in the Durgāpūjātattva (pp. 1, 6, 12, 20, 25). (90) These rites derived from the Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī are the worship of the goddess from the First to the Fifth tithis of Āśvina, her awakening in a bilva tree on the Sixth, the installation of her icon, her worship on Mahānavamī and her immersion in water in Daśamī. See Sarkar (2012: 332). (91) Hazra (1963: vol. 2, 2–15). (92) viśveṣāṃ hitakāmyayā nṛpavaro vijñāpya vidyāpatiṃ śridurgotsavapaddhatiṃ sa tanute dṛṣṭva nibandhasthitiṃ | Durgābhaktitaran.giṇī, p. 2, v. 6. (93) tatrāśvinaśuklapratipadi snātaḥ śuciḥ śukladvivāsāḥ suprakṣālitapāṇipādo darbhapaṇir ācānto darumayaśuddhasane prāṅmukha udaṅmukho vopaviṣṭo yajamānaḥ svayam anyabrāhmaṇadvārā vā purvāhṇe śubhalagne śobhanamuhūrte daivajñanivedite devīpūjāyogyaśubhadārumayaramaṇiye gṛhe caturaśracaturhastadarpaṇ odaranibhavedikānvite pañcavarṇ arajobhiḥ padmākāraṃ maṇḍalam ālikhya tanmadhye navaṃ dṛḍham avran. am aśyāmamūlaṃ bahir dadhyakṣatavibhūṣitam antahkṣiptapañcaratnam. nirmalajalapūrṇaṃ vastrayugaveṣṭitagrivaṃ mālyālaṅkṛtaṃ cūtāśvatthanyagrodhoḍumbaraplakṣapañcapallavamukhaṃ mukhadattayavaśarāvaṃ yavanam upari oṃ *ājighra kalaśaṃ mahy ā tvā viśantv indavaḥ | punar ūrjā nivartasva sā naḥ sahasraṃ dhukṣvorudhārā payasvatī punar mā viśatād rayiḥ* iti mantren. a kalaśaṃ sthāpayet | oṃ **varuṇasyottambhanam asi varuṇasya skambhasarjanī stho varuṇasya ṛtasadany asi varuṇasya ṛtasadanam asi varuṇasya ṛtasadanam āsīda** iti mantren. a tatra jalaṃ dadyāt | Durgābhaktataraṅgiṇī, p. 122 (aśyāma-] em., asyāma-edn. Passage marked between * * is restored on the basis of Śuklayajurvedasaṃhitā, 8.42 (the Maithila brahmans followed the Mādhyandina recension of this Veda, pointed out to me by Alexis Sanderson, pers. comm.); ājighra kalaśaṃ mahyātmā viśantv indavaḥ punar urjyā nivarttasvasānaḥ sahasram. dhukṣorudhārāpayasvatī punar mmāviśatādrayi edn. Passage marked between ** ** is restored on the basis of Vājasaneyisaṃhitā, 4.36; varuṇasyottambhanam asi varuṇasya skambhaḥ sarjjanī sthaḥ varuṇasya ṛtasadanam asi varuṇasya ṛtasadanīm āsīd edn). (94) oṃ gaṅgādyāḥ saritaḥ sarvāḥ samudrāś ca sarāṃsi ca | sarve samudrah saritaḥ sarāṃsi ca nadā hradāḥ || āyāntu yajamānasya duritakṣayakārakāḥ | iti a sarvatīrthāni kalaśe nyaset | mantreṇa tato’śvasthānagajasthānarathyāvalmīkanadīsaṅgamahradagokulakṛtāḥ sapta mṛttikāḥ kṣipet | sarvauṣadhīś ca murā māṃsī vacā kuṣṭhaṃ śaileyaṃ rajanīdvayaṃ | śaṭī campakamustaṃ ca sarvauṣadhigaṇaḥ smṛtaḥ | iti kathitāḥ tīrthajalaṃ phaladūrvākṣataṃ ca kṣipet | vedīcatuskoṇeṣu vastramālyālaṅkṛtān jalapūrṇān yavaśarāvamukhān yavopari caturaḥ

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights kalaśān niveśayet || atha kalaśe brahmapūjā | sapuṣpākṣatam ādāya oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svar brahmann ihāgaccha iha tiṣṭha ity āvāhya sthāpayitvā arghapātre dalapuṣpādī dattvā […] itimantreṇ a pādyādikaṃ dattvā idam anulepanaṃ oṃ brahmaṇe nama iti puṣpāñjalitrayeṇa pūjayitvā etāni gandhapuṣpadhūpad īpanai-vedyāni oṃ brahmaṇe namaḥ | idaṃ vastraṃ bṛhaspatidaivataṃ oṃ brahmaṇe namaḥ iti dadyāt | Durgābhaktataraṅgiṇī, pp. 122–4 (kalaśe] em., kalase edn; duritam] conj., dūritam edn; śaṭī] conj. based on the original verse murā māṃśī […] smṛtaḥ from the unpublished Śaiva pratiṣthātantra Mohācūrottara/Mohacūḍottara (identification of this verse by Alexis Sanderson, pers. comm, August 2011), śaṭhī edn). The mantra for offering the guest-water, appearing in the edition where the above citation gives […], is illegible. (95) Identified and summarized in Kane (1994: 183). (96) atha pratipadi yajamānasnapanāya śāntikalaśasthāpanavidhiḥ | e […] sthāpayed matsyapurāavraṇaṃ kumbhaṃ varuṇaṃ tatra vinyaset | gaṅgādyāḥ saritaḥ sarvāḥ samudrāś ca sarāṃsi ca | gajāśvarathyāvalmīkasan.gamāt hradagokulāt | mṛdam ānīya viprendra sarvauṣadhijalānvitaṃ | snānārthaṃ vinyaset tatra yajamānasya dharmavit | sarve samudrāḥ saritaḥḥ sarāṃsi jaladā hradāḥ | āyāntu yajamānasya duritakṣayakārakāḥ | bhaviṣye śrikāmas tu nyaset samyak deśavṛddhikaraṃ śubhaṃ | kāñcanaṃ ghṛtagodhūmān dūrvāṃ rocanayā saha | brahmapūjā kalaśe | tathā ca durgotsavaprakaraṇe pakṣapūjāyāṃ kālikāpurāṇe | agnir brahmā bhavānī ca gajavaktro mahoragaḥ | skando bhānur mātṛgaṇo dikpālāś ca navagrahāḥ.ah | eṣāṃ ghaṭeṣu pratyekaṃ pūjayitvā yathāvidhi | mūrdhni pavitram ekaikaṃ dadyād ebhyaḥ samāhitaḥ | Durgābhaktataraṅgiṇī, p. 52. (97) In the Gauḍīya rite of the Durgāpūjātattva a modified form of the kalaśapūjā appears, excluding the worship of Brahman and the consecration of the waters. Here the goddess rather than Brahman is meant to be worshipped in a pot (ghaṭa) (albeit without the herbs, the water from sacred sites and other substances used for the consecration) continuously till the 6th, when she is invoked in the bel branch (Durgāpūjātattva, pp. 48–9). This leads me to think that the same pattern of daily worship must have been followed in the Maithila rite of the Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī. (98) The use of this mantra during the Maithila rite also occurred during Caṇḍeśvara’s time. He refers to it as the navatattvākṣarāṇi, the Syllables of the Nine Levels of Reality (Kṛtyaratnākara, p. 362). (99) atha pratipadādipratidinaprāptadurgāpūjāvidhiḥ | kālikāpuraṇe pratipadam upakramya tāvat tu saptarātrāṇi sarvadevaiḥ supūjitā | (kālikāpur 60.30) pūjā kumbhe devīpurāṇe pūjā maṇḍalakumbhasthā iti | tatra kramaḥ | sapuṣpākṣatam ādāya oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svar bhagavati durge ihāgaccha iha tiṣṭhety āvāhya sthāpayitvā ādyarghapatre jalapuṣpākṣatadadhidūrvāksauvarṇ uśatilakuṅkumabilvapatrāṇi nidhāya | oṃ jayantī maṅgalā kālī bhadrakālī kapālinī | durgā śivā kṣamā dhātrī svadhā svāhā namo’stu te | iti devīpurāṇoktamantreṇa oṃ durge durge rakṣaṇi svāheti jayadurgāmantreṇa candanakuṅ oṃ va pādyārghācamanīyasnānīyapunarācamanīyāni durgāyai namaḥ iti pādyādi dattvā idam anulepanaṃ oṃ durgāyai namaḥ iti kumādinānulipya oṃ durgāyai namaḥ iti puṣpāñjalitrayeṇa pūjayitvā etāni gandhapuṣpadhūpadīpanaivedyatāmbulāni oṃ durgāyai namaḥ durgāyai namaḥ iti dadyāt | śkan.idaṃ vastraṃ bṛhaspatidaivataṃ oṃ oṃ amṛtodbhavaṃ śrīvṛśaṃ śaṅkarasya sadā priyaṃ | bilvapatraṃ prayacchāmi pavitraṃ te sureśvari iti bilvapatram. | oṃ brahmaviṣṇuśivādināṃ droṇapuṣpaṃ sadāpriyaṃ | tat te durge prayacchāmi sarvakāmārthasiddhaye iti droṇapuṣpaṃ | tataḥ kiṃcit stutvā praṇamya prārthayed anena oṃ Page 42 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights mahiṣaghni mahāmāye cāmuṇḍe muṇḍamālini | dravyam ārogyavijayaṃ dehi devi namo’stu te || sarvamaṅgalamāṅgalye śive sarvārthasādhike | śaraṇye tryambake gauri nārāyaṇi namo’stu te | rūpaṃ dehi yaśo dehi bhāgyaṃbhavati dehi me | putrān dehi dhanam. dehi sarvān kāmān pradehi me || chāgādibaliṃ nānāvidhakāmanayā devyai dadyāt | devīgṛhe ghṛtapūritāṃs tailapūritān vā ahorātrasthāyino dīpān prajvālayet | sati sambhave devīm uddiśya pratipadi candanakuṅkumādikeśasaṃskāradravyaṃ dvitīyadau keśasaṃyamanārthaṃ paṭṭaḍorakaṃ | tṛtīyāyāṃ caraṇarāgārtham alaktakaṃ śirasi dhāraṇarthaṃ sindūraṃ mukhavilokanārtham. darpaṇaṃ | caturthyāṃ madhuparkaṃ netramaṇḍanāya kajjalaṃ m. rajatāditilakaṃ | pañcamyāṃ catuḥ samānulepanaṃ śayyam alaṅkaraṇaṃ copaharet | Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, pp. 124–5. (100) athāśvaśālāyām aśvapraveśanavidhiḥ | tatrāśvinaśukladvitīyāyām aśvaśālāmanoramām anuliptāṃ sarvataḥ parivṛtāṃ nanavidhapuśpalan.kr.ta sudhupita vidhaya tasyām aśvabandhanasthānāt m. m. m. paścimadiśi vapratrayāvṛtaṃ sthaṇḍilam upakalpya tadupari candanādinā maṇḍaladvayaṃ kṛtvā tatra revantam uccaiḥśravasaṃ ca pūjayet || tatra kramaḥ | kuśatilajalāny ādāya | oṃ adya sakalāśvacaratyutpātapīḍāpraśamanair dīrghayuṣṭvasamṛddhikāmo revantoccaiḥśravasturaṅgāṃś cāhaṃ pūjayiṣye | iti saṃkalpya | sapuṣpākṣatam ādāya oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svar bhagavan revanta ihāgaccha iha tiṣṭha ity āvāhya iti sthāpayitvā arghapātre jalapuṣpādi dattvā etāni pādyārghācamanīyasnānīyapunarācamanīyānī oṃ revantāya namaḥ iti pādyādikaṃ dattvā idam anulepanaṃ oṃ revantāya nama ity anulipya oṃ namo devādhidevāya turaṅgavanacāriṇe | sūryaputrāya devāya turaṅgānāṃ hitāya ca | †turaṅgopariṣadyasya mṛgajo paridhāvati† | sāśvam aśvādhipaṃ rakṣa śaraṇaṃ tvāṃ vrajāmy ahaṃ || iti paṭhitvā oṃ revantāya nama m. iti puṣpāñjalitrayeṇa pūjayet | etāni gandhapuṣpadhūpadīpanaivedyatāmbulāni oṃ revantāya namaḥ idaṃ vastraṃ bṛhaspatidaivataṃ oṃ revantāya namaḥ ity utsṛjet | oṃ sūryaputra mahābāho chāyāhṛdayanandana | śāntiṃ kuru turan.ganarevantāya namo’stu te | oṃ m. uccaiḥśravase namaḥ | idaṃ vastraṃ bṛhaspatidaivataṃ oṃ uccaiḥśravase namaḥ | iti pūjayet praṇamec ca | tataḥ snātān alaṅkṛtān aśvān sannidhyāpya eṣo ’rghaḥ oṃ turaṅgebhyo nama idam anulepanaṃ oṃ turaṅgebhyo nama iti naivedyādibhiḥ pūjayet | turaṅgapūjāyāṃ jalapuṣpāni varjayet | evaṃ navamīparyantaṃ pratyahaṃ pūjayitvā śāntisvastyayane turaṅgān uddiśya kārayet | dhānyabhallātakakuṣṭhavacāsitasarṣapān pañcaratnaṃ ca sūtreṇ a vastrarakṣāpoṭṭalikāṃ baddhvā aśvānāṃ kaṇṭhe bandhayet | śastrapāṇipuruṣais teṣāṃ rakṣāṃ kārayet tāḍanavāhanādi varjayet m. m. m. | turaṅgaśālāyāṃ gītamadhuravādyādi kārayet | nimbājyasarṣapadhūpāṃś ca dadyāt | dhenuvṛṣājameṣān sthāpayed ravikiraṇasañcaraṃ vārayet | vāyavyādivaidikamantraiḥ śāntihomaṃ ca karayet || ity aśvaśālāpraveśanavidhiḥ || Durgābhaktitaran.giṇī, pp. 125–6. (101) atha bilve devyā bodhanāmantraṇavidhiḥ | tatrāśvinasuklaṣaṣṭhyāṃ jyeṣṭhānakṣatrayuktāyāṃ kevalāyāṃva śāyaṃkale bilvatarusannidhānaṃ gatvā arghapātre jalapuṣpākṣatāni nidhāya eṣo ’rghaḥ oṃ bilvavṛkṣāya namaḥ idam anulepanaṃ oṃ bilvavṛkṣāya namaḥ iti puṣpāñjalitrayaṃ dattvā dhūpadipanaivedyavāśāṃsi dadyāt | tataḥ sapuṣpākṣatam ādāya oṃ bhūr bhuvaḥ svar bhagavati durge ihāgaccha iha tiṣṭha iti bilvavṛkṣe devīm āvāhya sthāpayitvā arghapātre jalādi nidhāya oṃ jayantītyādimantram uccārya oṃ durgāyai namaḥ iti pādyādibhir upacāraiḥ pūjayet | tato m. gītavādyamaṅgalaghoṣapuraḥsaraṃ devīṃ bilve bodhayed anena | aim. rāvaṇasya vadhārthāya rāmasyānugrahāya ca | akāle brahmaṇā bodho devyās tvayi kṛtaḥ purā || aham apy āśvine ṣaṣṭhyāṃśayahne bodhayāmy ataḥ | iti devī bodhayitvā bilvatarum āmantrayed anena | oṃ merumand arakailasahimavacchikhare girau | jātaḥ śrīphalavṛkṣa tvam ambikāyah sadā priyaḥ || śrīśailasśikhare jātaḥ śrīphalaḥ śrīniketanaḥ |

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights netavyo’si mayāgaccha pūjyo durgāsvarūpataḥ || iti bilvābhimantraṇavidhi ḥ | Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, pp. 126–7. (102) tatrāśvinaśuklasaptamyāṃ mulānakṣatrayuktāyāṃ kevalāyāṃ vā purvadināmantritabilvatarusannidhānaṃ gatvā tam abhyarcya kṛtāñjaliḥ prasādayed anena | oṃ bilvavṛkṣa mahābhāga sarvadā śaṅkarapriya | gṛhitvā tava śākhāṃtu durgāpūjāṃ karomy ahaṃ || śākhācchedodbhavaṃ duḥkhaṃ na ca kāryaṃ tvayā prabho | iti prasādya śākhām ekāṃ chedayet | chedanamantro gauḍanibandhe oṃ chindhi chindhi phaṭ phaṭ hūṃ svaha | tataḥ phaladvayayutāṃ bilvaśakham āniya gṛhaprāṅgane pīṭhopari sthāpayitvā snapayet | eṣo ’rghaḥ oṃ bilvaśākhāyai namaḥ idam anulepanaṃ gandhapuṣpadīpatāmbūlanaivedyavāsobhiḥ pūjayet | bilvaśākhāyāṃ mṛnmayapratimāṃ ca devīm āvāhya sthāpayitvā pādyādibhir upacāraiḥ pūjayet | chāgādibaliṃ dadyāt | atha dolayā bilvaśākhāṃ mṛnmayapratimāñ ca pūjāgṛhadvāradeśam ānīya tatra gomayakṛtamaṇ ḍale bhūtān sampūjyāpasārayet | tatra vidhiḥ | sapuṣpakṣatam ādāya oṃ bhūtā ihāgacchata iha tiṣṭhata ity āv\āhya sthāpayitvā oṃ bhūtebhyo nama iti pādyādibhiḥ saṃpūjya māṣabhaktabaliṃ tebhyo dadyād anena oṃ bhūtāḥ pretāḥ piśācāś ca ye vasanty atra bhūtale | te gṛhnantu mayā datto balir eṣa prasādhitaḥ || pūjitā gandhapuṣpādyair m. m. balibhis tarpitās tathā | deśād asmād viniḥsṛtya pūjā paśyantu matkṛtāṃ || oṃ bhūtebhya eṣa māṣabhaktabalir nama iti sapuṣpajalam ādāyotsṛjet | oṃ apasarpantu te bhūtā ye bhūtābhūmipālakāḥ | bhūtānām avirodhena pūjākarma karomy aham. || (kālikāpur 57.99) oṃ phaṭ iti saptavārābhimantritān sitasarṣapayavādin sarvavighnopaśāntaye pūjāgṛhe vikiret | Durgābhaktitaran.giṇī, pp. 127–8. (103) atha punar bilvaśākhāyāṃ cāmuṇḍāyai nama iti pādyādibhir upacāraiś cāmuṇḍāṃ sampūjya oṃ śriśailaśikhare jātaḥ śrīphalaḥ śrīniketanaḥ | netavyo’si mayāgaccha pūjyo durgāsvarūpataḥ || oṃ nilotpaladalaśyāmā caturbāhusamanvitā | khaṭvāṅgacandrahāsam. ca vibhratī dakṣiṇe kare || vāme carma ca pāśaṃ ca ūrdhvādhobhāvataḥ punaḥ | dadhati muṇḍamālāṃca vyāghracarmadharāmbarā || kṛśāṅgī dirghadaṃṣṭrā ca atidīrghātibhiṣaṇā | lolajihvā nimnaraktanayanā rāvabhiṣaṇā || kabandhavāhanāśinā vistāraśravaṇānanā | eṣā kālī samākhyātā cāmuṇḍeti ca kathyate || iti cāmuṇḍārūpatayā dhyātvā bilvaśākhāṃ gṛhitva oṃ cāmuṇḍe cala cala iti cālayitvā mṛnmayapratimāsahitāṃ gitavādyādinā gṛhaṃ praviśya oṃ āropitāsi durge tvaṃ mṛnmaye śrīphale ’pi ca | sthirānvitā tvaṃ bhūtvā me gṛhe tvaṃ kāmadā bhava || oṃ sthirībhaveti pūjāsthāne piṭhopari sthirīkṛtya tatsamīpe samācārād aparājitālatābaddhā rambhādinavapatrikāḥ sthāpayed arcayec ca | […] tato navapatrikāḥ pūjayet | tataḥ kadalyāṃ m. m. m. m. brahmāṇiṃ | dāḍime raktadantikāṃ | dhānye lakṣmiṃ haridrāyāṃ durgāṃ | mānake cāmuṇḍāṃ m. m. m. | m. m. kacau kālikāṃ | bilve śiva| aśoke śokarahitāṃ | jayantyāṃ kārttikīṃ | pratyekam āvāhya sthāpayitvā pañcopacāraiḥ pūjayet | chāgamahiṣādibaliṃ dadyāt | sarvāyudhāni vādyāni dhvajāni citrāṇi devigṛhadvāre yathāsanniveśaṃ sthāpayet | toraṇastambhapatākādi devigṛhadvāreṣu yathāśobhanam ucchrayet || iti patrikāpraveśanavidhiḥ || Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, pp. 128–9. (104) atha mahāṣṭamyāṃ devīpūjāvidhiḥ | tatra karttā nityakṛtyakriyaḥ suprakṣalitapāṇipāda ācāntaḥ śuddhāsane prāṅmukha udaṅmukho n vā upaviśya kuśatilajalāny ādāya saṃkalpaḥ vidhāya smaraṇādikam ācaret | […] tatraiva m. smaraṇasya—ye tāṃ smaranti nigaḍair api baddhapādā vyāghrāhicauranṛpavahnibhayeṣu durgāṃ | teṣāṃ na kiṃcid api śatrubhayaṃ nṛṇāṃ syāt baddhās tu muktim upalabhya sukham. ramante || oṃ adya sarvabhayābhāvakāmo bhagavatyā durgādevyāḥ smaraṇam ahaṃ kariśye | mārkaṇḍeyapurae svasthasmaraṃasya durge smṛtā harasi bhītim aśeṣajantoḥ | svasthaiḥ smṛtā matim atīvaśubhān dadāsi | oṃ adyātiśayitaśubhamatiprāptikāmo bhagavatyā durgādevyāḥ smaraṇam ahaṃ kariṣye | śivarahasye smaraṇasya ye manāg api śarvāṇiṃ smaranti śaraṇaiṣiṇaḥ |

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights duśpārāpārasaṃśārasāgare na patanti te | Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, pp. 132–6 (śarvāṇṃ] em., sarvvāṇiṃ edn). (105) The translation of this particular phrase (navayauvanasampannā) is by Alexis Sanderson. (106) Oṃ adya mahāṣṭamyāṃ durbhikṣaduḥkhanivṛttidirghāyuṣṭvaparamapadaprāptidhvajamālākulav imānavarārohaṇapūrvakabrahmalokagamanapūrvakaśāśvatasamāvacchinnaharṣaviśokavijaya-kāmaḥ sopavāso durgādevyāḥ pūjanam ahaṃ kariṣye | […] putravatām upavāsavyatirekeṇa evāyaṃ saṃkalpaḥ kālikāpurāṇīyavacanāt | upāvasaṃ mahāṣṭamyāṃ putravān na samācaret | yathā tathaivaputātmā vratī devīṃ prapūjayet || iti saṃkalpya | jayantītyādimantreṇa prāṇāyāmaṃ vidhāya matsyapurāṇoktalakṣaṇāṃ durgādevīṃ dhyāyet | jaṭājūṭasamāyuktām ardhendukṛtaśekharāṃ | locanatrayamsāṃyuktāṃ padmendusadṛśānanāṃ|| atasīpuṣpavarṇābhāṃ supratiṣṭhāṃ sulocanāṃ| navayauvanasampannāṃ sarvābharaṇabhūṣitāṃ|| sucāarudaśanāṃ tadvat pīnonnatapayodharāṃ| tribhaṅgasthānasaṃsthānāṃ mahiṣāsuramardinīṃ| triśulāṃ dakṣiṇe dadyāt khaḍgāṃ cakraṃ kramād adhaḥ || tīkṣṇabāṇaṃ tathā śaktiṃ vāmato ’pi nibodhata | kheṭakaṃ pūrṇacāpaṃ ca pāśam aṅkuśam ūrdhvataḥ | ghaṇṭāṃ vā paraśum vāpi vāmataḥ sanniveśayet || adhastān mahiṣaṃ tad vad viśiraskaṃ pradarśayet | śiraśchedodbhavaṃ tadvad dānavaṃ khaḍgapāṇinaṃ | hṛdi śūlena nirbhinnaṃ niryadantravibhūṣitaṃ|| raktaraktīkṛtāṅgaṃ ca raktavisphāritekṣaṇaṃ|| veṣṭitaṃ nāgapāśena bhrūkuṭīkuṭilānanaṃ| sapāśavāmahastena dhṛtakeśaṃ ca durgayā || vamadrudhiravaktraṃ ca devyāḥ siṃhaṃ pradarśayet | devyās tu dakṣiṇaṃ pādaṃ samaṃ siṃhoparisthitaṃ|| kiṃ cidūrdhvaṃ tathā vāmam aṅguṣṭhaṃ mahiṣopari | stūyamānaṃ ca tad rūpam amaraiḥ sanniveśayet || evam uktarūpaṃ dhyātvā sākṣatapuṣpam ādāya oṃ ehi durge mahābhāge rakṣārthaṃ mama sarvadā | āvāhyāmy ahaṃ devi sarvakāmārthasiddhaye || asyāṃ muktau samāgatya sthitiṃ matkṛpayā kuru | rakṣaṃ kuru sadā bhadre viśveśvari namo’stu te || oṃ bhagavati durge ihāgaccha iha tiṣṭha iha sannidhehi iha sthirā bhava suprasannā bhava ity āvāhanaṃ vidhāya […] oṃ jayanti maṅgalā kālī bhadrakālī kapālinī | durgā śivā kṣamā dhātrī svadhā svāhā namo’ stu te || iti mantraṃ paṭhitvā oṃ durge durge rakṣaṇi svāheti vā mantram uccārya […] oṃ durgāyai nama ity utsṛjet | evaṃ mūlapūjāṃ vidadhyāt | Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, pp. 136–9. (107) For the full list of the goddesses see n. 109 below. (108) The importance of the mantras as Śākta invocations was noticed by Alexis Sanderson (pers. comm., August 2011). (109) athāvaraṇapūjā | tatra devyā dakṣiṇasyāṃ diśi sapuṣpākṣatam ādāya sambodhanapadenāvāhya sthāpayitvā pādyādibhir gandhādibhir vopacāraiḥ pūjayet | oṃ hrīṃ jayantyai namaḥ evaṃ maṅ-galāyai kālyai bhadrakālyai kapālinyai durgāyai śivāyai kṣamāyai dhātryai svadhāyai svāhāyai | pūrvabhāge hrīṃbījam eva dattvā devyāḥ śaktīḥ prapūjayet | hrīṃ ugracaṇḍāyai namaḥ evaṃ pracaṇḍāyai caṇḍogrāyai caṇḍanayikāyai caṇḍāyai caṇḍavatyai caṇḍarūpāyai aticaṇḍikāyai | vāmadiśi hrīṃkāram eva prakṣipya oṃ hrīṃ ugradaṃṣṭrāyai namaḥ evaṃ mahādaṃṣṭrāyai karālinyai bhīmanetrāyai viśālākṣyai maṅgalāyai vijayāyai jayāyai | devīpurataḥ hrīṃpadam eva dattvā oṃ hrīṃ maṅgalāyai namaḥ evaṃ nandinyai bhadrāyai lakṣmyai kīrttyai yaśasvinyai puṣṭyai medhāyai śivāyai śādhvyai yaśāyai śobhāyai jayāyai dhṛtyai ānandāyai sunandāyai | atha dakṣiṇe sakalāś catuḥṣaṣṭīr devyo dvātriṃśat ṣoḍaśāṣṭau vā pujyāḥ | oṃ vijayāyai m. namaḥ evaṃ maṅgalayai bhadrāyai dhṛtyai śāntyai śivāyai kṣamāyai siddhyai tuṣṭyai umāyai puṣṭyai śriyāyai ṛddhyai ratyai dīptāyai kāntyai yaśāyai lakṣmyai īśvaryai vṛddhyai śākryai jayāvatyai brāhmyai jayantyai aparājitāyai ajitāyai mānasyai śvetāyai dityai māyāyai mahāmāyāyai mohinyai lālasāyai tārāyai vimalāyai gauryai śaraṇ yāyai kauśikyai matyai Page 45 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights durgāyai kriyāyai arundhatyai ghaṇṭāyai karṇāyai kapālinyai raudryai kālyai mayūryai trinetrāyai svarūpāyai bahurūpāyai ripuhāyai ambikāyai carcikāyai karālyai surapūjitāyai vaivasvatyai kaumāṅryai māheśvaryai vaiṣṇavyai mahālakṣmyai kārttikyai śivadūtyai cāmuṇḍāyai iti pratyekam avāhya sthāpayitva pādyādibhir upacāraiḥ pūjayet | atha mātaraḥ | pūrvādidikśu oṃ brahmāṇyai namaḥ evaṃ māheśvaryai kaumāryai vaiṣṇavyai vārāhyai indrāṇyai camuṇḍāyai mahālakṣmyai madhye caṇḍikāyai iti pūjayed mātṛṛṇāṃ purobhāge oṃ bhairavāya nama iti pādyādibhir upacāraiḥ pūjayet | athāṅgāni oṃ kāli kāli hṛdayāya namaḥ | oṃ kāli vajriṇi śirase namaḥ | oṃ kāli kāleśvari śikhāyai namaḥ | oṃ kāli vajreśvari kavacāya namaḥ ity agneyadiṣu | oṃ kāli lauhadaṇḍāyai astrāya namaḥ | iti pūrvādicaturdikṣu oṃ kāli kāli vajreśvari lauhadaṇḍāyai svāhā netratrayāya nama iti devyagre pūjayet | atha pañca brahmāṇi (pañcāṅgāni) oṃ iśānāya nama iti śirase oṃ kāli kāli tatpuruṣāya nama iti mukhe oṃ vajreśvari aghorāya nama. iti hṛdaye oṃ lauhadaṇḍāyai vāmadevāya nama ity adhaḥ oṃ svāhā sadyojātāya nama iti sarvāṅge pūjayet || athāstrāṇi dakṣiṇahasteṣūrdhvataḥ | oṃ triśūlāya namaḥ evaṃ khaḍgāya cakrāya tikṣnabāṇāya śaktyai vāmahasteṣūrdhvataḥ kheṭakāya pūrṇacāpāya pāśāya aṅkuśāya ghaṇṭāyai iti pūjayet | oṃ vajranakhadaṃṣṭrāyudhāya mahāsiṃhāsanāya hūṃ phaṭ nama iti siṃhāsanaṃ pūjayet | tataḥ puṣpañjalitrayeṇa devīṃ pūjayet | Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, pp. 139–41. (110) Alexis Sanderson has kindly indicated references to this effect in the Somaśambhupaddhati (vol. 1, p. 200 n. 2), an early medieval Śaiva ritual text he has worked on. (111) Ibid., pp. 141–8. (112) divyakalpāvacchinnasureśarājyabhuktyuttarātularājyābhiṣekaprāptikāmo aham amunā pañcāmṛtena bhagavatīṃ durgādevīm ahaṃ snapayiṣye | ibid., p. 144. (113) mṛṇmayapratimāyāṃ tu nivedanamātram ādarśapratibimbitāyāṃ vā kartavyaṃ | ibid., p. 141. (114) The constituents are water, thickened milk, the tips of kuśa grass, unhusked barley, yoghurt, rice, Aloe indica (sahā, glossed as ghṛtakumārīti prasiddhā), white mustard, dūrvā grass, turmeric, cow bile and honey: ibid., p. 149. (115) The constituents are water, thickened milk, the tips of kuśa grass, yoghurt, clarified butter, rice, sesamum and white mustard: ibid. (116) Ibid., pp. 148–51.

(117) alaṅkāro mukuṭādiḥ […] hemakuṇḍalakaṇṭhābharaṅakaṭakakeyūrāṇgurīyakakāñcinūpurapādakaṭakapādāṇgurīyakānyatamālaṅkāradā ’pi, ibid., pp. 172–3. (118) kiṅkiṇījālasamvītavastranirmitaśvetapadmopasmśobhitapañcarāṅgikapatākānvitamahādhvajaṃ, ibid., p. 184. (119) caturhastadaṇḍamānaparimitāṃ […] bhūmiṃ, ibid., p. 186. (120) Ibid., pp. 166–87. (121) Ibid., pp. 187–9.

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights (122) The fact that more than one animal was sacrificed is suggested by the following: devīpurāṇe paśughātaś ca kartavyo gavalājavadhas tathā | gavalaḥ mahiṣaḥ | paśus tadanyo meṣādiḥ | ibid., p. 187. (123) Sarkar (2012: 349). (124) naraśiraḥpradānasya | nāreṇa śirasā vīra pūjitā vidhivan nṛpa | tṛptā bhaved bhṛśaṃ durgā varṣāṇāṃlakṣam eva ca|| adya lakṣavarṣāvacchinnātiśāyitadurgāprītikāma idaṃ naraśiro viṣṇudaivataṃ bhagavatyai durgādevyai tubhyam ahaṃ dade | ibid., p. 189. See also Kṛtyaratnākara, pp. 356–7. (125) On offering one’s own blood: svabhujādirudhiradānasya | sahasram. tṛptim āyāti svadeharudhireṇa tu | tarpitā vidhivad durgā bhitvā bāhū ca jaṅghake || adya sahasravarṣāvacchinnadurgāprītikāma etat svabhujajaṅghādvayarudhiraṃ viṣṇudaivataṃ bhagavatyai durgādevyai tubhyam ahaṃ dade | Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, p. 188. On offering the head, see previous note. (126) Allen (1975: 24). (127) This was most particular in the Gauḍīya ceremony, where the hymn to be invoked while offering the blood to Durgā in order to gain dominance is thus: ity uktvā khaḍgarudhiram ādāya —oṃ yaṃ yaṃ spṛśāmi pādena yaṃ yaṃ paśyāmi cakṣuṣā | sa sa me vaśyatāṃ yātu yadi śakrasamo bhavet || oṃ aiṃ hrīṃ śrīṃ nityaklinne madadrave svāhā iti sarvavaśyamantreṇa svīyalalāṭe tilakaṃ kuryāt | Saying thus, having taken the blood from the sword [the sacrificer must recite]: ‘Oṃ Whosoever I touch with my foot, whosoever I see with my eye, may he fall in my power, [even] if he is as mighty as Śakra. Oṃ aiṃ hrīṃ śrīṃ O You who are eternally moist, flowing with passion, Svāhā.’ With this Mantra of Complete Subjugation he must draw a ‘tilaka’ mark on his forehead [with the blood]. Durgāpūjātattva, Sarkar (2012: 373). (128) Some of these reasons stated in the Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī were to incur merit (puṇya) and Durgā’s pleasure (durgāprīti) for a period of time. (129) Among three sets of goddesses, sāttvika, rājasā and tāmasikā described in the Devīpurāṇa, Durgā, Kauśikī, Aparājitā, Arundhatī and other goddesses such as Jayāvatī and Jayantī, who seem also to be warrior-divinities, are named in the second category, as follows: brāhmī jayāvatī śaktir ajitā cāparājitā | jayantī mānasī māyā ditiḥ śvetā vimohinī | śaraṇyā kauśikī gaurī vimalā ratilālasā | arundhatī kriyā durgā rājasā iti cāparāḥ | Devīpurāṇa, 50.13–14, p. 284. Their iconography is described in great detail ibid., pp. 296–301, and they are said to grant boons of a worldly character, such as freedom from enemies and wealth, which would have been much desired by kings. In addition, the warrior character of these deities is also underlined in one particular description: the goddess Brāhmī is supposed to be worshipped by ‘great kings’ (nṛpottamaiḥ) with ‘offerings of blood’ (raktopahāraṃ), ibid., 50.12–13, p. 297. (130) Caṇḍi’s autumnal worship with sanguinary offering is identified in the Bhaviṣyapurāṇa (cited in Viṣṇubhaṭṭa Āṭhavaḷe’s Puruṣārthacintāmaṇi) as a rājasīpūjā (in contrast to a sāttvikī category of her worship at autumn eschewing animal sacrifice intended for orthodox brāhmaṇas), in the following way: bhaviṣye—śāradī caṇḍikāpūjā trividhā parigīyate | sāttvikī japayajñādyair naivedyaiś ca nirāmiṣaiḥ | […] rājasī balidānena naivedyaiḥ sāmiṣais tathā | surāmāṃsādyupahārair japayajñair vinā tu yā | vinā mantrais tāmasī syāt kirātānāṃ ca sammatā | Puruṣārthacintāmaṇi, p. 80 (sāttvikī] conj., sattvikī edn). Viṣṇubhaṭṭa adds that, while ‘in this

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights matter only sāttvika worship [that is worship without animal sacrifice] is [intended] for a brāhmaṇa [atra brāhmaṇasya sāttvikapūjaiva] the Rājasī category of the Navarātra alone is [intended] for kṣatriyas and vaiśyas [kṣatriyavaisyayos tu rājasy api] (ibid.). See also Kane (1994: 158) for a summary of this categorization in other examples of Purāṇic literature such as the Skandapurāṇa and its reflection in Raghunandana’s Tithitattva. (131) This aspect of nourishment seems to be suggested by the liturgy accompanying the animal sacrifice in the Gauḍīya Navarātra. The invocation while offering the blood runs as follows: tato mṛnmayādipātre rudhiram ādāya devisammukhe sthāpayitvā oṃ adyetyādi daśavarṣāvacchinnaśridurgāpritikāma imaṃ chāgapaśurudhirabaliṃ dāsyāmi iti saṃkalpya eṣa chāgapaśurudhirabaliḥ oṃ jayantītyādy uccārya dadyāt | tataḥ oṃ kāli kāli mahākāli kālike pāpanāśini | śoṇitaṃ ca baliṃ gṛhṇa varade vāmalocane || aiṃ hrīṃ śrīṃ kauśikirudhireṇāpyāyatām iti vadet | ‘Thereupon having collected the blood in a chalice of such substance as earth, having placed it before the goddess, having declared the resolution “Oṃ Today etc., I who wish for Durgā’s affection for a duration of ten years give this bali offering of goat’s blood”; having recited “Here is the bali offering of goat’s blood. Oṃ Jayantī …”, he must offer [the blood].—Thereupon: Oṃ Kālī, Kālī, Awesome Kālī, Kālikā, Queller of Sins, accept the offering of blood, O Boon-Bestower, Fair-Eyed One. Aiṃ hrīṃ śriṃ, O Kauśikī, may you be nourished with blood’ (Durgāpujatattva, p. 56). (132) See for instance: hūṃkāre nyakkṛtodanvati mahati jite śiñjitair nūpurasya śliṣyacchṛṅgakṣate ’pi kṣaradasṛji nijālaktakabhrāntibhāji | skandhe vindhyādribuddhyā nikaṣati mahiṣasyāhito ’sūn ahārṣid ajñānād eva yasyāś caraṇa iti śivaṃ śā śivā vaḥ karotu || Caṇḍiśataka, 2. ‘When the tinkling of the anklet triumphed over his fearful cry by which oceans had been humbled; when the scratch from chafing horns oozing blood had counterfeited the redness of her own lac-dye; her foot plundered Mahiṣa’s life placed on his scraping shoulder innocently thinking it must be the Vindhya—May that Śivā bless you with joy’ (trans. Sarkar 2013: 429 n. 36). (133) As, for instance, in the hymn to Caṇḍi in the Kulacūḍāmaṇitantra, 7.22–35. (134) Haravijaya, 47.26; Gaüḍavaho, 293, and the parallel for this appears in Haravijaya, 47.43. (135) Durgābhaktitaraṇgiṇi, pp. 191–6. (136) atha balidānaṃ | tatra gomayopaliptabhūbhāge māṣabhaktādibalim upādāya | oṃ hrīṃ jayantyādibhya eṣa māṣabhaktabalir namaḥ | athavā oṃ hrīṃ jayantyai eṣa māṣabhaktabalir namaḥ iti pratyekaṃ vā ekādaśebhyo dadyāt | evam ugracaṇḍādibhyo ’ṣṭabhyaḥ ugradaṃṣṭradibhyo navabhyo maṇgalādibhyaḥ ṣoḍaśabhyaḥ hrīṃ vina vijayādibhyaś catuṣaṣṭhibhyo brahmāṇ yādi navabhyaś ca baliṃ dadyāt | atha śāmānyato balidānaṃ | māṣakuṣmaṇḍamāṃsādyair deyo dikṣu balir niśi | tatra mantraḥ | oṃ lokapālagrahanakṣatrasurasuragaṇagandharva-yakṣarākṣasavidyādharagaruḍamahoragakinnaragajendradevatn.āpsarobhūtapretapiśācakravyādamanuṣyamātr.gaṇa-yogiṇīḍākiṇīśākiṇigaṇā imaṃ nānādravyabaliṃ gṛhnantu oṃ huṃ svāhā | oṃ śivāḥ kaṇkālavetālāḥ pūtanajambhakadayaḥ | te sarve tṛptim āyāntu balidānena toṣitāḥ || Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, p. 196. (137) atha mahāṣṭamyām ardharātre vijayakāmasya nṛpasya devīpūjāpūrvakabalidāṇaṃ | ’sarvopahārasampanno vastraratnaphaladibhiḥ | puṣpaiś ca droṇabilvamrajātīpunnāgacampakaiḥ || ’pūrvavad eva vicitrāṃ pūjāṃ racayitvā durgāgrato Page 48 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights mūlamantraṃ yathāśakti japitvā stutvā praṇamya varaṃ prārthya kuśatilajalāny ādāya adyāśvinaśuklāṣṭamyām ardharātre imaṃ pañcabdaṃ mahiṣam ajaṃ meṣaṃ vā vijayakāmo’haṃ durgādevyai ghātayiṣye | iti saṃkalpya khaḍgam ādāya oṃ kāli kāli vajreśvari lauhadaṇḍāyai nama iti mantraṃ japitvā khaḍgena gandhapuṣpasragādibhir alaṃkṛtaṃ mahiṣaṃ ghātayet | tadutthābhyāṃ raktamāṃśābhyāṃ mahākauśikamantrābhimantritabhyāṃpūtanādibhyo dadyāt | tatra kramaḥ | durgāgṛhasya nairṛtyāṃ diśi pādyādibhir upacāraiḥ pūtanāṃ sampūjya rudhiramāṃsabalim upanīya oṃ hrāṃ sphura sphura oṃ kuṭa kuṭa oṃ kṛnta kṛnta oṃ gulva gulva oṃ kumba kumba oṃ dhulva dhulva oṃ māraya māraya oṃ vidrāvaya vidrāvaya oṃ kampaya kampaya pura pura pūraya pūraya oṃ hāṃ oṃ hūṃ bhaṃ vaṃ hūṃ phaṭ phaṭ marda mardaoṃ hūṃ oṃ hūṃ iti mahākauśikamantram uccārya nairṛtyām eṣa rudhiramāṃsabaliḥ oṃ pūtanāyai nama iti dadyāt | evaṃ vāyavyāṃ eṣa māṃsarudhirabaliḥ oṃ pāparākṣasyai nama iti dadyāt | aiśānyām eṣa rudhiramāṃsabaliḥ oṃ carakyaiḥ namaḥ | āgneyyām eṣa rudhiramāṃsabaliḥ oṃ vidāryai namaḥ iti dadyāt | evaṃ pilipiñjāya namaḥ oṃ kravyādbhyo oṃ jambhakāya nama iti prāgadi dadyāt | atha śatrupratimāṃ piṣṭamayīṃ kṛtvā khaḍgena tac chiras chedayitvā oṃ skandāya 2 nama iti śiraḥ skandāya 3 dattvā oṃ viśākhāya nama iti kabandhaṃ viśākhāya dadyāt | atha sacelaṃ snātvā śuklāmbaradharaḥ suprakṣālitapāṇipāda ācāntaḥ punar ardhayāminīśeṣe devīṃ pūjayet | tatra vidhiḥ | kṣireṇa ghṛtena dadhna ikṣurasena madhunā śarkarayā jalena ca pratyekam aṣṭorattaraśatapalaparimitena dhūpadipāntaritaṃ nānāvādyaghoṣair mūlamantreṇ a snāpayitvā yavagodhūmalodhravalkalacūrṇair uṣṇodakasahitair virukṣya sukhoṣṇa-varin. a prakṣālya sugandhavariṇa snāpayet | tataḥ pādyārghācamanīyādi dattvā kuṅkumaguru-karpūracandanāny adaya mūlam uccārya idam anulepanam oṃ durgāyai nama ity anulipya kauṣeyādivastrāṇi yathāvibhavaṃ ratnādihemamayāni bhūṣaṇāni grathitāni droṇajātīcampakādīni surabhipuṣpāni ca mūlam uccārya oṃ durgāyai nama iti nivedayet | dhūpadīpaprabhūtanaivedyasukhavāsatambūlārātrikopānacchatracāmaravyajanaghaṇtāvitanayavadhānyāni dadyāt | tataḥ praṇamya stutvā chāgādibaliṃ dadyāt | ity ardharātradurgāpujāvidhiḥ || ibid., pp. 196–8. See also Kṛtyaratnākara, pp. 360–1. Here the Mahākauśika mantra given is as follows: oṃ hriṃ oṃ skuruṃ oṃ kulv (2) oṃ ghunu (2) oṃ gulu (2) oṃ tulu (2) oṃ ghunu (2) māraya (2) vibhrāmaya (2) kampaya (2) kampātaya (2) pura (2) pūraya oṃ drūṃ oṃ oṃ bhraṃ raṃ hruṃ phaṭ phaṭ mardaya (2) oṃ hruṃ oṃ hrīṃ (Kṛtyaratnākara, p. 353). (138) For text and translation of this passage in the Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī see Sarkar (2012: 379– 81). The Navadurgāpūjā also appears in the Kṛtyaratnākara, and was therefore known to the Maithilas since Caṇḍeśvara’s time (Kṛtyaratnākara, pp. 362–3). He also provides the option of installing the goddesses in a straight line, rather than a maṇḍala. The later Bengali tradition of Raghunandana identified the central Ugracaṇḍā with Bhadrakālī (Sarkar 2012: 380). (139) atha mahānavamīkṛtyaṃ | tatra triśulakṛtidurgāpūjāvidhiḥ | prātaḥ kṛtanityakriyaḥ suprakṣālitapāṇipāda ācāntaḥ prāṇmukha udaṅmukho vopaviśya kuśatrayatilajalāny ādāya | adya mahanavamyāṃmahāpātakādisakalapāpakṣayadharmayaśodīrghāyuṣṭvabrahmalokagamanabrahmendrarudraviṣṇ-vādiprāptiparamapadaprāptikāmas triśūlakṛtiṃ bhagavatiṃ durgādevīm ahaṃ pūjayiṣye | iti saṃkalpya sūpalipte sthaṇḍile kāṣṭhādimayaṃ caṇḍikatmakaṃ triśūlaṃ nidhāya tirthavāriṇā dugdhamadhughṛtādinā snāpayet | tato vāriṇā prakṣṇlya mano jyotir ityādimantreṇa pratiṣṭhāpyasapuṣpākṣatam ādāya oṃ bhagavati can. dike ihāgaccha iha tiṣṭha ityādināvāhya sthāpayitvā etāni pādyārghācamaniyasnānīyapunarācamanīyāni oṃ bhagavatyai caṇḍikāyai nama iti pādyādi dattvāidaṃ kuṅkumanulepanaṃ dattvā oṃ caṇḍikāyai namaḥ iti sitakusumāñjalitrayeṇa pūjayet | karavīrajapājātībilvapatrādimālābhir abhyarcya eṣa ghṛtagugguladhūpa oṃ caṇḍikāyai nama ḥ eṣadipa etāni tāmbulāni etāni naivedyāni idaṃ Page 49 of 56 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights vastraṃ bṛhaspatidaivataṃ oṃ caṇḍikayai nama iti pratyekaṃ dadyāt | evam eva hiraṇyaratnabhusaṇasindurālaktakaṃ paṭṭakasūtikādi dadyāt | tataḥ praṇamya maṇikāñcanabhūṣitam. triśulaṃ haye samāropya samantato dhvajachatracāmarad-iśobhānvitaṃ nānāvāditranirghoṣair devyālayaṃ nitvā devyāḥ purataḥ sthāpayet | atha punas tatrāpi pādyārghācamaniyasnāniyapunarācamaniyānulepanasitapuśpadhupadipatāmbulanaivedyavāsobh-iḥ oṃ caṇḍikāyai namaḥ iti pūjāṃ vidhāya praṇamya durgāṃ śivāṃ m. am. śāntikarīm ityādistotreṇ a stutvā oṃ mahiṣaghni mahāmāye ityādi rūpaṃ dehi ityādi sarvamaṅgalamāṅgalye ityādi kuṅkumenasamālabdhe ityādikaṃ paṭhitvā kṣamasveti visarjayet | Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, pp. 200–2. The mantra mano jyotir etc. is in Vājasaneyisaṃhitā, 2.13 (reference provided by Alexis Sanderson). (140) Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, pp. 201–2. (141) atha mātṛcakrapūjanaṃ | tatra kuśatrayatilajalāny ādāya adya svanivāsarāṣtrādhikaraṇakaśārvatrikabhayābhāvagobhūripayastvadvijayajñaparatvabhūpālavairinivṛttisubhikṣakṣemārogyayathākāmaparjanyavarṣaṇasasyasampattikāmo brahmāṇyadimātr.āpujanam ahaṃ kariṣye | iti saṃkalpya | candanenāṣṭadalapadmam m. ālikhya madhye caṇḍikāṃ sampūjyākṣatam ādaya oṃ brahmāṇi ihāgaccha iha tiṣṭhetyādināvāhya sthāpayitvā pādyārghācamanīyasnānīyapunarācamanī-yagandhapuṣpadhūpadīpatambūlanaivedyavastraiḥ oṃ brahmāṇyai nama iti prāgdale | āgneyadale oṃ māheśvaryai namaḥ | dakṣiṇadale oṃ kaumāryai namaḥ | nairṛtadale oṃ vaiṣṇavyai namaḥ | paścimadale oṃ vārāhyai namaḥ | vāyavyadale oṃ nārasiṃhyai namaḥ | uttaradale oṃ aindryai namaḥ | īśānadale oṃ śivadūtyai namaḥ | madhye oṃ cāmuṇdāyai namaḥ iti pūjayet | atha mātṛbhyaḥ sandhyābalidānam m. m. m. m. | kuśatrayatilajalāny ādāya | asyāṃ mahānavamyāṃ sāyaṃ sandhyayāṃsakaladuritakṣayakāmo brahmāṇyādi mātṛbhyaḥ pūjāpūrvakaghṛtadīpasamāṃsasamāṣabhak-tabalidanam ahaṃ kariṣye | iti saṃkalpya gomayopalipte bhūbhāge candanādinā aṣṭadalapadmamālikhya pradakṣiṇakrameṇa pracyādyaṣṭadaleṣu madhye ca brahmāṇī māheśvarīkaumārīvaiṣṇavivārāhinarasiṃhyaindriśivaduticāmun.ḍā iti navamātṛṛ āvāhya sthapayitvā pādyādibhir upacārair abhyarccya ete ghṛtapradipā oṃ brahmāyai namaḥ iti kramen. a dipān dattvā oṃ brahmāṇyai eṣa saṃāṃsasamasabhaktabalir namaḥ | ityādina brahmāṇyādimātṛbhyo navabhyo ’pi samāṃsasa-māṣabhaktabalin dadyat | iti mātṛcakrapujāvidhiḥ | Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇi, p. 203 (āgneyadale oṃ māheśvaryai namaḥ | dakṣiṇadale] em. Sanderson, oṃ brahmāṇyaī nama iti prāgdale oṃ kaumāryainamaḥ | edn). (142) Ibid., pp. 203–4. (143) athāśvaśālāyāṃ revantādipūjā | tatra kuśatilajalāny ādāya | adya mahānavamyāṃ sakalāśvotpātapīḍāśāntinairujyadirghāyustvasamr.ddhikāmo revantoccaiḥśravasturan.gapūjanam ahaṃ kariṣye iti saṅkalpa sthaṇḍilopari sapuṣpākṣatam ādāya revanta ihāgaccha iha tiṣṭhety āvāhya sthāpyitvā etānipādyārghacamanīyapunarācamanīyāni oṃ revantāya nama iti pādyādi dattvā oṃ revantāya nama ity anulipya oṃ namo devādhidevāya turaṅgavanacāriṇe | sūryaputrāya devāya turaṇgānāṃ hitāyaca | turaṇgapariṣadyasya nṛgajopari dhāvati | svāśvam aśvadhipaṃ m. rakṣa śaraṇaṃ tvāṃ vrajāmy ahaṃ | iti paṭhitva revantaya nama iti puṣpāñjalitrayeṇa pūjayet | etāni gandhapuṣpadhupadipatām-bulanaivedyāni oṃ revantāya nama idaṃ vastraṃ bṛhaspatidaivataṃ oṃ revantāya nama ity utsṛjet | tato ’ñjaliṃ baddhvā sūryaputra mahabaho chāyāhṛdayanandana | śāntiṃ kuru turaṅgānāṃrevantaya namo ’stu te || iti stutvā praṇamet |

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights chagādibaliṃ dadyāt | adya mahānavamyāṃ sakalāśvotpātapīḍāśāntinairujyadirghāyustasamr.ddhikāma imam. chāgaṃvahnidaivatam. meṣaṃ vāvaruṇadaivataṃ mahiṣam va yamadaivataṃ bhagavate revantāyahaṃ ghātayiṣye | iti saṃkalpya ghatayet | rūpaṃ dehityādinā varaṃ prārthayet praṇamec ca | tataḥ sthaṇḍilopari sapuṣpakṣatamādāya oṃ uccaiḥśrava ihāgaccha iha tiṣṭhetyadinavahya sthāpayitvā uccaiḥśravase nama iti pādyādibhir upacāraiḥ pūjayet | atha kṛtakṣaurān snāpitān alaṇkṛtān mukhyāśvapurahsarān turaṅgamān sannidhāpya eṣo ’rghaḥ oṃ turaṅgebhyo nama ity arghaṃ dattvā gandhādibhir upacāraiḥ pūjayet | turaṇgānāṃ karṇajmāpam imam. paṭhet | oṃ gandharvakulajāto’si mā bhūyāḥ kuladūṣakaḥ | brahmaṇaḥ satyavākyena somasya m. varuṇasya ca | tejasā caiva śūryasya munīnāṃ tapasa tathā | rudrasya brahmacaryeṇa pavanasya balena ca | prabhāvāc ca hutāśasya varddhasva tvaṃ turaṅgama | smara tvaṃ rajaputro’si kaustubhaṃ ca maṇiṃ smara | surāsurair mathyamānāt kṣirodād amṛtādibhiḥ | jāta uccaiḥśravāḥ pūrvāṃ tena jāto’si tat smaraḥ || yāṃ gatim. brahmahā gacchet pitṛha mātṛhā tathā | bhīmyarthe ’nṛtavādī ca raṇe yaś ca parāṅmukhaḥ || śūryācandramasau vāyur yāvat paśyanti duṣkṛtaṃ | vrajes tvaV m. ṭāṃ gatiṃ kṣipraṃ tac ca pāpaṃ bhavet tava || vikṛtiṃ yadi gacchethā yuddhe ’dhvanā turaṅgama | ripūn vijitya samare saha bhartrā sukhībhava || turaṅgama ciraṃ jīva paraśastrair alakśitaḥ | sadā māṃ samare rakṣa svāmikāryaṃ sadā kuru || iti revantapūjāvidhiḥ | Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇi, pp. 204–6 (sakalāśvotpāta] em. Sanderson, sakalāśvotpatti edn). (144) gītanityavadyabrahmaghośakridakautukaman.galapurahsaraṃ srotojalasamīpaṃ gatvā […] srotasi pravāhayet | ibid., p. 207. See also Kṛtyaratnākara, p. 362, where the same Śābarotsava rites are taught. (145) khaḍge khaḍgatanusthitir dhanuṣi ca prāptā dhanuḥsaṃhatiṃ bāṇe bāṇavapur bhuje bhujamayī gātre tanutrākṛtiḥ | saṃgrāme ’grajayāya cintitavidhau cintamaṇir bhūbhujāṃ yā sā syād aparājita tava muhur jaitrāya dhātrīpate || Yaśastilakacampū, 3.459. (146) atha vijayādaśamyāṃ devṃipreṣṇānantaram aparājitāpūjavidhiḥ | tatra kuśatrayatilajalvny ādāya oṃ adya śukladaśamyaāṃ yātrāyāṃ vijayakāmo ’parajitāpūjām ahaṃ kariṣye iti saṃkalpya candanādināṣṭadalapadmam m. ālikhya tanmadhye oṃ aparājitāyai nama ity aparājitāṃ taddakṣiṇe oṃ kriyāśaktyai nama m. m. iti jayāṃ| vāme oṃ umāyai nama iti vijayāṃ pratiṣṭhāpya pūjayet | oṃ caturbhūjām. pītavastrāṃ sarvabharaṇabhusitāṃ dakśiṇavamayor uparitanahastayoḥ khaḍgacarmadharām adhastanahastayor m. m. varābhayacihnāṃ trinetram iṣatprahasitavadanām aparājitāṃ dhyātvā †bāhya† sthāpayitvā oṃ hrīṃ aparājitāyai nama iti pādyādibhiḥ pūjayitvā bahutarāparājitāpuṣpadroṇ apuṣpabilvapatram abhyarcayet | oṃ hrīṃ aparājitāhṛdayāya namaḥ ity aparājitāhṛdayaṃ oṃ hrīṃ astrāya phaḍ ity astrāṇi pūjayet | tato dakṣiṇe jayāyai nama iti jayāṃ vāme vijayāyai nama iti vijayāṃ pūjayitvā gandhapuṣpadhūpadīpatāmbūlanaivedyavastrāṇi nivedya praṇamya oṃ cāruṇā mukhapadmena vicitrakanakojjvalā | jayādevī śive bhaktyā sarvān kāmān dadātu me || kāñcanena vicitreṇa keyūreṇa vibhūṣitā | jayapradā mahāmāye śivabhāvitacetasā || vijayā tu mahābhāgā dadātu vijayaṃ mama | hāreṇa suvicitreṇa bhāsvatkanakamekhalā || aparājitā rudralatā karotu vijayaṃ mama | iti paṭhitvā haridrāpītavastre dūrvāsahitasiddhārthakān baddhvā ācārād aparājitāvalayaṃ ca devyā hṛdaye nidhāyābhilaṣitakāmanayā svāṅge dhārayet | ācārād astrāṇai saṃpūjya khaḍgam ādāya oṃkāram uccārayan pradakṣiṇaṃ kuryāt | sadāparājite yasmāt tvaṃ latāsūttamā smṛtā | sarvakāmārthasiddhyarthaṃ tasmāt tvāṃ dharayamy ahaṃ || bhavāparājite devi mama sarvasamṛ-ddhaye | pūjtāyāṃ tvayi śreyo mamāstu duritaṃ hataṃ || ity aparājitāvalayam abhimantrya oṃ jayade varade devi daśamyām aparājite | dhārayāmi bhuje dakṣe jayalābhābhivṛddhaye || balam ādhehi valaya mama śatrau parājayam | tvaddhāraṇād bhaveyur dhanadhānyasamṛddhayaḥ || iti mantreṇa bāhau dhārayanti | tataḥ praṇamya | imāṃ

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights pūjāṃ mayā devi yathāśaktyā niveditāṃ | rakṣārthaṃ ca samādāya vrajasva sthānam uttamaṃ | iti visarjayet | athābhiṣekaḥ | […] iti mantreṇa śāntikalaśam utthāpya tajjalena brāhmaṇāḥ paurāṇikamahāmantrair yajamānam abhisiñceyuḥ | Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, pp. 208–9 (svāṅge] conj., svāṅke edn). See also Kṛtyaratnākara, pp. 365–6. (147) The rite of Devagiri can be summarized as follows. First to the Fifth lunar days: fasting, worshipping Śiva, feasting maidens, japa and homa (attributed to the Devīpurāṇa); worship of horses till the Ninth (attributed to the Devīpurāṇa); the worship of weapons and insignia by the king (lohābhisārikakarman) followed by the daily parade of horses and elephants in the city until the Eighth (attributed to the Bhaviṣyottarapurāṇa); the worship of nine goddesses (not the navadurgās) in nine virgins (kumārīpūjā) until the Ninth (attributed to the Skandapurāṇa). Sixth lunar day: the goddess’s awakening (bodhana) in a bilva tree (attributed to the Liṅgapurāṇa). Seventh lunar day: the cutting of a branch of the bilva and its installation in the shrine (attributed ibid.). Eighth and Ninth lunar days (Aṣṭamī and Mahānavamī): the establishment of nine houses; establishing the goddess in a gold or silver sword or trident used during battle; worship with flowers etc.; hymns; fasting; at midnight on Mahānavamī, animal sacrifice for victory with the Mahākauśikamantra and offering to demons in directions; sacrifice of a doughdoll to Skanda-Viśākha; sharing the offerings with Kāpālikas and miscreants (duṣṭajanas); offerings to the goddess (attributed to the Devīpurāṇa); worship of devotees of the goddess and virgins (kumārīs). In the morning of Mahānavamī, a chariot procession with the goddess and carnival (attributed to the Devīpurāṇa and the Bhaviṣyottarapurāṇa); animal sacrifice to propitiate ghosts and demonesses; military procession (yātrā) (attributed to the Bhaviṣyottarapurana). Caturvargacintāmaṇi, vol. 2.1 (Vratakhaṇḍa), pp. 900–21. (148) Ibid., p. 903. (149) Stein (1983). (150) Iyer (2005: vol. 2, 56–71). (151) Price (1996: 139–46). The first report described by Price concerns Daśamī in Śivagaṅgai, the second describes the First lunar day (pratipat) of the Navarātra in Ramnad. (152) Iyer (2005: vol. 2, 60–1). (153) The Persian reporter Abdur Razzak, for instance, was seated in one of nine additional pavilions to view the public part of the festival in the arena, which were built to seat important officials and senior members of the army (Stein 1983: 80). (154) In the case of the Vijayanagara Navarātra, this shrine was built inside the main viewing pavilion where the king was seated, presumably so that he could have easy access to the deity (ibid., p. 79). (155) ‘For most of these purification and propitiatory rituals, performed by Brahmin priests with the raja or rani occasionally participating, ordinary … subjects were not present. The durbar assemblies, the arrow-shooting ceremony and the royal processions to and from these occasions required the presence of people’ (Price 1996: 140). In 1863, the abhiṣeka and coronation of the Rani of Śivagaṅgai during the First lunar day of the Navarātra was performed in the palace temple of Rājarājeśvarī and in the maṇḍapa inside the palace specially built for the consecration,

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights witnessed only by priests, king, family members and important associates of the ruler (ibid., pp. 141–2.) (156) The 1863 Navarātra in Śivagaṅgai was performed by the Queen Kathama Nachiar (Price 1996: 139). (157) Iyer (2005: vol. 2, 61–2). (158) Price (1996: 144–5). (159) Stein (1983: 73, 86). (160) Ibid., p. 88. (161) See esp. Stein (1983: 78–84) and also Iyer (2005: vol. 2, 60–2). (162) Viṣṇubhaṭṭa refers to Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita, a scholar from the 17th century, as an authority (Puruṣārthacintāmaṇi, p. 101). Of Viṣṇubhaṭṭa not much is known (ibid., Introduction, p. 35) save, from the opening verses of his work, that he was born in the lineage of Atri, that his father was known as Rāmakṛṣṇa Sūrī and that he had acquired the title ‘Āṭhavaḷe’. He also seems to have written in order to resolve certain points of difference between the works of the dharmaśāstrins Hemādri and Mādhava, and his own writings were possibly viewed as clarifying in a new light the older smārta literature: atreḥ samudbhavād rāmakṛṣṇasūrir abhūt kulāt | āṭhavale iti khyātāt tannetrāc candramā iva | tadātmajo viṣṇubhaṭṭa puruṣārthaprabhāsake | granthe cintāmaṇau kālasamyagjñānaprasiddhaye | hemādrinā mādhavasya virodhaḥ kālanirṇaye | iti jñātvā ḳrtās te ’taḥ parasparavirodhinaḥ | navīnaviduṣāṃ granthāḥ suprasiddham idaṃ hy ataḥ | Puruṣārthacintāmaṇi, vv. 2–5ab, p. 1. The Introduction notes that the work was well known among dharmaśāstra scholars throughout India (ibid., p. 43). It was first published by Ānandāśrama Press in 1903. (163) Note by the editor, K. Vasudeva Sastri, Introduction to Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, p. 4. (164) Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, 99.8–10. (165) Stein (1983: 79). They are identified by Paes as the ‘King’s Audience Hall’ (ibid.), which must be none other than the āsthānamaṇḍapa, and the ‘House of Victory/Throne Platform’, where the king was to be seated on his throne (ibid.), which must refer to the puṣpamaṇḍapa. (166) See also Puruṣārthacintāmaṇi, p. 81. (167) Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, 99.11–21. (168) Ibid., 100.2–3. Read vijitendriyaḥ where the text says vijitedriyaḥ. (169) Price (1996: 144). (170) Iyer (2005: vol. 2, p. 60). (171) Sāmrājayalakṣmīpīṭhikā, 100.5–21.

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights (172) evam āvāhanāl lakṣmyās tejobalaparākramaiḥ | adhikaṃ śobhate rājā śāṇollīḍho maṇir yathā | yathā svalpaphalo vṛkṣo dohadena phalādhikaḥ | sāmrājyalakṣmyās tv āvāhād rājā caiśvaryavān bhavet | yathā kāṣṭhagatā jvālā guṇatailāt prabhādhikā | tathā lakṣmīsamāyogād bhūpo ’pi syāt prabhādhiko |[…] sthālī guṇarasāktāpi bhrājate nāgninā vinā | tathā śriyā vinā bhūpo rāṣṭraiśvaryair na bhāsate | tasmād āvāhanaṃ lakṣmyāḥ kāryaṃ rājñi purodhasā | Sāmrājayalakṣmīpīṭhikā, 100.8b–13. (173) tasmāl lakṣmīṃ samāvāhya purodhās tadanantaram | āśīrbhir vardhayed rājyalakṣmīyuktamahīpatim | ibid., 100.15. (174) Ibid., Adhyāya 101. (175) Ibid., Adhyāya 102. (176) Ibid., Adhyāya 104. (177) Ibid., 105.1–9. (178) Price (1996: 144). (179) Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, 105.10–30; Puruṣārthacintāmaṇi, pp. 86–92 (here the worship is called the lohābhisārikapūjā, ‘Purification of Weapons’). (180) Stein (1983: 80, 86). (181) Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, 106.1–3. (182) Stein (1983: 80, 81–2). (183) Iyer (2005: vol. 2, 62). (184) Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, 106.1–6. (185) Stein (1983: 80). (186) Iyer (2005: vol. 2, 60–1). (187) Price (1996: 145). (188) Ibid. (189) Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, 106.8–9. (190) divyastrīvījamānābhyāṃ cāmarābhyāṃ virājitaḥ | sravannirjharapūgābhyām anvito nagarāḍ iva || ibid., 106.10. (191) acchamauktikagucchena śvetacchatreṇa śobhitaḥ | sevārtham āgateneva satāreṇa sudhāṃśunā | ibid., 106.11. (192) Ibid., 106.12–18. (193) Price (1996: 145).

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights (194) Stein (1983: 79). Even though the deity displayed with the Rāya king is unidentified in the sources consulted by Stein, it is highly likely, given the parallel in Ramnad, that this would have been the tutelary goddess of the Rāyas. (195) The dolls (pāñcālikāḥ) seem to be described as shadow-puppets: tato yavanikāvītakāyamānāntarasthitāḥ | paśyet pāñcālikāḥ pūrvakathābhinayasūcikāḥ || Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, 107.16b–17a. (196) tato dvīpāntarajanapratibimbair adhiṣṭhitām | nāvan narapatiḥ paśyed vikārākārabhīṣaṇaiḥ || ibid., 107.28b–29a. (197) tatparaṃ tan nṛpaḥ paśyet pratirūpaṃ hanumataḥ | sindhūllaṅghanajaṅghālas smaryate yena mārutiḥ | ibid., 107.26b–27a. (198) Ibid., 107.1–32. (199) Iyer (2005: vol. 2, 61–2). (200) Stein (1983: 80). (201) Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, 107.33–48. (202) Iyer (2005: vol. 2, 62). (203) Ibid., p. 63. (204) Price (1996: 142). (205) Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, 108.1–28. (206) Price (1996: 142). (207) Ibid. (208) Ibid. (209) Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, Adhyāya 109. (210) Price (1996: 140–3). (211) Ibid., pp. 145–6. (212) Iyer (2005: vol. 2, 63). (213) athāśvinaśukladaśamyāṃ rājānaṃ praty uktaṃ Gopathabrāhmaṇe: rājā nirgatya bhavanāt purohitapurogamaḥ | prāsthānikaṃ vidhiṃ kṛtvā pratiṣṭhet pūrvato diśi | gatvā nagarasīmāntaṃ vāstupūjāṃ samārabhet | sampūjya cātha dikpālān pūjayet pathi devatāḥ | mārge śamītarumūle dikpālapūjanapūrvakaṃ vāstupūjanaṃ kuryād ity arthaḥ | mantrair vaidikapaurāṇaiḥ pūjayec ca śamītarum | amaṅgalānāṃ m. m. m. śamanīṃ śamanīṃ duṣkṛtasya ca | duḥkhapraśamanīṃ dhanyāṃprapadye ’haṃ śamīṃ śamin śubhām | tataḥ kṛtāśīḥ pūrvasyāṃ diśi viṣṇukramān kramet | ripoḥ pratikṛtiṃ kṛtvā dhyātvā ca manasātha tam | śareṇa svarṇapuṅkhena vidhyed

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Navarātra: The Festival of the Nine Nights dhṛdaya†varmaṇi† | diśāṃ vijayamantrāś ca paṭhitavyāḥ purodhasā | pūrvam eva vidhiṃ kuryād dakṣiṇādidiśāsv api | Puruṣārthacintāmaṇi, p. 183. (214) Ibid., Adhyāya 110; Puruṣārthacintāmaṇi, pp. 84–6. For Hemādri’s kumārīpūjā see p. 259 above. (215) Ibid., Adhyāya 111. (216) Ibid., 110.24–5. (217) Ibid., 110.11–19.

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Durgā and the Making of Early Indian Civilization

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

Durgā and the Making of Early Indian Civilization Bihani Sarkar

DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.003.0009

Abstract and Keywords This chapter provides a conclusion to the book. The historical phases and their inner tensions described in the previous chapters reveal that Durgā's representation of the civilizational process and the problem of chaos remained fundamental throughout her longue durée. In a wider sense, the goddess was an intimate part of the making of early Indian civilization. Each of the three political orders within which the story, and stories, of Durgā unfolded signalled a different period in Indian culture. Whatever the principal idea-maps about people, society and power latent in the air, they became imbued in the goddess. Under the Central Asian Kuṣāṇas, whose empire was a symbiosis of Hellenistic and Iranian cultures, Durgā's personality interwove elements from those traditions, and the extent to which she was indebted to percolations from far-away Bactria may be much greater than we now assume. Under the more parochial, Brahmanical Guptas, Durga's form articulated the Vaiṣṇava ‘classical’; under both empires her single identity as a Vaiṣṇava goddess resonated with the centralized imperial structure. When the atavika New World took over, and classicism began to be reformulated, the form of the goddess became heterogeneous, and harmonious with indigenous belief systems belonging to smaller kingdoms on the rise. Heroic Śāktism offered an idea of power that was in the world, not removed from it. It gave a sense of the divine that hovered close above the ocean of saṃsāra (an image often evoked in Sanskrit poems to Durga), ready to bridge the distance between heaven and earth in order to intervene when the duress of civilizational reformation grew debilitating for its agents. In this way, the goddess's cult represented nothing less than the civilizational transmutations of the classical period from the 3rd to the 12th century. At every stage, it allowed the inclusion of the liminal into articulations concerning civilization, and through this a radical reforming of the old order. Keywords:   Durgā, conclusion, civilizational process, Guptas, Kuṣāṇas, historical phases

Durgā, the demon-slaying warrior goddess of Indian religion, is a bewilderingly composite deity, whose narratives and roles accumulated in layers over time. Numerous legends are extant about her origin which give very different accounts of her birth. The most authoritative among these

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Durgā and the Making of Early Indian Civilization legends, the Devīmāhātmya, presents three stories of how she was born: the first as an embodiment of the god Viṣṇu’s sleep; the second from a fusion of light that radiated from the foreheads of gods; the third through a reconstitution of the goddess Pārvatī’s rejected black skin. We have also seen that her overall personality underwent some extreme transitions. From the 3rd to the 7th centuries, she was considered dark. From the 8th century she was thought to be white with the light of the gods. At the same time, from virgin she became a mother; from young, beautiful and bejewelled, she became emaciated, bone-adorned and demon-like as the Śaiva-Kāpālika version of Kālarātri. At a social level, different personalities clustered around her from at least the 7th century, when records attest to her absorption of other local goddesses. In her worship, traditions usually taken to be mutually distinct—the Tantric, the tribal, the Purāṇic, the Śaiva, the Vaiṣṇava, the Jaina, the Buddhist, the local—all intersected. The reason for these radical alterations and stark paradoxes was that she mirrored the sociopolitical. She was both shaped by and projected in herself the complexity of interactions in the ancient Indian landscape of cultural conflict and conversation. Her example invites us to question readily assumed schisms—particularly between what is ‘Hindu’ and ‘non-Hindu’—in Indian historiography, since they all overlap in her. There is even the impression that these religious currents, beginning with the Vaiṣṇava, only attempted to claim her as their own, but nevertheless in each of them she stands to some extent as an outsider. History shows us that Durgā never had a fixed identity, apart from one: her ferocious, liminal aspect thought to control death and thereby war. As argued in this book, this core, thought to avert dangers, evoked in the name Durgā itself and accessed through rituals, abides despite transformations. Her (p.273) control over endangering circumstances, over chaos and the ability to manage chaos in the world, became the characteristic that was most cherished by warrior-culture that prioritized a readiness to face mortality. Essentially, in describing her control over chaos, culture was articulating Durgā’s power over civilizational crises. In her came alive a primeval idea of civilization, one that was ever aware of its own demise and of the impermanence of its glory. Such a civilization was profoundly in awe of chaos, the unknown and the elemental. It believed that expansion came not by continued mastery but by conciliation with the dangerous forces of the unknown. The historical phases and their inner tensions that I have described in as much detail as possible reveal that Durgā’s representation of the civilizational process and the problem of chaos remained fundamental throughout her longue durée. In a wider sense the goddess was an intimate part of the making of early Indian civilization. Each of the three political orders within which the story, and stories, of Durgā unfolded signalled a different period in Indian culture. Whatever the principal idea-maps about people, society and power latent in the air, they became imbued in the goddess. Under the Central Asian Kuṣāṇas, whose empire was symbiotic of Hellenistic and Iranian cultures, Durgā’s personality interwove elements from those traditions, and the extent to which she was indebted to percolations from far-away Bactria may be much greater than we now assume. Under the more parochial, Brahmanical Guptas, Durgā’s form articulated the Vaiṣṇava ‘classical’; under both empires her single identity as a Vaiṣṇava goddess resonated with the centralized imperial structure. When the āṭavika New World took over, and classicism began to be reformulated, the form of the goddess became heterogeneous, and harmonious with indigenous belief systems belonging to smaller kingdoms on the rise. Heroic Śāktism offered an idea of power that was in the world, not removed from it. It gave a sense of the divine that hovered close above the ocean of saṃsāra (an image often evoked in Sanskrit

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Durgā and the Making of Early Indian Civilization poems to Durgā), ready to bridge the distance between heaven and earth in order to intervene when the duress of civilizational reformation grew debilitating for its agents. The cultivated imperialism of small lineages participating in the process of entrepreneurial kingship propelled her cultic expansion. Many of the lineages that were worshippers of the goddess or sponsored her shrines had larger political ambitions of forming greater empires. Their worship of the victory-bestowing Durgā went hand in hand with their political aggrandizement. Through the patronage of those lineages, Durgā acquired greater prestige from her initial cult bases in Mathurā and in the Vindhya region by acquiring important temples. Among these, two mentioned in records were established in major seats of political and religious power in the Gangetic plains, Pāṭaliputra, the heart of the mighty old kingdom of Magadha, and (p.274) Vārāṇasī and Tāmralipta on the eastern alluvial plains. At the same time, she was worshipped in the south in the Pallava domains surrounding Kañcī, and in Cālukya territories in the western part of the southern peninsula. By the 10th century there arose more cult centres in Rajasthan, Mahārāṣṭra, Bengal and in the Himachal regions. Similarly, the internal history of the ritual of the goddess, the Navarātra, parallels the move from empire to independent kingdoms. Beginning as a small ritual, it transplanted the more classical Vedic modes of ‘making’ kingship such as the aśvamedha and the rājasūya, as the religious expressions of the āṭavika world radically reshaped received wisdom about classicism. So it was that the cult of the goddess in the context of the ‘new world’ developed a double identity, in which the other face was an indigenous one. The tribal following of Śakti was a fact well known to Sanskrit writers till the 10th century, a period when literary authors still described in great detail the warrior-goddess’s mleccha devotees. In this way, the goddess’s cult represented nothing less than the civilizational transmutations of the classical period from the 3rd to the 12th century. At every stage it allowed the inclusion of the liminal into articulations concerning civilization, and through this a radical reforming of the old order.

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Bibliography

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

(p.275) Bibliography Bihani Sarkar

Bibliography references: CII Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum EI Epigraphia Indica SII South Indian Inscriptions Primary Sources Printed Primary Sources Ācāradinakara of Vardhamānasūri, vols 1 and 2, ed. Ramebandra Yesu Shedge (Bombay, Nirnaya Sagar Press, 1922). Agnipurāṇa, based on the edition by Rajendralal Mitra, Calcutta, Asiatic Society of Bengal 1870– 79, 3 vols (Bibliotheca Indica 65, 1–3), GRETIL e-text by Jun Takashima, 2001. Annadāmaṅgal of Rāiguṇākar Bhāratacandra, in Bhāratacandra-Granthāvalī, ed. Vrajendranātha Bandopādhyāya & Sajanīkānta Dāsa (Calcutta, Vaṅgīya Śāhitya Pariṣat, 1958 [Bengali year 1369]). Arthaśāstra by Kauṭilya, Part I, ed. R. P. Kangle (University of Bombay, 1960). Bṛhaddharmapurāṇa, ed. Pañcānana Tarkaratna (Calcutta, Navabhārata Publishers, 1989). Buddhacarita, Parts 1 and 2, ed. and trans. E. H. Johnston, Panjab University Oriental Publications 31 (Calcutta Baptist Mission Press, 1935). Caṇḍiśataka by Bāṇa, ed. Durgāprasāda & Kāśīnātha Pāṇḍurang Parab, Kāvyamālā IV (Varanasi, Chaukhamba Bharati Academy, 1988).

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Bibliography Caturvargacintāmaṇi of Hemādri, ed. Yajñeśvara Smṛtiratna & Kāmākṣyānātha Tarkavagiśa, Bibliotheca Indica 72, Parts I and II (Calcutta, 1888–95). Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum (CII), Inscriptions of the Early Gupta Kings and their Successors, vol. 3 (Calcutta, Government of India, Central Publications Branch, 1888). Daśakumāracarita of Daṇḍin, ed. M. R. Kale (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1986). Devībhāgavatapurāṇa, ed. Rāmateja Pāṇḍeya (Varanasi, Chowkhamba Vidyābhavana, repr. 2003). Devīmāhātmya, Durgāsaptaśatī with seven commentaries by Guptavatī and others, ed. Harikṛṣṇa Śarman (Bombay, Venkateshwara Press, 1988). Devīmāhātmya, draft electronic edition by Yuko Yukochi, containing the transcripts of the following manuscripts: NAK Nr. 1–1077 = NGMPP Nr. A 1157/11; NAK (p.276) Nr. 1–1534 = NGMPP Nr. A 1157/12; Palm-leaf manuscript in the possession of Sam Fogg, London. Devīpurāṇa, ed. Śrījīva Nyāyatīrtha (Calcutta, Navabhārata Publishers, 1991 [Bengali year 1400]). Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī of Vidyāpati, ed. Iśāna Candra Śarman (Calcutta, Saṃskṛta Śāhitya Pariṣad, 1856 [Śaka era 1932]). Durgāpūjātattva of Raghunandana Bhaṭṭācārya, ed. Satīśa Candra Siddhāntabhūṣaṇa (Calcutta, Saṃskṛta Śāhitya Pariṣad, 1922 [Bengali year 1331]). Durgāpūjāviveka, ed. Satiśa Candra Siddhāntabhūṣaṇa, Saṃskṛta Śāhitya Pariṣad series 7 (Shyambazar, Calcutta, 1922 [Bengali year 1331]). Durgotsavaviveka of Śulapāṇi: see Durgāpūjāviveka, pp. 1–27. Ekaliṅgamāhātmya, ed. Premlata Sharma (Patna, Motilal Banarsidass, 1976). Epigraphia Carnatica, Archaeological Department: Mysore Archaeological Survey, 17 vols (1837–1927; subsequently reprinted). Epigraphia Indica (EI), A Corpus of Inscriptions Supplementary to the Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Archaeological Survey of India (Delhi, Manager of Publications, 1939–). Gaüḍavaho by Bappaī/Vākpati, ed. S. Pandurang Pandit, with Sanskrit chāyā by Haripāla, Bombay Sanskrit Series 34 (Bombay, 1887). Gosānīmaṅgal of Rādhākṛṣṇa Dāsa Vairāgī, ed. N. N. Pal (Calcutta, 1978; corrected edn 2008). Haravijaya by Ratnākara, ed. Pandit Durgaprasad & Kashinath Pandurang Parab, with Commentary of Rājānaka Alaka, Kāvyamālā 22 (Bombay, Nirṇaya Śāgara Press, 1890; repr. 1982). Harivaṃśa, vols 1 and 2, crit. edn Parashuram Lakshman Vaidya et al. (Poona, Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, 1969–71).

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Bibliography Harṣacarita of Bāṇabhaṭṭa, Text of Ucchvāsas I–VIII, ed. P. n.V. Kane (Delhi, 1918; repr. 1986). Kādambarī of Bāṇa, ed. P. L. Vaidya (following Peterson’s edn), Poona Oriental Series (Poona, 1951). Kālaviveka by Jīmūtavāhana: see Durgāpūjāviveka, pp. 30–41. Kālikāpurāṇa, ed. B. Shastri, Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series (Varanasi, Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, 1972). Kalyāṇakamadhenu, unpublished draft edition, Harunaga Isaacson, University of Hamburg, 2010. Kathāsaritsāgara by Somadeva Bhaṭṭa, ed. Pandit Durgāprāsāda & Kāśīnātha Pāṇḍuraṅg Parab, 4th edn rev. Vasudeva Lakṣmaṇa Śastrī Paṇśīkar (Bombay, Nirṇaya Śāgara Press, 1930). Kṛtyakalpataru of Lakṣmīdhara, vol. 11, ‘Rājadharmakāṇḍa’, ed. R. Aiyangar, (Baroda, Oriental Institute, 1943). Kṛtyaratnākara of Caṇḍeśvara Ṭhakkura, ed. K. K. Smṛtitīrtha (Calcutta, The Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1925). Kulacūḍāmaṇitantra, ed. G. C. Vedāntatīrtha (Tantrik Texts, series ed. A. Avalon), vol. 4 (Calcutta, 1915). Kumārapālacaritrasaṃgraha, A collection of works of various authors relating to life of King Kumarapala of Gujarat, ed. Jīnavijaya Muni, Singhi Jain Series 41 (Bombay, Bharatiaya Vidya Bhavan, 1956). (p.277) Kumārapāladevacarita of Somadevasūrī: see Kumārapālacaritrasaṃgraha. Kumārapālaprabodhaprabandha: see Kumārapalacaritrasaṃgraha. Kuvalayamālā of Uddyotanasūri, ed. A. N. Upadhye, 2 parts, Singhi Jain Series 45 (Bombay, Bharatiaya Vidya Bhavan, Part 1: 1959). Mahābhārata, ed. Vishnu S. Sukthankar et al., Poona Critical Edition (Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1933–59). Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa, unpublished draft edition, Martin Delhey, University of Hamburg, 2010. Manusmṛti, ed. R. N. Sharma (Delhi, Chaukhamba Sanskrit Pratishthan, 1998). Nāmaliṅgānuśāsanam (Amarakośa), with the commentary Amarakośodghāṭana of Bhaṭṭa Kṣīrasvāmin, Poona Oriental Series 43 (Poona, Oriental Book Agency, 1941). Pṛthivīrājavijaya of Jayānaka with commentary of Jonarāja, ed. Gaurishankar Hirachand Ojha (Ajmer, Rai Bahadur Sahityavaspati and Gaurishankar H. Ojha, 1941). Purohitadarpaṇa, ed. Kṛṣṇacandra Smṛtitirtha (Calcutta, 1st edn 1968 [Bengali year 1374]; repr. 2011 [Bengali year 1417]). Puruṣārthacintāmaṇi of Viṣṇubhaṭṭa Āṭhavaḷe, ed. Vyāsa Miśra (Varanasi, 2006). Page 3 of 15 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Bibliography Raghuvaṃśa of Kālidāsa with commentary Sañjīvanī of Mallīnātha, Cantos 1–5, ed. M. R. Kale (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1972; repr. 1997). Rājanītiratnākara of Caṇḍeśvara Ṭhakkura, ed. Kāśiprasāda Jayasvāla (Patna, 1920). Rājataraṅgiṇī of Kalhaṇa: see Stein (1979). Rāmacarita of Abhinanda, ed. K. S. R. Śāstrī Śiromaṇi (Baroda, Oriental Institute, 1930). Rāmāyaṇa of Kṛttivāsa, ed. H. Mukhopadhyaya (Calcutta, Sahitya Samsad,.1st edn 1957, repr. 2005). Rāmāyaṇa of Vālmīki, ed. Bhat et al. (critical edn) (Baroda, Oriental Institute,.1960–75). Rgya gar chos ’byung: see Chimpa & Chattopadhyaya (2004). Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, ed. H. Kern & B. Nanjio, Bibliotheca Buddhica 10 (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1908–12; new edn 1992). Saduktikarṇāmṛta of Śrīdharadāsa, ed. S. Chandra Banerji (Calcutta, Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1965). Sahyādrikhaṇḍa of the Skandapurāṇa, ed. J. Gerson Da Cunha (Bombay, 1st edn 1877). Śāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā, ed. K. Vasudeva Sastri & K. S. Subrahmanya Sastri (Tanjavur, Tanjore Saraswati Mahal, 1952; repr. 1990). Śārṅgadharapaddhati of Śārṅgadhara, ed. P. Peterson, Bombay Sanskrit Series 37 (Bombay, Government Central Book Depot, 1867). Skandapurāṇa, The, ed. R. Bakker, H. Isaacson & A. Adriaenson, vols I and IIa, (Groningen, Egbert Forsten, 1998, 2004). Skandapurāṇa, The, vol. III (Adhyāyas 34.1–61, 53–69: The Vindhyavāsinī Cycle), ed. Y. Yokochi (Groningen, Brill, 2013). Skandapurāṇasya Ambikākhaṇḍa, ed. Krishnaprasad Bhattarai (Kathmandu, Mahendra Saṃskṛta Viśvavidyālaya, 1988). South Indian Inscriptions (SII), Archaeological Survey of India (Madras, Superintendent Government Press, 1890–1999). (p.278) Subhāṣitaratnakoṣa of Vidyākara, ed. D. D. Kosambi & V. V. Gokhale (Cambridge MA, 1957), e-text by Harunaga Isaacson (original input 1999–2000; rev. 2004, with corrections by Jan Brzezinski). Subhāṣitaratnakoṣa of Vidyākara, GRETIL e-text input by Harunaga Isaacson based on edn by D. D. Kosambi & V. V. Gokhale, Harvard Oriental Series 42 (Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1957); see also Ingalls (1965). Śuklayajurvedasaṃhitā (ŚrimadVājasaneyimadhyandinā), ed. W. L. S. Pansikar (Bombay, Nirnaya Sagar Press, 2nd edn 1928).

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Bibliography Surathotsava of Someśvaradeva, ed. Pandits Śivadatta & Kāśīnātha Pāṇḍurang Parab, Kāvyamālā 73 (Bombay, Nirṇaya Śāgara Press, 1902). Taittarīya Āraṇyaka of the Black Yajurveda with Commentary of Śāyaṇa, ed. Rājendralāla Mitra (Calcutta, Bibliotheca Indica, 1872). Tilakamañjarī of Dhanapāla, ed. Bhavadatta Śāstrī (Bombay, Nirnaya Sagar Press, 1938). Turajāmāhatmya: see Jansen (1995). Uttararāmacarita of Bhavabhūti, ed. R. Tripathi (Chaukhamba Sanskrit Pratisthan, year unknown). Vāmanapurāṇa, ed. A. S. Gupta (Varansi, All India Kashiraj Trust, 1968). Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa, ed. Kṣemarāja Śrikṛṣṇadāsa (Bombay, Venkateshvara Steam Press; repr. Nag Publishers, 1985). Yaśastilakacampū of Somadeva Śūrī, vols 1 and 2 with Commentary of Śrutadeva Śūrī, ed. Pandit Śivadatta & V. L. Śāstrī Paṇaśikar, Kāvyamāla 70 (Bombay.1916). Manuscripts Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī, MS Tantra 223, Calcutta Sanskrit College; complete manuscript in Maithila characters. Durgāpūjātattvam, MS Wilson 162, entitled ‘Durgotsavatattvam’, Bodleian Library, Oxford University; complete text in Bengali characters contained within a composite codex. Durgāvilāsa, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Orientabteilung, MS Chambers 428; complete manuscript of the mahākāvya in Devanagari characters. Secondary Sources References Ahmed, Khan Chowdhury Amanatullah (1936), A History of Cooch Bihar in Bengali (State Press of Cooch Bihar). Allen, Michael (1975), The Cult of Kumāri: Virgin Worship in Nepal (Kathmandu, Mandala Book Point). Allen, Nick (2001), ‘Athena and Durga: Warrior Goddesses in Greek and Sanskrit Epic’, in S. Deacy & A. Villing (eds), Athena in the Classical World (Leiden, Brill), 367–82. Aufrecht, Simon Theodore (1891–1903), Catalogus Catalogorum: An Alphabetical Register of Sanskrit Works and Authors (Leipzig). (p.279) Bailey, G. M. (1981), ‘Brahmā, Pṛthu and the Theme of the Earth-Milker in Hindu Mythology’, Indo-Iranian Journal, 23.2: 105–12. Bakker, H. T. (1997), The Vākāṭakas (Groningen, Egbert Forsten).

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Bibliography Bakker, H. T. (2004), ‘The Structure of the Vārāṇasimāhātmya in Skandapurāṇa 26–31’, in H. T. Bakker (ed.), Origin and Growth of the Purāṇic Text Corpus: With Special Reference to the Skandapurāṇa, Proceedings of the 12th World Sanskrit Conference, 3.2 (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass), 1–16. Baldissera, Fabrizzia (1996), ‘Caṇḍikā/Caṇḍi Vindhyavāsinī and Other Terrific Goddesses in the Kathāsaritsāgara’, in A. Michaels, C. Vogelsanger & A. Wilke (eds), Wild Goddesses in India and Nepal, Proceedings of an International Symposium in Berne and Zürich, 1994, Studia Religiosa Helvetica (Berne & Zürich, Peter Lang), 73–103. Beal, S. (2004), Su-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, translated from the Chinese of Hiuen Tsiang (ad 629) (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass; 1st published London, 1884). Bhattacharjee, J. B. (1987), ‘Dimasa State Formation in Cachar’, in S. Sinha (ed.), Tribal Polities and State Systems in Pre-colonial Eastern and North-Eastern India (Calcutta, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences). Bhattacharya, A. K. (1982), A Corpus of Dedicatory Inscriptions from Temples of West Bengal, c. 1500 A.D. to 1800 A.D. (Calcutta, Nabhana). Brighenti, Francesco (2001), Śakti Cult in Orissa (New Delhi, DK Printworld). Brockington, J. L. (2010), ‘The Spitzer Manuscript and the Mahābhārata’, in E. Franco & M. Zin (eds), From Turfan to Ajanta: Festschrift for Dieter Schlingloff on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday (Rupandehi, Lumbini International Research Institute), 75–87. Burnell, A. C. (1878), Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. (London, Trübner & Co.). Chakrabarti, K. (2001), Religious Process: The Purāṇas and the Making of a Regional Tradition (New Delhi, Oxford University Press). Chimpa, L. & Chattopadhyaya, A. (2004), Tārānātha’s History of Buddhism in India (trans. from the Tibetan) (Delhi; 1st published Simla, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1970). Coburn, Thomas B. (1984), Devīmāhātmya: The Crystallization of the Goddess Tradition (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass). Coedès, G. (ed.) (1964), Inscriptions du Cambodge, vol. VII: Collection de textes et documents sur l’Indochine, III (Paris, École Française d’Extrême-Orient). Couture, A. & Schmid, C. (2001), ‘The Harivaṃśa, the Goddess Ekānaṃśā, and the Iconography of the Vṛṣṇi Triads’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 121.2: 173–92. Crooke, W. (1896), The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, 4 vols (Calcutta, Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing). Cumont, F. (1975), ‘The Dura Mithraeum’, in J. R. Hinnells (ed.), Mithraic Studies, vol. 1 (Manchester, Manchester University Press), 151–214. Cunningham, A. (1885), Reports of a Tour in Bundelkhand and Rewa in 1883–84 (Calcutta).

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Bibliography Dalsheimer, N. (2001), Les Collections du musée national de Phnomh Penh: L’árt du Cambodge ancien (Paris, École Française d’Extrême-Orient). (p.280) Dasgupta, S. N. (1962), A History of Sanskrit Literature: Classical Period, vol. 1 (Calcutta). Dezsõ, Csaba (2012), ‘The Story of the Irascible Yakṣa and the King who nearly beheaded himself in Dhanapāla’s Tilakamañjarī: Studies on Fabulous Creatures II’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 22.1: 73–91. Donaldson, Thomas E. (1985–7), Hindu Temple Art of Orissa, 3 vols (Leiden, Brill). Durga, P. S. Kanaka & Reddy, Y. A. Sudhakar (1992), ‘Kings, Temples and Legitimation of Autochthonous Communities: A Case Study of a South Indian Temple’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 35.2: 145–66. Einoo, Shingo (1999), ‘The Autumn Goddess Festival Described in the Purāṇas’, in M. Tanaka & M. Tachikawa (eds), Living with Śakti: Gender, Sexuality and Religion in South Asia (Tokyo, National Museum of Ethnology), 33–70. Eschmann, Anncharlott, Kulke, Hermann & Gaya Charan Tripathi (1978), The Cult of Jagannath and the Regional Tradition of Orissa, South Asian Studies 8 (New Delhi, Manohar). Facenna, D. (1962), Sculptures from the Sacred Area of Butkara I (Swat, Pakistan) (Rome, IsMEO). Falk, Harry (2003), ‘A Copper Plate Donation Record and Some Seals from the Kashmir Smast’, Beiträge zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Archäologie 23: 1–19. Falk, Harry (2006), Asokan Sites and Artefacts: A Source-Book with Bibliography (Mainz am Rhein, Verlag Philipp von Zabern). Finn, L. (1986), The Kulacūḍāmaṇi Tantra and the Vāmakeśvara Tantra: with the Jayaratha commentary (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz). Fitzgerald, J. (2010), ‘Mahābhārata’, in Brill Encyclopaedia of Hinduism 2 (Leiden, Brill), 72–94. Fuller, C. J. & Logan, Penny (1985), ‘The Navarātri Festival in Madurai’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 48.1: 79–105. Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency (1885), vol. 19, Satara. Ghose, Madhuvanti (2006), ‘Nana: The “Original” Goddess on the Lion’, Journal of Inner Asian Art and Archaeology 1: 97–112. Ghosha, Pratapachandra (1871), Durga Puja (with Notes and Illustrations) (Calcutta, Hindu Patriot Press). Gode, P. K. (1940–1), ‘Hari Kavi’s Contribution to the Problem of the Bhavānī Sword of Shivaji the Great’, New Indian Antiquary 3: 82–3.

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Bibliography Gordon, Stewart (1994), Marathas, Marauders, and State Formation in Eighteenth Century India (Delhi, Oxford University Press). Granoff, P. (2004), ‘Saving the Saviour: Śiva and the Vaiṣṇava Avatāras in the Early Skandapurāṇa’, in H. T. Bakker (ed.), Origin and Growth of the Purāṇic Text Corpus: With Special Reference to the Skandapurāṇa, Proceedings of the 12th World Sanskrit Conference, 3.2 (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass), 111–38. Gray, L. H. (1913), Vāsavadattā: A Sanskrit Romance by Subandhu, Indo-Iranian series 8 (New York, Columbia University Press). Gupta, S. & Gombrich, R. (1986), ‘Kings, Power and the Goddess’, South Asia Research, 16.2: 123–38. (p.281) Handiqui, K. K. (1949), Yaśastilaka and Indian Culture, or, Somadeva’s Yaśastilaka and Aspects of Jainism and Indian Thought and Culture in the Tenth Century (Sholapur, Jaina Saṃskṛti Saṃrakṣaka Saṃgha). Harmatta, J. (1994), ‘Religions in the Kushan Empire’, in J. Harmatta (ed.), History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 2 (Paris, UNESCO), 313–30. Härtel, Herbert (2007), ‘The Pre-Kuṣāṇa and Early Kuṣāṇa Levels at Sonkh’, in D. M. Srinivasan (ed.), On the Cusp of an Era: Art in the Pre-Kuṣāṇa World (Leiden, Brill), 319–50. Hazra, R. C. (1963), Studies in the Upapuranas, vols 1 and 2 (Calcutta, Sanskrit College). Headley, Stephen C. (2004), Durga’s Mosque: Cosmology, Conversion and Community in Central Javanese Islam (Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies). Hopkins, E. W. (1901), The Great Epic of India (Cambridge MA, Yale University Press). Hultzsch, E. (1886), ‘Über eine Sammlung indischer Handschriften und Inschriften’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 40: 1–80. Humbach, H. N. (1975), ‘Mithras in the Kuṣāṇa Period’, in J. R. Hinnells (ed.), Mithraic Studies, vol. 1 (Manchester, Manchester University Press), 135–41. Inden, Ronald (1978), ‘Ritual Authority and Cyclic Time in Hindu Kingship’, in J. F. Richards (ed.), Kingship and Authority in South Asia (Madison WI, University of Wisconsin). Inden, Ronald (2006), ‘Hierarchies of Kings in Early Mediaeval India’, in id., Text and Practice: Essays on South Asian History (Delhi, Oxford University Press), 129–60. Ingalls, D. H. (1965), An Anthology of Sanskrit Court Poetry: Vidyākara’s Subhāṣiaratnakoṣa (Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press). Iyer, L. K. A. (2005), The Mysore Tribes and Castes, vols 1 and 2 (New Delhi, Mittal Publications; 1st published Mysore University, 1928–35). Jackson, A. & Jaffer, A. (eds) (2009), Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts (New Delhi, Roli Books).

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Bibliography Jamison, S. & Brereton, J. (2014), The Rigveda: The Earliest Religious Poetry of India, volumes 1– 3 (Oxford, Oxford University Press). Jansen, Roland (1995), Die Bhavani von Tuljapur: Religionsgeschichtliche Studie des Kultes einer Göttin der indischen Volksreligion (Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag). Kane, P. V. (1994), History of Dharmaśāstra, vol 5, Part 1 (Poona, Bhandarkar OrientalInstitute; 1st published 1958). Kapadia, Aparna (2010), ‘Text, Power, and Kingship in Mediaeval Gujarat, C. 1398– 1511’ (Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of London). Kinsley, David (1987), Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition (Berkeley CA, University of California Press). Kotwal, F. M. & Boyd, J. W. (1977), ‘The Zoroastrian paragṇā Ritual’, Journal of Mithraic Studies, 2.1: 19–52. Kulke, Hermann (1978), ‘Early State Formation and Royal Legitimization in Tribal Areas of Eastern India’, in R. R. Moser & K. Gautam (eds), Aspects of Tribal Life in South Asia I: Strategy and Survival (Berne, University of Berne), 29–37. (p.282) Kulke, Hermann (1995), ‘The Early and Imperial Kingdom: A Processural Model of Integrative State Formation in Early Mediaeval India’, in H. Kulke (ed.), The State in India 1000– 1700 (Delhi, Oxford University Press), 233–62. Kulke, H. & Rothermund, D. (1986), A History of India (New York, Barnes & Noble Books). Levy, R. & Rajopadhyaya, K. R. (1992), Mesocosm: Hinduism and the Organization of a Traditional Newar City in Nepal (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass). Lielukhine, D. N. (2009), Collection of Early Nepal Licchavi Inscriptions, web publication, Russian Fund of Humanities: http://indepigr.narod.ru/licchavi/index.htm. Macdowall, D. W. (1975), ‘Mithra and the Deities of the Kuṣāṇa Coinage’, in J. R. Hinnells (ed.), Mithraic Studies, vol. 1 (Manchester, Manchester University Press), 142–50. Mackenzie-Brown, C. (1990), The Triumph of the Goddess: The Canonical Models and Theological Visions of the Devibhagavata Purāṇa (Albany NY, State University of New York Press). Mahalingam, T. V. (1988), Inscriptions of the Pallavas (New Delhi, Agam Prakashan). Maho, S. (2007), ‘The Role Played by Goddesses in the Haracaritacintāmaṇi’, Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, 55.3: 1035–42. Majumdar, Nani Gopal (2003), Inscriptions of Bengal: Containing Inscriptions of the Candras, the Varmans and the Senas, and of Īśvaraghosa and Dāmodara (Calcutta, Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar).

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Bibliography Mallebrein, Cornelia (1999), ‘Tribal and Local Deities: Assimilations and Transformations’, in V. Dehejia (ed.), Devī, the Great Goddess: Female Divinity in South Asian Art (Washington DC, A. M. Sackler Gallery; Ahmedabad, Mapin Publishing; Munich, Prestel Verlag), 137–54. Mani, V. (2006), Puraic Encyclopaedia (Delhi, Motilal n.Banarsidass, 2006; 1st published 1975). Mann, R. (2003), ‘The Early Cult of Skanda in North India: From Demon to Divine Son’ (Doctoral thesis, MacMaster University, Hamilton). Mann, R. (2007), ‘Skanda in Epic and Puranic Literature: An Examination of the Origins and Development of a Hindu Deity in North India’, Religious Compass, 1.6: 725–51. Mann, R. (2011), The Rise of Mahāsena: The Transformation of Skanda-Kārttikeya in North India from the Kuṣāṇa to Gupta Empires (Leiden: Brill). Minardi, M. (2013), ‘A Four-Armed Goddess from Ancient Chorasmia: History, Iconography and Style of an Ancient Chorasmian Icon’, Iran: Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 51: 111–43. Mitra, S. K. (1977), The Early Rulers of Khajuraho (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass). Mittal, A. C. (1979), The Inscriptions of the Imperial Paramāras (800 AD–1320 AD) (Ahmedabad, L. D. Institute of Indology). Moraes, George M. (1990), The Kadamba Kula: A History of Ancient and Medieval Karnataka (Asian Educational Services; 1st published 1931). Munshi, K. M. (1944), Glory that was Gujaradeśa, vol. 3 (Bombay). Nicholas, R. (2013), Night of the Gods: Durga Puja and the Legitimation of Power in Rural Bengal (Delhi, Orient Blackswan). (p.283) Ostor, A. (1980), Play of the Gods: Locality, Ideology, Structure, and Time in the Festivals of a Bengali Town (Delhi, Orient Blackswan). Pal, P. (1975), Bronzes of Kashmir (Graz, Akademische Druck-und Verlagsanstalt). Pargiter, F. E. (1910), ‘Ancient Indian Genealogies and Chronology’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Jan.: 1–56. Pargiter, F. E. (1997), Ancient Indian Historical Tradition (Delhi; 1st published London, Oxford University Press, 1922). Pingree, D. (1990), ‘The Purāṇas and Jyotiḥśāstra: Astronomy’, Journal of the American Oriental Society,110.2: 274–80. Price, P. (1996), Kingship and Political Practice in Colonial India (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Price, S. R. F. (1984), Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).

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Bibliography Puri, B. N. (1994), ‘The Kushans’, in J. Harmatta (ed.), History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. 2 (Paris, UNESCO), 247–64. Quackenbos, George Payn (1965), The Sanskrit Poems of Mayūra: Edited with a Translation and Notes and an Introduction together with the Text and Translation of Baa’s Caṇdiśataka, Columbia University Indo-Iranian series, 9 (New York, AMS Press). Ramesh, K. V. & Tewari, S. P. (1990), A Copper-Plate Hoard of the Gupta Period from Bagh, Madhya Pradesh (New Delhi, Archaeological Survey of India). Rath, A. K. (2009), ‘The Stambhesvari Cult in Orissa’, Orissa Review, Sept.: 85–9. Regmi, D. R. (1966), Medieval Nepal, 4 vols (Calcutta, Firma K. L. M.). Reu, B. N. (1933), History of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas (Rāṭhoḍas) (Jodhpur, Archaeological Department). Rodrigues, Hillary Peter (2003), Ritual Worship of the Great Goddess: The Liturgy of the Durgā Pūjā with Interpretations (Albany NY, State University of New York Press). Roll, I. (1977), ‘The Mysteries of Mithras in the Roman Orient: The Problem of Origin’, Journal of Mithraic Studies, 2.1: 53–68. Russell, R. V. & Lal, R. H. (1916), Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, 4 vols (London, Macmillan). Samad, A. (2011), ‘Emergence of Hinduism in Gandhāra: An Analysis of Material Culture’ (Doctoral thesis, University of Berlin). Sanderson, Alexis (1988), ‘Śaivism and the Tantric Traditions’, in S. Sutherland, L. Houlden, P. Clarke & F. Hardy (eds), The World’s Religions (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), 666–705. Sanderson, Alexis (1995), ‘Meaning in Tantric Ritual’, in A. M. Blondeau & K. Schipper (eds), Essais sur le Rituel, III (Louvain and Paris, Peeters), 15–95. Sanderson, Alexis (2001), ‘History through Textual Criticism in the study of Śaivism, Pañcarātra and the Buddhist Yoginītantras’, in François Grimal (ed.), Les Sources et le Temps: Sources and Time (Pondicherry, Institut Français de Pondichéry/École Française d’Extrême-Orient), 1–47. Sanderson, Alexis (2003–4), ‘The Śaiva Religion among the Khmers, Part I’, Bulletin de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, 90–1: 349–463. Sanderson, Alexis (2005), ‘Religion and the State: Śaiva Officiants in the Territory of the Brahmanical Royal Chaplain’, Indo-Iranian Journal 47: 229–300. (p.284) Sanderson, Alexis (2007), ‘Atharvavedins in Tantric Territory: The Āngirasakalpa Texts of the Oriya Paippalādins and their Connection with the Trika and the Kālikula, with critical editions of the Parājapavidhi, the Parāmantravidhi, and the *Bhadrakāli-mantravidhiprakarana’, in A. Griffiths & A. Schmiedchen (eds), The Atharvaveda and its Paippalāda Śākhā: Historical and Philological Papers on a Vedic Tradition, Geisteskultur Indiens: Texte und Studien 11, Indologica Halensis (Aachen, Shaker Verlag), 195–311.

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Bibliography Sanderson, Alexis (2009), ‘The Śaiva Age: The Rise and Dominance of Śaivism During the Early Medieval Period’, in Shingo Einoo (ed.), Genesis and Development of Tantrism (Tokyo, Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo), 41–348. Santiko, H. (1997), ‘The Goddess Durgā in the East Javanese Period’, Asian Folklore Studies, 56.2: 209–26. Sarkar, B. (2012), ‘The Rite of Durgā in Medieval Bengal: An Introductory Study of Raghunandana’s Durgāpūjātattva with Text and Translation of the Principal Rites’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 22.2: 325–90. Sarkar, B. (2013), ‘Thy Fierce Lotus-Feet: Danger and Benevolence in Medieval Sanskrit Poems to Mahiṣāsuramardinī-Durgā’, in Nina Mirnig, Péter-Dániel Szántó & Michael Williams (eds), Puṣpikā: Proceedings of the First International Indology Graduate Research Symposium (St Hilda’s College, Oxford University, September 28–29 2009) (Oxford, Oxbow Books), 407–41. Sarma, I. K. (1981), ‘Significance of Gotras and Matronymics in Some Early Inscriptions’, Journal of the Epigraphical Society of India, 8: 67–75. Satyasray, R. S. (1937), Origin of the Cālukyas (Studies in Rajput History, vol. 1) (Calcutta). Schlingloff, D. (1969), ‘The Oldest Extant Parvan-List of the Mahābhārata’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 89.2: 334–8. Schmid, C. (2002), ‘Mahiṣāsuramardini: A Vaiṣṇava Goddess?’, in R. Nagaswamy (ed.), Foundations of Indian Art: Proceedings of the Chidambaram Seminar on Art and Religion, Feb. 2001 (Chennai, Tamil Arts Academy), 143–68. Schmid, C. (2005), ‘Mahabalipuram: La prosperité au double visage’, Journale Asiatique, 293.2: 459–527. Sen S. (1920), Śiva Chatrapati, being a translation of Sabhasad Bakhar with extracts from Chitnis and Sivadigvijaya, with notes, extracts and documents relating to Maratha History (University of Calcutta). Shah, Ibrahim (2009), ‘The Hinglaj Shrine, Baluchistan’, in P. Pal (ed.), Goddess Durgā: The Power and the Glory (Mumbai, Marg Publications), 188–97. Sharma, Anima (2005), Tribe in Transition: A Study of Thakur Gonds (New Delhi, Mittal Publications). Sharma, D. (1959), Early Chauhān Dynasties: A Study of Chauhān Political History, Chauhān Political Institutions, and Life in the Chauhān Dominions from C. 800 to 1316 A.D. (Delhi, S. Chand). Sharma, R. K. (2001), ‘Ancient History of the Naga Tribe of Central India and their Cultural Contributions’, in A. A. Abbasi (ed.), Dimensions of Human Cultures in Central India (Delhi, Sarup & Sons). Shin, Jae-Eun (2010), ‘Yoni, Yoginis and Mahavidyas: Feminine Divinities from Early Medieval Kamarupa to Medieval Koch Behar’, Studies in History, 26.1: 1–30.

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Bibliography (p.285) Shrestha, Khadga Man (2008), History of Buddhism in Nepal (Kathmandu, Kamala Devi Shrestha). Sims-Williams, N. (1998), ‘Further Notes on the Bactrian Inscription of Rabatak with an Appendix on the Names of Kujula Kadphises and Vima Taktu in Chinese’, in id. (ed.), Proceedings of the Third European Conference of Iranian Studies (Wiesbaden, Reichart), 79–92. Sims-Williams, N. (2004), ‘The Bactrian Inscription of Rabatak: A New Reading’, Bulletin of the Asia Institute, 18: 53–68. Sims-Williams, N. & Cribb, J. (1996), ‘A New Bactrian Inscription of Kanishka the Great’, Silk Road Art and Archaeology, 4: 75–142. Sinha, Surajit (1962), ‘State Formation and Rajput Myth in Tribal Central India’, in H. Kulke (ed.), The State in India 1000–1700 (Delhi, Oxford University Press), 304–41. Sinha-Kapur, Nandini (2002), Strategies of Legitimization of the Guhila State. The Religious Dimension in State Formation in Rajasthan: Mewar during the Seventh–Fifteenth Centuries (New Delhi, Manohar). Sircar, D. C. (1971), Studies in the Religious Life of Ancient and Medieval India (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass). Slusser, Mary Shepherd (1998), Nepal Mandala: A Cultural Study of the Kathmandu Valley, vols 1–2 (Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press). Smith, Frederick (2006), The Self-Possessed Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature and Civilization (New York, Columbia University Press). Smith, Jonathan Z. (1980), ‘The Bare Facts of Ritual’, History of Religions, 20.1/2: 112–27. Sohnen-Thieme, R. (2002), ‘Goddess, Gods and Demons in the Devīmāhātmya’, in M. Brockington (ed.), Stages and Transitions: Temporal and Historical Frameworks in Epic and Puranic Literature. Proceedings of the Second Dubrovnik International Conference on the Sanskrit Epics and Puranas, August 1999 (Zagreb: Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts), 239–60. Srinivasan, D. M. (1997), Many Heads, Arms and Eyes (Leiden, Brill). Srinivasan, D. M. (2010), ‘Śrī-Lakṣmī in Early Art: Incorporating the North-Western Evidence’, South Asian Studies, 26.1: 77–95. Stein, Burton (1983), ‘Mahānavamī: Medieval and Modern Kingly Ritual in South India’, in Bardwell L. Smith (ed.), Essays on Gupta Culture (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass), 67–90. Stein, M. A. (1979), Kalhaṇa’s Rājatarangiṇī: A Chronicle of the Kings of Kaśmīr, vol. 1 (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass; 1st published 1900). Tod, James (1920), Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, 2 vols, ed. William Crooke (New York, Oxford University Press; 1st published London, 1829).

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Bibliography Törzsök, J. (2015), ‘The (Un)dreadful Goddess: Aghorī in Śākta Tantras’, in B. Wernicke Olesen (ed.), Goddess Traditions in Tantric Hinduism: History, Practice and Doctrine (London, Routledge), 33–50. Törzsök, J. & Ferrier, C. (2008), ‘Meditation on the King’s Feet? Some Remarks on the Expression pādanudhyāta’, Indo-Iranian Journal, 51: 93–113. Tripathi, R. S. (1989), History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass; 1st published 1964). Vajrācārya, Dhanavajra (1973), Licchavikālakā Abhilekha (Nepal). (p.286) Vandyopādhyāya, Tāpasa (CE date unknown [Bengali year 1404]), Gaḍer Mā: Gaḍjaṅ galer aitihāsik racanā o bhramaṇ kāhinī (Birbhum, West Bengal). Vogel, Jean Philippe (1911), Antiquities of Chamba State I, Archaeological Survey of India 36 (Calcutta). Willis, Michael (2009), The Archaeology of Hindu Ritual (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press). Witzel, Michael (1990), ‘On Indian Historical Writing: The Role of Vaṃśāvalīs’, Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 2: 1–57. Yokochi, Yuko (1999), ‘The Warrior Goddess in the Devīmāhātmya’, in M. Tanaka & M. Tachikawa (eds), Living with Śakti: Gender, Sexuality and Religion in South Asia (Tokyo, National Museum of Ethnology), 71–113. Yokochi, Yuko (2004), ‘The Rise of the Warrior-Goddess in Ancient India: A Study of the Myth of Kauśikī-Vindhyavāsinī in the Skanda-Purāṇa’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Groningen. Further Reading Avadhūta, Marutīrtha Hinglāj (Calcutta, Mitra and Ghosh, 1955 [Bengali year 1362]). Carter, Martha L., ‘Kaniṣka’s Bactrian Pantheon in the Rabatak Inscription: The Numismatic Evidence’, Proceedings of the 5th Conference of Societas Iranologica Europea led in Ravenna, 6– 11 October 2003, vol. 1: Ancient and Middle Iranian Studies, ed. A. Panaino & A. Piras (Bologna, Università di Bologna istituto italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, 2006), 351–8. Cowell, E. B. & Thomas, F. W., The Harṣacarita of Bāṇa (Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass; 2nd edn, London, 1968). Davidson, Ronald M., Indian Esoteric Buddhism: A Social History of the Tantric Movement (New York, Columbia University Press, 2002). Dirks, Nicholas B., The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987), esp. pp. 35–43, 201–11. Geertz, Clifford, Negara: The Theatre State in 19th Century Bali (Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1981).

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Bibliography Harcourt, Max, ‘The Deshnoke “Karni Mata” Temple and Political Legitimacy in Medieval Rajasthan’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 16.1 (1993): 33–48. Hillyer-Levitt, Stephen, ‘The Patityagrāmanirnaya: A Puranic History of Degraded Brahman Villages’, Ph.D. thesis (University of Pennsylvania, 1973). Hillyer-Levitt, Stephen, The Sahyādrikhaṇḍa: Some Problems Concerning a Text-Critical Edition of a Purāṇic Text. Purāṇas vol. 9, Part 1 (Varanasi, All India Kashiraj Trust, 1977). Inden, Ronald, Imagining India (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1990). Kulke, H. & Rothermund, D., A History of India (4th edn, London, Routledge, 2007): see particularly pp. 103–51 for the regional politics discussed in this book. Macdowall, D. W., ‘The Context of Rajuvula the Satrap’, Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 25 (1977): 187–95. Sharma, Mahesh, ‘State Formation and Cultural Complex in Western Himalaya: Chamba Genealogy and Epigraphs, 700–1650 CE’, Indian Economic Social History Review, 41.4 (2004): 387–432. (p.287) Shin, Jae-Eun, ‘Transformation of the Goddess Tara with Special Reference to the Iconographical Features’, Indo-Kōko-Kenkyū: Studies in South Asian Art and Archaeology (Indian Archaeological Society), 31 (2009–10), 17–32. Shin, Jae-Eun, ‘Changing Dynasties, Enduring Genealogy: A Critical Study on Political Legitimation in Early Medieval Kāmarūpa’, Journal of Ancient Indian History, 27 (2010): 173–87. Teuscher, Ulrike, ‘Changing Eklingji: A Holy Place as a Source of Royal Legitimation’, Studies in History, 21.1 (2005): 1–16. Yokochi, Yuko, ‘Mahiṣāsuramardinī Myth and Icon: Studies in the Skandapurāṇa II’, Studies in the History of Indian Thought, 11 (1999): 65–102. (p.288)

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Index

Heroic Shāktism: The Cult of Durgā in Ancient Indian Kingship Bihani Sarkar

Print publication date: 2017 Print ISBN-13: 9780197266106 Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: May 2018 DOI: 10.5871/bacad/9780197266106.001.0001

(p.289) Index Abhinanda see Rāmacarita Ācaradinakara 129, 144, 145, 156, 157, 172 Agnipurāṇa/the Agni 225–1, 228, 229, 251 Aihole 22, 116, 117, 127, 209 Aikṣvāku/Solar lineage 161, 166 Aila/Lunar lineage 161, 162–1, 166 Amara (see also Nāmaliṅgānuśāsana) 82 Amarakośa see Nāmaliṅgānuśāsana Ambikā see under Durgā, names of animal sacrifice see under sacrifice Annadāmaṅgal 149, 170, 171 Aparājitā see under Durgā, names of Arthaśāstra 204, 222 Āryā see under Durgā, names of Āśāpūrṇā/Āśāpurī 147, 148, 150–1, 171, 173 Aśvaghoṣa (see also Buddhacarita) 50, 51 Āśvina 37, 58, 59, 133, 154, 190, 191, 193 rise of the āśvinadurgāpūjā/śāradīyadurgāpūjā 221–6 aṭavī/āṭavika (see also tribes/tribal) 2, 7, 8, 11, 14, 15, 19, 20, 42–1, 70, 98, 273, 274 āvaraṇa see Durgā, retinue of Bactria 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 65, 98, 142, 273 Badami 22, 100, 116, 117 Bāṇa 15, 16, 44, 57, 65, 66, 144, 218, 219 Bappaï/Vākpati 57, 60, 88, 91 Barābar 45, 117, 125 Bargabhīmā/Vindhyavāsinī 9, 10, 227 Bastar 24, 37, 129, 147, 157, 158, 159, 173, 220 Bhadrakālī see under Durgā, names of Bhāratcandra, Raiguṇākar see Annadāmaṅgal Bhavānī see under Durgā, names of Bhīmā 23, 37, 141–1, 164 Bhrāmarī/Bhramaravāsinī see under Durgā, names of bodhana 58, 191, 241, 259 Page 1 of 11 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Index Bṛhaddharmapurāṇa 11, 190, 191 Buddhacarita 50, 51 Buddhism 3, 18, 20, 51, 85, 128, 133, 134, 178, 180, 181, 182, 194, 230, 272 buffalo-demon see Mahiṣa Cāhamāna dynasty 37, 139, 147, 148, 150–1, 171 Cālukya empire 21, 24, 36, 99–1, 113, 115, 147, 148, 149, 150, 167, 174, 179, 182, 187, 188, 274 Pulakeśin II, Vijayasiddhi/Maṅgi Yuvarāja, Amma I, Satyāśraya, Mallapadeva 100 Vikramāditya VI 167 Vijayāditya 187 Arikesari 256 Cāmuṇḍā 4, 10, 61, 91, 94, 111, 116 n. 1, 173, 204, 239, 242, 243, 254 Caṇḍakātyāyanī see under Durgā, names of Caṇḍeśvara Ṭhakkura 24, 180, 203, 234, 235, 236 Caṇḍī see under Durgā, names of Caṇdi, the see Devīmāhātmya Caṇḍī-recitations (caṇḍīpāṭha) 133 Caṇdikā see under Durgā, names of Caṇḍīśataka 1, 44, 45, 97, 102, 137, 177, 210, 214 Carcikā 23, 34, 35, 91, 120, 121, 200, 201, 228 Caturvargacintāmaṇi 160, 161, 258 Caulukya dynasty 37, 148, 153, 185 Kumārapāla 153–6 Bhīma II 185–6 chariot processions (rathayātrās) 120, 201–1, 227, 228, 260 CII (Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum) 2 n. 3, 22, 34 n. 92, 43 n. 1, 45 nn. 3 and 4, 116 n. 1, 125 n. 37 clan-goddesses (kuladevatā/kuladevī/gotradevī) 8, 9, 10, 20, 35, 37, 128, 130, 131, 138, 141, 144– 1, 178, 179, 191, 195, 204, 205, 209 clans (see also tribes) xii, 3, 7, 14, 21, 36, 50, 53, 99, 100, 117, 129, 138, 147, 148 n. 24, 152, 165, 174, 193, 224 map of goddess-worshipping clans 147 Coburn, Thomas B. 140 Coḷa 22, 23, 25, 62, 66, 116, 119, 120, 126 Couture, A. and Schmid, C. 45, 50 crests (dhvajas) 38, 93, 103, 194, 197, 199–1, 225, 244, 248 crisis (utpāta/upadrava/pīḍā) 56, 133–1, 145, 205, 209, 211, 219, 223, 229, 244, 270, 271, 273 communal/state 2, 11, 14, 21, 96 link with death and threat to civilization 29, 30–1, 103 (p.290) durga/durgāni/durgama (danger(s)) 14, 72 Durgā’s link to 29, 79, 208 of kings and political uncertainty 186–90 managing of, through the goddess’s rituals 130–2 Mātṛs and civic protection 108–1, 113–14 Nidrā as Lady of Crises 67–8 risks and dangers 25 in Śāntyādhyāya (Chapter on Pacification) in the Śivadharma 73–4 Daṇḍin 59, 227 n. 52 Danteśvarī/Dantāvalā 37, 147, 157–60 Daśakumāracarita 59, 227 Page 2 of 11 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Index Devadevasutā see under Durgā, names of Devagiri 258–70 Devībhāgavatapurāṇa 11, 184, 190 Devīmāhātmya 13, 19, 30, 56, 60, 65, 66, 67, 84, 94, 112, 132, 139, 140, 141, 151, 180, 183, 184, 185, 186, 192 n. 41, 207 n. 89, 216, 217, 255, 273 protective merits of recitation; eight situations of danger; link with Buddhist traditions of worship 133–1, 208 scene of presenting gifts to the goddess 103 scene of the retinue being born from Caṇdikā 106 in Vaiṣṇava context 46, 47, 49, 50, 82 Devīpurāṇa/the Devī 56, 209, 221 n. 27, 224 n. 32, 232, 233 n. 78, 248, 249, 259 n. 147 the Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī’s indebtedness to 236–1, 251–2 and kingship 180–2 the Kṛtyaratnākara’s indebtedness to 235–6 on the Mātṛs and the civic domain 109–10 reactions against 226 rites in Mithilā from 228–9 on sacralizing fortresses 205–7 on sacralizing royal palladia 197–203 Dhanapāla see Tilakamañjarī Dharmaśāstric specialists see smārta dhvaja see crests Durgā analysis of name 13 n. 37, 14, 72, 207–8 as goddess of the fortress see fortress legends of: Vaiṣṇava myth of Durgā’s genesis 47–50; Śaiva myth 76–84; genesis from the light of the gods 140–1; versions of Mahiṣa’s slaying 216 names of (see also goddesses, local): Ambikā 23, 81, 82, 107, 161, 162, 187 Aparājitā 145, 193, 206, 236, 249 n. 129, 256–7 Āryā 14, 74, 81 n. 15 Bhadrakālī 121, 123, 213, 217, 224, 225–1, 230–1, 239, 253 n. 138 Bhavānī 14, 22, 82, 93, 94, 116, 126, 149, 192, 195, 238, 239 Bhrāmarī/Bhramaravāsinī 60 Caṇḍakātyāyanī 66–7 Caṇḍī xi, 16, 22, 23, 81, 93, 121, 126, 154, 168, 169, 173, 181, 192, 194, 222, 228, 250, 271 Caṇḍikā 14, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 65, 71–1, 103, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 161, 162, 180, 182, 191, 209, 230, 232, 246, 254, 270 Devadevasutā 76 Kālarātri (see also Kālī) 1, 14, 15, 27, 33, 34, 36, 41–1, 71, 72, 74, 75, 79, 80, 82, 84, 86, 87, 91, 92, 93, 95, 98, 101, 107, 117, 120, 182, 189, 214, 218, 272 Kālī/Mahākālī/Kālikā 8, 19, 70, 77, 80, 82, 87, 106, 115, 137, 149, 161, 162, 193 n. 43, 200, 202, 203, 206 n. 82, 215, 228, 229 n. 56, 239, 242, 243, 250 n. 131, 251, 259; as Nidrā-Kālarātri-Mahāmāyā 41–69 Kāpālī/Kapālinī 55, 239 Page 3 of 11 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Index Kātyāyanī 14, 22, 45, 55, 63 (Kātyāyinī), 74, 80, 81, 126, 163, 166, 202, 217, 224, 232; story behind the name 216 Kauśikī 5, 14, 45, 48, 49, 53, 55, 60, 61, 76–1, 83–1, 93, 99–1, 104, 107, 108, 109, 173, 179, 187, 215, 249 n. 129, 250 n. 131 Kṣemāryā/Kṣemakarī 22, 72, 116, 126, 193 Mahāmāyā/Māyā (see also Kālarātri and Kālī) 42, 46, 47, 51, 52, 75, 82, 84, 88, 200, 239 Mahiṣāsuramardinī 4, 14, 22, 25, 28, 32, 43 n. 2, 60, 64–1, 73, 75, 110–1, 121, 131, 159, 171, 172, 173, 245, 265 Nidrā/Yoganidrā see Kālarātri Raṇacaṇḍī 10, 36, 129, 170, 171 Śumbhaniśumbhanāśinī 14 Ugracaṇḍā 232 Vindhyavasinī 6, 14, 23, 139, 158, 183, 187 n. 26, 205, 227 n. 52; Bargabhīmā 9; at Mirzapur 59–61 nava durgā/the Nine Durgās 23, 121, 128, 147, 148 n. 24, 232, 233, 236, 245, 258, 260; names of the Nine 253 (p.291) retinue of 49, 87, 93, 104–1, 109, 110, 156, 173, 191, 230, 236, 245–1, 251; pramadāḥ/women in the legend from the old Skandapurāṇa 78; worship of the Mothers with Durgā during the Navarātra 254 Southeast Asian 21, 62–1, 94–1, 209 Durgābhaktitaraṅgiṇī 17, 181, 236–58 durgam see fortress durgāpūjā see Navarātra Durgāpūjātattva 17, 19, 58, 59, 219, 221, 230, 236, 239, 249, 250 Durgāvilāsa 186 durgotsava see Navarātra Durgotsavaviveka 17, 18, 220, 222 EI (Epigraphia Indica) 22, 23, 93 n. 34, 100 nn. 9 and 11, 101 n. 13, 118 nn. 2–1, 119 nn. 6–1, 121 nn. 24 and 25, 124 nn. 32–1, 125 nn. 36 and 37, 126 n. 38, 127 nn. 41 and 43, 148 n. 24, 150 n. 28, 151 n. 36, 152 n. 37, 154 n. 50, 157 nn. 60 and 61, 158 nn. 62–5 and 67, 159 nn. 68, 69 and 71–1, 160 nn. 74 and 75, 165 n. 84, 179 nn. 2–1, 193 n. 44, 195 nn. 49 and 50, 208 n. 91 Ekaliṅgamāhātmya 132, 183, 205 Epigraphia Carnatica 99 n. 6 fortress (durgam) 30, 33, 38, 121, 125, 131, 132, 171, 189 Durgā as goddess of fortresses 203–9 Gauḍa/Gauḍīya 60, 213, 215, 218, 226–1, 236, 239, 248, 249, 250, 269 Gaüḍavaho 15, 16, 57, 60, 61, 66, 85, 86, 198, 214, 220, 250 ghosts xii, 48, 49, 52, 61, 87, 88, 93, 107, 130, 173, 199, 200, 205, 209, 219, 242, 251, 259, 267 goddesses see Cāmuṇḍā; Durgā; Nana; Pārvatī goddesses, local and affiliated clans 147 (map), 148 forms of Durgā/associated goddesses of local shrines receiving patronage 22–1, 137–74 in the genealogy list based on the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa 161–4 see also clan-goddesses Gosānīmaṅgal 168, 173 Page 4 of 11 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Index Guhila dynasty 22, 23, 132, 182, 183, 205 Gupta empire 2–1, 7, 8, 10–1, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 29, 33, 36, 38, 42–1, 51, 57, 61, 63, 64, 65, 69, 70, 71, 80, 92, 96, 97, 98, 99, 109, 116, 125, 127, 138, 141, 145, 149, 214, 270, 273 Gurjara-Pratīhāra 21, 24 emperors 124 Hāṃḍigaon 22, 152 Hanumān 192–3 Haravijaya 15, 27, 60, 61, 86, 115, 120, 193, 198, 250 Harivaṃśa 42, 45, 46, 47, 51, 61, 62, 64, 70, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 88, 92, 93, 100, 103, 111, 167, 214, 218, 219 description of Nidrā in 65 Nidrā’s story in 48–1, 52 and Nidrā’s worship 66–9 recollections of the Harivaṃśa’s Nidrā in the Mahābhārata 53–6 and worship of the goddess in Śrāvaṇa 58–9 Harṣacarita 15, 31, 66, 144, 214, 218, 220 Hemādri 160, 258, 262, 270 Himachal 116, 121–1, 274 human sacrifice see sacrifice Jainism 18, 20, 22, 128, 129, 144, 145, 154, 155, 156, 178, 223, 272 Jayānaka 150, 151 Jīmūtavāhana 58, 59, 213, 220, 221, 227, 232, 233, 235 Kādambarī 15, 65, 214, 219 Kākatīya 37, 147, 158–60 Kālarātri see under Durgā, names of Kālaviveka 59, 221, 227, 232 Kalhaṇa see Rājataraṅgiṇī Kālī see under Durgā, names of Kālidāsa 80, 81, 113, 181 Kālikāpurāṇa/the Kālikā 17, 140, 190, 209, 216, 220, 226, 230, 232, 239, 240, 245 Kālīkula 34, 213, 231 Kalyāṇakāmadhenu 180 Kāmākhyā 8, 168, 190, 232 Kamalākara Bhaṭṭa 236 Kāmarūpa 168, 190, 226–34 Kāmateśvarī/Gosānī xiii, 37, 147, 148 n. 24, 149, 150, 168–70 Kaṃsa 46–50 Kaṇṭeśvarī 37, 147, 153–7 (p.292) Kānyakubja/Kannauj 16, 21, 24, 60, 117, 124–1, 166, 225 Kāpālī/Kapālinī see under Durgā, names of Kathāsaritsāgara 5, 15, 34, 61, 65, 86, 87, 91, 182, 187, 192, 198 Kātyāyanī see under Durgā, names of Kauśikī see under Durgā, names of Kauṭilya see Arthaśāstra khaḍga see swords Kṛṣṇa 33, 38, 42, 46, 47, 48, 50, 52, 53, 55, 58, 59, 62, 64, 65, 69, 76, 82, 119, 189, 214, 218, 219, 221, 270 Kṛttivāsa see Rāmāyaṇa Kṛtyakalpataru 18, 140, 180, 200, 201, 225 Page 5 of 11 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Index Kṛtyaratnākara 18, 180, 203, 222, 225, 230, 234–6, 239, 248, 253, 256, 258 kṣatriya 20, 31, 129, 130, 147, 148, 166, 169, 182, 191, 197, 223, 224, 249, 250 genealogies of the Sahyādrikhaṇḍa 161–5 Kṣemāryā/Kṣemakarī see under Durgā, names of Kudarkot 22, 116, 117, 125 Kulacūḍāmaṇitantra 88–1, 116, 250 Kumārapāladevacarita 154–5 Kumārapālaprabodhaprabandha 154–5 kumārīpūjā/worship of virgins 255, 259–70 Kuṣāṇa empire 2, 3, 7, 10, 11, 25–1, 31, 32, 33, 64, 65, 70, 98, 99, 111, 112, 138, 142–1, 178, 273 Huveṣka 64, 142 Kaniṣka 28, 29, 32, 142, 143 Vāsudeva 64–5 Kuvalayamālā 144–1, 219 n. 21 Lakṣaṇā 121, 123 Lakṣmīdhara 18, 180, 200, 201, 225 local goddesses see goddesses, local Madras 188, 258–70 Mahābalipuram 62, 65, 66, 116, 117 Mahābhārata 13, 18, 30, 38, 45, 53–1, 58, 62, 63, 64, 102–1, 107, 108–1, 111, 112, 141, 142, 170, 188, 189–1, 207, 214 Mahāmāyā/Māyā see under Durgā, names of Mahārāṣṭra 18, 23, 118, 146, 148, 258, 274 Mahiṣa/Mahiṣāsura (buffalo-demon) in art and iconography 12, 26, 62–3 in inscriptions 125, 126 n. 38 in literature 1, 44, 49–1, 57, 90, 140, 210, 215 legends of 80, 96, 103, 106, 216–17; involving Skanda 101–1, 107, 110–13; involving Saramā 192 Mahiṣāsuramardinī see under Durgā, names of Malla dynasty xiii n. 6, 4, 37, 147, 148 n. 24, 152–1, 183, 195 Jayasthitimalla 195 Mānapura 22, 43, 44 Māneśvarī 22, 37, 152–3 Mañjuśriyamūlakalpa 181, 194 Mann, R. 98, 101 Manusmṛti 140 Mathurā 25, 26, 27, 29, 32, 33, 44, 47, 64, 65, 111, 112, 143, 158, 273 Mātṛs (goddesses known as the Mothers) 5, 22, 43, 89, 91, 99, 100, 101, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 113, 121, 181, 206, 230, 232, 239, 246, 251, 253, 254, 255 Maukhari dynasty 8, 22, 45 Īśānavarman 8 Anantavarman 45, 125 Mewar 21, 22, 23, 116, 117, 132, 205 Miñjaparvata 22, 44, 141 Mithilā 4, 21, 94, 131, 181, 220, 228, 233, 234–1, 269 Mithras (Mithra) 28–9 Mysore 21, 146, 147, 198, 203, 259, 261, 264, 266, 267 Page 6 of 11 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Index Nāga 24, 37, 147, 157–1, 160 nagaradevatā (city-goddess) see Tyche Nāgārjunī Hills 22, 45, 116 Nāmaliṅgānuśāsana/Amarakośa 63, 82, 84, 113 Nana 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 37, 142–1, 178 nava durgā/the Nine Durgās see under Durgā Navarātra (Nine Nights) 12, 13, 35, 56, 58, 94, 131, 132–1, 145, 172–1, 178, 184, 190, 210–1, 274 Brahmanical military tradition 221–6 blood offerings 66, 219–20 fortress-goddess 205 Kaṇṭeśvarī 154–5 king and goddess 33, 37–8 lunar days of: pratipat/the First 74, 191, 227, 237, 239, 240, 259, 267 dvitīyā/the Second 191, 240, 241 caturthī/the Fourth 58, 240 pañcamī/the Fifth 201, 202 ṣaṣṭhī/the Sixth 103, 236, 239, 241, 259 sapatamī/the Seventh 191, 201, 202, 236, 242, 259 mahāṣṭamī/aṣṭamī/the Great Eighth 4, 8, 47, 109, 110, 114, 154, 172, 191, 193, 195, 220, 224, 225, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 235, 243–1, 259, 267, 270 (p.293) mahānavamī/navamī/the Great Ninth 13, 15, 35, 47, 48, 52, 58–1, 66, 74, 75–1, 96, 110, 114, 154, 190, 191, 193, 199, 201, 211, 218–1, 222, 223, 224–1, 240, 241, 249, 251–1, 258, 259, 268, 269, 270 daśamī/Daśamī/the Tenth day 117–1, 220, 232–3 the Mātṛs 108, 110, 114 regional Navarātras: Bengali 5 Deccan and Southern 3, 258–71 Eastern 10 n. 32, 94, 226–58 Mithilā 220, 234–58 Nepalese 4, 258 specific rites 17, 195, 198–1, 203 Tantric features 226–34 Nāyaka 25–70 Nicholas, R. 5 Nidrā-Kālarātri see under Durgā, names of Nine Nights see Navarātra Niśumbha see Śumbha and Niśumbha Orissa 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 116, 127, 148 n. 24, 150, 158, 159, 179, 213, 226–34 Pāla dynasty 21, 23, 24, 116, 120, 124, 128, 148 n. 24, 182, 183, 193, 195 Devapāla 120 Nayapāla, Mahīpāla 23, 120, 121 Gopāla 183 Mahendrapāla 23, 120, 121, 195 Pallava dynasty 61, 62, 65, 117, 187, 203, 274 Trilocana Pallava 187 Nandivarman 203 Pāṇḍava 38, 188–90 Page 7 of 11 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Index Pāṇdya 116, 127, 197, 203 Pārvatī 9, 14, 22, 36, 44, 45, 53, 56, 57, 96, 97, 102, 103, 107, 116, 151, 168, 180, 210, 215, 272 Caṇḍikā, Pārvatī’s unwanted self 70–95 names of: Aparṇā 79, 82 Dākṣāyaṇī 82 Gaurī 76, 77, 81, 82, 120, 137, 187, 188, 240, 249 Haimavatīśvarī 82 Mṛḍānī 82 Rudrāṇī 82 Sarvamaṅgalā 82 Śarvāṇī 82 Umā 28, 74, 75, 116, 162, 200, 201, 206, 246; the Umā-Parameśvarīs of the Bṛhadīśvara Temple 119 Partabgarh 124, 125, 126 paśubali (animal sacrifice) see under sacrifice Pāṭaliputra 16, 25, 80, 273 prasenā 84–1, 180, 191 Pṛthvirājavijaya 150–1 Purāṇa/Purāṇic 11, 12, 13, 15, 19, 20, 31, 35, 37, 46, 59, 65, 76, 82, 121, 129, 141, 146, 161, 166, 173, 178, 183, 184, 187, 190, 192, 194, 205, 208, 209, 212, 213, 214, 220, 221, 223, 224, 225, 229, 230, 232, 233, 249, 250, 257, 272 see also Agnipurāṇa, Devīmāhātmya, Devīpurāṇa, Kālikāpurāṇa, Skandapurāṇa, Vāmanapurāṇa, etc. Purohitadarpaṇa 58, 219 Puruṣārthacintāmaṇi 17, 224, 249, 262, 263, 265, 269, 270 Rabatak 28, 29, 142–1, 185 Raghunandana (Bhaṭṭācārya) 19, 59, 219, 220, 236, 250, 253 Raghuvaṃśa 33, 81 Rājanītiratnākara 234 Rājataraṅgiṇī 60 Rājputs 3, 21, 24, 37, 130, 146 n. 24, 150, 152, 165, 166, 167, 170, 182, 204 legend of the Agnikula/Fire-born Rajputs 148 Rājyalakṣmī/Srī 35 Rāma 38, 127, 129, 190–1, 219 Rāmacarita 192, 193 Rāmāyaṇa (Kṛttivāsa) 38, 65, 191, 219 Rāmāyaṇa (Vālmīki) 30, 188, 190–1, 193, 198 n. 59 Raṇacaṇḍī see under Durgā, names of Rāṣṭrakūṭa/Rāṭhoḍ dynasty 23, 116, 118, 124, 195, 256 Rāṣṭraśyenā 132, 147, 149, 166, 204, 205–1, 209 rathayātrā see chariot processions Ratnākara 86, 88, 91, 115, 120 Rgya gar chos ’byung 183 Śabaras 15, 16, 17, 61, 65, 66, 219, 221, 270 Śābarotsava (Festival of the Śabaras) 17, 131, 220, 221, 233, 237 sacrifice/sacrificer (ritual offering/offerer) xii, 5, 43, 72, 165, 198, 199, 211, 230 (p.294) animal (paśubali) xii, 10 n. 32, 15, 19, 48, 58, 68, 128, 129, 155, 170, 172, 174, 202, 205, 215, 218, 219, 224, 225, 228, 231, 240, 242, 243, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 254, 255, 259, 269 Page 8 of 11 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Index human 15, 17, 60, 66, 87, 94, 220, 236, 248 self-sacrifice 52, 65, 66, 76, 145, 219 Saddharmapuṇḍarīka 133–4 Saduktikarṇāmṛta 41, 85, 126 Sahyādrikhaṇḍa 37, 129, 147, 160–1, 166, 167 Śaiva/Śaivism 6, 9, 14, 18, 20, 36, 44, 45, 46, 50, 53, 56, 57, 61, 64, 65, 66, 71, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82,, 96, 101, 103, 104, 107, 111, 121, 124, 127, 128, 138, 139, 178, 180, 181, 183, 203, 272 Kāpālika tradition 84–95 Śākambharī 139, 147, 148, 149, 150–2 śākta 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 18, 33, 46, 79, 82, 84, 88, 95, 110, 116, 120, 128, 139, 146 n. 24, 150, 154, 170, 171, 180, 181, 182, 184, 185, 187, 188, 193, 194, 200, 203, 213, 222, 223, 226, 229, 230, 231, 232, 246, 260, 269, 270, 271 Śakti/śakti (theological concept of deified ‘power’/‘ability’) xii, xiii, 7, 10, 11, 24, 25, 31, 33, 45, 80, 84, 102, 116, 120, 126, 150, 154, 165, 166, 167, 172, 186, 192, 211, 212, 235, 246, 253, 274 Śakti Devī 122, 265 Samataṭa 22, 117 Sāmrājyalakṣmīpīṭhikā 130, 131, 132, 262–70 Samudragupta 2, 43 Saṃyāna 118, 119, 148 n. 24 Sanderson, Alexis 5, 120 Saramā 78, 104, 109, 191–2 Śārṅgadharapaddhati 126 Schmid, Charlotte 45, 50 self-sacrifice see under sacrifice SII (South Indian Inscriptions) 22, 23, 25 n. 61, 116 n. 1, 127 nn. 40 and 42, 157 n. 61, 167 n. 90, 203 n. 72 Śila 163, 167, 185, 188, 227 Sindursi 44, 63 Śiva 7, 30, 36, 44, 45, 62, 63, 71, 75, 76, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 90, 95, 96, 97, 98, 101, 102, 103, 107, 110, 111, 124, 125, 166, 168, 170, 182, 206, 210, 232, 248 Śivagaṅgai and Ramnad xii, 21, 132, 147, 148 n. 24, 172, 174, 212, 259, 260, 261, 268, 269 Skanda 2, 36, 69, 73, 74, 76, 96, 115, 125, 181, 187, 222, 228, 229, 252 Durgā’s takeover of 97–114 Skanda-Mahāsena 28, 110, 113 Skandapurāṇa 5, 6, 17, 45, 49, 56–1, 68, 76–1, 83, 84, 93, 100, 102–1, 112, 113, 139, 160, 184, 214, 215–1, 217, 227, 250, 259, 270 smārta 17, 19, 180, 212, 213, 220, 224, 225, 233, 235, 236, 262, 271 Sohnen-Thieme, R. 111, 112 Somadeva Bhaṭṭa 86, 87, 91 Somadevasūri see Kumārapāladevacarita; Yaśastilakacampū Someśvaradeva see Surathotsava Śrāvaṇa 58, 76, 197, 198, 270 rise of the Vaiṣṇava Mahānavamī in the month of 218–21 Śrīdharadāsa see Saduktikarṇāmṛta Srinivasan, D. M. 28, 29, 111, 112 Stambheśvarī 7, 8, 147, 179 Stein, Burton 3, 211–12 Page 9 of 11 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Index Subhāṣitaratnakoṣa 13 Śuklayajurvedasaṃhitā 238 Śulkī dynasty 7, 8, 9, 147, 150, 171 Raṇastambha 179 Śumbha/Sumbha and Niśumbha/Nisumbha 14, 45, 48, 59, 77–1, 93, 96, 107, 109, 173, 202, 215 Śumbhaniśumbhanāśinī see under Durgā, names of Suratha 66, 139, 162, 164, 184–6 Surathotsava 185–6 swords (khaḍgas) xiii, 3, 10, 17, 28, 30, 34, 35, 36, 38, 48, 55, 61, 62, 64, 65, 73, 79, 85, 109, 132, 152, 158, 171, 188, 194, 195, 196, 197–1, 217, 227, 231, 232, 244, 249, 251, 252, 256, 257, 259, 260, 264, 268 Taittirīya Āraṇyaka 14, 141, 178 Taleju xiii, 3, 4, 147, 148 n. 24, 153, 172, 195, 203 sword of 195, 196 Tāmralipta/Tāmralipti (Tamluk) 9, 117, 227, 274 Tantricism xiii, 4, 5, 20, 34, 35, 36, 60, 61, 81, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 91, 92, 93, 96, 121, 128, 129, 155, 171, 180, 193, 194, 195, 198, 213, 225, 226, 227, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 246, 258, 259, 271, 272 Tantricization 231, 232, 245 Thanjavur 23, 25, 116, 117, 119, 120, 262, 263 Tilakamañjarī 65, 144, 145, 156, 219 tribes/tribal 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14–1, 25, 35, 36, 42–1, 130, 131, 138, 146 n. 24, 147, 148 n. 24, 157, 215, 221, 223, 225, 270, 272, 274 (p.295) Tuḷjā Bhavānī 147, 173, 191 Turajāmāhātmya 173, 191 Tyche 32–1, 44 Udayagiri 63, 65 Uddyotanasūri see Kuvalayamālā Ugracaṇḍā see under Durgā, names of Uttararāmacarita 144 Vaiṣṇava, Vaiṣṇavism 7, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 33, 36, 38, 42, 43, 45, 46, 50, 51, 53, 55, 57, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 81, 82, 86, 87, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 104, 107, 116, 119, 128, 138, 139, 174, 189, 214, 218, 219, 221, 223, 225, 270, 272, 273 Valkhā 22, 43 Vāmanapurāṇa 103, 106, 110, 112, 140, 207–1, 216 Vārāṇasī 6, 16, 93, 225, 236, 274 Vardhamānasūri see Ācāradinakara Vaṭākarasthā/Vasantgadh 71, 116, 117, 193 Vaṭayakṣiṇī 125–6 Vidīśā 34, 63 Vidyākara see Subhāṣitaratnakoṣa Vidyāpati 181, 236, 237, 271 Vidyāpīṭha 34, 84, 85, 230 Vijayanagara empire 3, 21, 211, 212, 233, 258–1, 271 Vindhyavasinī see under Durgā, names of virgins, worship of see kumārīpūjā Viṣṇu 7, 41, 42, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 56, 58, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 69, 70, 71, 82, 90, 103, 124, 126, 127, 183, 200, 220, 239, 272 Viṣṇubhaṭṭa Āṭhavaḷe 19, 224, 249, 262 Page 10 of 11 PRINTED FROM BRITISH ACADEMY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.britishacademy.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright British Academy, 2020. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in BASO for personal use. Subscriber: OUP-Reference Gratis Access; date: 14 July 2020

Index Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa 224–1, 226, 251 Yaśastilakacampū 35, 193, 220, 256 yātrā (journey/march) 24, 30, 49, 60, 159, 259 yoginī xiii, 35, 52, 66, 67, 105, 110, 169, 173, 191, 194, 205, 209, 230, 232, 251, 260 Yokochi, Yuko 5–1, 45, 104, 125, 140–1, 184 n. 15

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