Durga Puja/Introduction
INTRODUCTION.
Modern scholars have elevated comparative religion or mythology like comparative philology to a science, and in investigating the origin of the religious festivals and ceremonies of the ancients nothing perhaps strikes the student more forcibly than the reproduction of the same principles, the same thoughts, the same sentiments, and even the same forms in different climes and among different families of man. Thus Durgotsava, the chief religious festival of the Hindus, has its parallel among the Egyptians, the Chaldæans, the Assyrians, the Phœnicians, the Greeks, and the ancient Arabs.
In Lower Egypt and Phœnicia the ceremony or festival to Osiris or Isis (Adonis and Astarte) used to be observed for eight days at the commencement of Autumn when the sun entered the sign of Cancer. Theocritus describes the ladies of Syracuse embarking for Alexandria to celebrate the festival in honour of Adonis. Arisnoe the sister and wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus bore the statue of Adonis herself. She was accompanied with women of the highest station in the city holding in their hands basketsful of cakes, boxes of perfumes, flowers, branches of trees and all sorts of fruits. The solemnity was closed by other ladies bearing carpets &c. The procession marched in this manner along the sea-coasts to the sound of trumpets and other instruments accompanying the voices of musicians. They carried corn in earthen vessels which they sowed there together with flowers, springing grass, fruits, and young trees and Lettices, Suidas Hesychins &c.
Theophrastus informs us that at the end of the ceremony they used to throw those portable gardens either into a fountain or into the sea. This statement is corroborated by Eustatthius and the Scholiast on Theocritus. In the Hebrew scriptures these worshippers were called Dendrophori or tree-bearers, for they painted a tree on their body as Astarte, Ashtaroth, Aser meaning a tree or a grove. Macrobius says that this ceremony was diffused throughout Assyria. Lucian quoted by the Abbe Banier speaking of the temple of Hieropolis in Syria says that "in this sanctuary are two golden statues, one of Jupiter supported by oxen, and other of Juno by lions. The last is a kind of Pantheon that bears the symbols of several other goddesses. (Minerva, Venus, the Moon, Rhea, Diana, Nemesis and the Destinies). The animals sacrificed were the ox, the sheep and the goat." It should be remembered that Lucian was a Greek writer, and that he naturally saw Jupiter and Juno in the Osiris and Isis or Astarte, in the same way that Sanchoniathon and Porphyry call Baltis the Mistress or Queen of the heavens, the Isis of the Egyptians and the Allahat of the Arabs. The latter observed the festival of Allahat in autumn and that of Lat in spring. Kaushiki is a name of Durga, for she is said to be flower-formed, and Ovid elegantly describes the transformation of Adonis into a flower. In Hindusthan a similar procession of ladies bearing twigs of trees, flowers, fruits and dishes and baskets and singing accompanied with the beat of musical instruments may still be seen on the occasion of the Dasahara festival; the same practice of sowing grains and of putting on the pagri (the head-dress) of men and in locks of hair of women the springing grass on the Vijaya Dasami day is still followed; and the same worship of portable gardens and the throwing of them at the end of the festival into a fountain or stream is still observed. The Vedas, though they ignore the adoration of any visible gods or tangible forms of modern Hindu idolatry, have sung of the Panchasaradiya Yajna and Vasantotsava or the autumnal and vernal festivals.[1] Not only this, but in the Aranyaka, a later appendage to the Black Yajur Veda, laudatory hymns are also given to invoke Amvika, another name for Durga. The Puranas likewise mention that in the month of Madhu agreeing with the modern lunar month of Chaitra and also in Isa agreeing with the modern lunar Asvina the Devi was worshipped.
But let us pause to enquire who this wondrous Devi is, adored at the beginning of creation by Brahma the first-born of heaven for fear of the Titans (Madhukaitabha) and thence forward by man. Is she a deified heroine like Semiramis, or a remarkable historical personage like Lucretia, or a personification of natural object as Thetes or a creature of mere fancy and speculation like Ceres or Pallas, or the offspring of a chimera, the creation of an idle, terrified brain, a hob-goblin, a Siren, a Naiad or a Driad? Decidedly she is none of these, for a goddess so universally and contemporarily adored could not be the creature of fiction, which is local in its very nature. What then could this prodigy riding on a ferocious lion be? She could not be Veritas, the goddess of Truth, subduing the lion by the force of her charms, for she is represented as a martial goddess in the act of fighting. But how could nature give birth to a monstrous being with ten arms and three eyes? We know of no history or philosophy that can reconcile this palpable absurdity and inconsistency in nature to aught of truth or fiction. Where must we turn then to find the true character and attributes of the Divinity. In Hindu mythology she is once described as Adya Sakti, Primæval Energy, Primum Mobile of the Gods, again she is said to be Sati, the daughter of Daksha, Cœlum, and next as the progeny of Himavat and consort of the Kailasian Siva, in which last attribute she is compared with the Olympian Juno, consort of Jove of the Greek Pantheon, and with Isis, Isi, the wife of Osiris, Isvara, of ancient Egypt, as also with the Holy Virgin, Alma-mater of Christian theology, with Allahat of the idolatrous Arabs, and with Astarte or Ashtaroth of the early Assyrians. Indeed, she is unanimously recognised by all idolatrous nations as the primary female copartner of the Eternal God, represented as the Adi-purusha, first male agent of creation. The idea of the co-existence of a co-eternal female co-partner of the male creator of the universe is not at all compatible with our intuitive knowledge of the Self-Existent God, though the Darsanas regard her as some conspicuous object in nature, for instance the Sankhyas call her Prakrti or Nature, the Naiyayikas, Adya Sakti or Prime Energy of the Deity, and the Vaidantias, Maya or Illusion. But why should Nature, Energy or Illusion be represented by the lovely form of a Virgin, made terrific with her rows of arms, triple eyes &c? Or why should Nature our common mother, divine Omnipotence, be portrayed as waging everlasting war with Demons and not nursing her children with fostering care? And above all how such speculations seized the mind through the length and breadth of the ancient world and became the theme of the epics of poets of several nations and the beau ideal of the Deity of all.
We must it appears then seek to trace this universal Verego in something that is common to all?
Does she then reside in the heavens? The early Chaldæans and Phœnicians from their knowledge of the heavenly bodies fell at last to their worship. The Hindus as well as the other Arian nations have adored from time immemorial the heavenly luminaries as beings superior to man, and have from their supposed extraordinary influence adorned them with suitable attributes. In the heavens therefore we must seek for the Devi, for in the heavens we find the heavenly Virgin shining in full lustre and throwing light on the grand mystery of her origin. She proves at once to be the first female Divinity of heaven, the daughter of Daksha, progenitor of the Stars, the holy Virgin of the early Christians and the Astarte of the Assyrians. She proves verily to be the daughter of Himavat by Mena, the Manasa-sarovara, from her position over the eastern extremity of the mount, whence the declination to the southern course of the sun commences in his equatorial line of the Meru, and whence the constellation is seen to rise in early autumn evenings. To the left of the constellation Virgo and a little below it, is situated the constellation of the Centaur with its body of half buffalo and half man. On the other side of Virgo of the heavens stands the constellation Leo almost as far removed from Virgo upwards as the Centaur is downwards, Virgo, Virgin, is the Devi, Centaur is the Demon Mahisasura, and Leo, the Devi's Lion.
Some have supposed her to be the planet Venus, the beauty of heaven, while others have taken her for the fair harvest moon of autumn; but the fixed lady Virgo can not be properly identified with these moving male luminaries of the Hindu Sastras. The moon is called the lord of stars (tarapati), while Venus is known as the beauty of the stars (tarasundari). The festival of the harvest moon takes place on the full moon of Isa (Asvina), but that of the Virgin commences on the pratipada, the first day after the new moon. It does not therefore appear reasonable to suppose her as identical with the moon from the epithet Umasasi or moon-like Uma by way of comparison.
Durga otherwise called Kanya or Kumari as has been premised above is identical with Virgo, the Zodiacal sign of the autumnal equinox in the solar month of September, reckoned as the initial moment of one of the Hindu system of years from the sun's progression or declination to the southern hemisphere, the region of the Demons. She is also the sign of the earth's position in the vernal equinox of Chaitra or more accurately Madhu, when the sun is situate in its opposite sixth sign of Pisces, which also divides the annual circle into two hexamensic periods. Hence the point of ascension of the sun from the southern to the northern hemisphere in the vernal equinox as well as that of his descension or declination from the upper to the lower hemisphere constitute the beginning of the two equinoctial years of the Hindus and count as the periods for worshipping Virgo, Virgin, Kumari, the Devi. This two-fold division of the Hindu year with reference to the heliacal rising and setting of the constellation has its counterpart in the alternate predominance of darkness and light, night and day, in the diurnal revolution of the sun, to which the Dakshinayana and Uttarayana of the Hindu astronomer have been likened. In the diurnal revolution of the starry heaven the group of the three constellations Virgo, Centaur and Leo is almost invisible at night in autumn, and Kanya, Virgo, following upon Leo, the lion, obscures the next constellation Centaur by the brilliancy of the sun, to whom Virgo might be said to be married. It would not perhaps be too violent to suppose that the group of the three figures worshipped in the autumnal festival is the clay representation of the astronomical phenomenon of bright heavenly luminaries. But why should a similar group be worshipped in the spring season and why is the latter regarded as the older of the two season festivals? Is it because the constellations of Leo, Virgo and Centaur are visible in the evenings of spring when the sun is in the opposite sign of the zodiac? Such a supposition may be compatible with the present advanced state of astronomical knowledge, but how did the ancient Hindus, who had not made such progress in astronomy, seize the idea? As the position of the sun in Virgo in autumn led to the autumnal festival, so the position of the earth, it might be supposed, in (Virgo) the sign opposite to Aries led to the revival of the same festival in spring. The festival in autumn continues for a period of ten days commencing from the first lunation after new moon,[2] but in spring it lasts only for four days ending on the tenth lunation from pratipada. The Autumnal festival again, though reckoned in the Sastras as the later of the two, is performed in a more elaborate manner than the Vernal. The year of the early Hindus commenced with the Vernal Equinox, and the signs of the Zodiac together with the constellations or groups of stars, which compose them, have their beginning according to Hindu calculation in the Vernal Equinox, the moment of the commencement of the sun's ascension to the northern hemisphere or the region of the gods; and the inhabitants of that hemisphere possibly thought of celebrating the festival in honour of Virgo at the time of the Vernal Equinox, which it might be supposed was in earlier days none other than α. Virginis. Owing to the retrograde motion in space of the solar system as regards its position in relation to the fixed stars, in other words, owing to the Precession of the Equinoxes the equinoctial points have gradually retrograded and changed places. In the hypothetical days when the sun was in the constellation Virgo the spring possibly prevailed, and when in Aries the autumn took possession of the earth.
Next, it might be asked whether the spring festival had the precedence of the autumnal, because in the ruder days of astronomical science the group of stars forming Virgo, visible in the evenings of spring, first attracted the notice of the observing, and suggested the idea of worshipping tangible representations of the same, and thus gave rise to the Vasantotsava or Vasanti Puja, which was first instituted in honor of the Virgin. In later days the enlightened observers of the heavens and of the motion of the heavenly bodies discovered the more important phenomenon of the motion of the sun in the ecliptic, and found that the constellation Virgo, one of the many groups into which they had triangulated the space of the heavens, fell within the track of the sun. And having discovered this they fell upon the practice of worshipping Virgo at such a time when the most important luminary the sun was in it.
The Hindu constellation Virgo as being composed of Hasta, Chitra and a portion of Svati, consists of Corvus, Virgo, and Bootes of the Western astronomers. Hasta is identified with a. b. c. d. of Corvus, which is situated a little towards the south-west extremity of the constellation Virgo, and by calculation it has been determined that the Equator passed through it in B. C. 2350, the Equator of A. D. 560, however passed a little towards the north of Chitra, a. Virginis.[3] In the autumnal festival therefore the bodhana or the arousing of the goddess Virgin i. e. the moment of the sun's leaving Leo in order to embrace Virgo should be commenced earlier. The Autumnal Equinox in A. D. 560, happened accordingly much closer to Chitra, the asterism proper of Virgo than in B. C. 2350.
The Puranas might have added the worship of the twin-stars Asvini, b. c. Arietis, the Castor and Pollox of the Greeks, in which the sun enters when the constellation Virgo commences to rise in autumn evenings. At the time these two stars were discovered they formed the asterism of the lunar mansion that is the junction of Isa (ancient Asvina) and hence the month Asvina named after the phenomenon. Do these two represent the Kartikeya and Ganesa of the Bengal pratima of Durga, and does the twin star Bharani, for it is in the Vedas sometimes spoken of as the plural Bharanyas, represent Lakshmi and Sarasvati, as supporting (Bharana means to support) the corporeal and intellectual existence. But Bharani is figured as the Yoni or pudendum muliebre, and is formed as a triangle, the southernmost of which is the junction star and its divinity is Yama. It is therefore difficult to prove that the Puranas viewed it, against the text of the Vedas, only in its meaning of supportress, for the Puranas as a rule do not contradict the Vedas. Or do the two scales of Libra represent the twin sisters Lakshmi and Sarasvati. Or the latter the goddess of Krittika or more properly the Krittikas the six stars of the Pleiades, whose regent is Agni. The allegory could be pursued a little further, and the ten arms of Durga could be said to stand for the ten signs of the zodiac, which lie on both sides of the constellation. But is it not too much to suppose that the authors of the Vedas, who hymned the praise of the Autumnal and Vernal Festivals, were so intimately acquainted with the motions and positions of the heavenly bodies, when even the very names of most of them do not occur in their books? The Vedas present no evidence of even the existence of the system of asterisms, indeed it is remarkable how little notice is taken of the stars by the Vaidic poets, even the recognition of some of the luminaries as planets i. e. those which change their position in the heavens with regard to the fixed stars does not appear to have occurred until considerably later.[4] And are not the identifications noted above too much strained and too far-fetched for taking the reason prisoner? How could the ten signs of the zodiac be said to represent the ten arms of the goddess when one of the signs (Virgo) is considered as the goddess herself, and why should the signs of the Bull, the Twin, and others be said to represent arms to which they have as little resemblance as anything with any other thing in creation. Why has the goddess three eyes, why is she said to be formed of the energy of all the gods, why did she ascend in the heavens after she came forth from Vishnu, why is she worshipped in trees and plants, why is she designated the daughter of mountain, why does she pierce the demon's heart with a lance, why does she hold the demon by the fore-lock, why is the demon encircled by a snake, why does the lion fall upon the demon and tear him up, why is she worshipped at the time of the equinoxes, why is the autumnal worship more elaborate than the vernal, why her worship, her entrance and her Visarjana are all enjoined to be performed in the morning, why is the Sandhya Puja, the puja held at the junction of two tithis regarded as the most solemn and meritorious of all others, why is she called Kaushiki, the goddess of flowers, why is the image thrown either into a fountain or a stream, why are springing grass borne on the head, why is the anointing of Durga considered so important, why is the great arati or nirajana held on the Dasami, and why is the Dasami called Vijaya, why is the goddess described as beautiful but terrific-mouthed fit to devour the universe at one gulp, why is she represented tender and powerful at the same time, why are the black goat and the buffalo sacrificed to her, and why is the festival so universally observed all over India, are questions which may strike the thinking mind, and there is but one answer for them. Because the goddess is none other than Aurora, the Dawn of the Vedas.
In the mythology of the Puranas and in the mysticisms of the Tantras this, the first and grandest of festivals so universally observed and so solemnly celebrated throughout India, was associated with a portentious event in the history of the heavens. The kingdom of heaven was in danger, the Demons and Asuras made all powerful by the suffrance of the Almighty attacked the regions of the gods, dethroned them, reduced them to the most abject condition of poverty and defied the command of the Creator himself. In this imminent crisis help was invoked of Vishnu the lord of gods. He was so indignant at beholding their wretchedness that streams of glory rushed forth from his face from which sprang Mahamaya. Streams of glory issued also from the faces of the other gods and entered the person of Mahamaya, who became a body of glory resembling a mountain on fire. The gods then gave their weapons to this lady, who in a frightful rage ascended into the air. This Pauranic myth is commemorated by the celebration of the Durgotsava, the festival of Durga, the Goddess Saviour of the gods from the scourge of the Demon. The event was of no small interest to the people of the Dark Ages of India. The Kingdom of Heaven was redeemed and the immortal gods saved from their arch enemy the Demon. Suratha a king of the Chaitra family who flourished in the Savarni (the 8th) Manvantara of the world celebrated this festival in the month of Chaitra.[5]
This myth of the Puranas regarding the origin of Durga, and her worship in the month of Chaitra in the spring season, under the name of Vasantotsava occurs in the Yajur Veda in a less metaphorical and more plain form. Brahma the Creator being desirous of multiplying his progeny himself became pregnant in a new form, and produced the Asuras with the thighs, and threw at them eatables in an earthen vessel. Then he destroyed the form which generated the Asuras. That form of his body became metamorphosed into dark night. He also created the gods with the mouth, and gave them nectar to drink in a golden cup, and the mouth became a bright day. The Gods are the day, and the Asuras the night. In the earlier Vedas the word Dyu, meaning day, light, is identified with the gods, and darkness, night, with the asuras.
The Dyu of the Vedas and the story of the battle between darkness and light for the kingdom of heaven have been obscured in the myth of the Puranas given above. The anecdote of Suratha (a name of the sun) the founder of the festival in the Vernal season is nothing more than an allegorical expression of the observance of the commencement of the solar year in earlier days when the months and the asterisms coincided, and when Suratha (the sun) might be regarded as having been born in the ace of Chitra one of the asterisms in Virgo (a Virginis) the star which first appeared above the horizon on the evening of the first of Baisakha, the commencement of the year. The authors of the Sastras might have also had the idea of the junction of the sun in a. Virginis, with the moon in Asvini a. Areitis as the proper moment for commencing the year and all calculations of the Hindu calendar. The Hindus have divided the path of the sun in the heavens into twelve signs or compartments of the zodiac. These signs of the zodiac are occupied by twenty-seven asterisms or mansions of the moon, and the months of the Hindu year have been named after the mansions, in which the full moon of the solar month is supposed to take place. In the hypothetical conjunction the full moon is supposed to have happened in the lunar mansion Asvini, when the sun was in Aries. But at that time the rule of naming the month after the position of the full moon in the asterism was not known, and hence the period of the sun's stay in Aries was called by some name other than Asvina. The Vaidic names of the months (for masa or month literally means the measure of the moon and is derived from the satellite) or more accurately of the periods of the sun's stay in the twelve signs of the zodiac are Agrahyana, Taisha, Sahas, Tapasya, Madhu, Madhava, Sukra &c., and not Margasirsa, Pausha, Magha &c.
Usha the goddess Dawn, plays a most important part in the Rig Veda. "She goes to every house, she thinks of the dwelling of man, she does not despise the small or the great, she brings wealth, she is always the same immortal divine, she does not grow old, she is the young goddess, she was born of the gods to slay the powers of darkness (the Dasyus), she fills the air with light and she spreads the sky, she hides her face in water when she sees her husband. Yet she says she will come again and after the sun has travelled through the world in search of the beloved, when he is in the threshold of death, and is going to end his solitary life, she appears again in the Gloaming, the same as the Dawn, at the end of the dreary day when the sun seemed to die away in the far west, the heavens opened and the glorious image of the Dawn rose again, her beauty deepened by a gloaming darkness. O Indra thou struckest the daughter of Dyus (the Dawn) a woman difficult to vanquish".[6]
The above quoted passages of the Vedas are fraught with interesting meaning, and each individual sentence has been developed in the Puranas into anecdotes that fill pages.
Dawn knows no destinction of rank of wealth in her visitations. As the poet says the moon does not withhold his[7] light from the house of even a Chandala, so Dawn, Durga, according to the Puranas may be worshipped by men of all castes, aye even by the mlechchhas or the infidels. In her capacity of a bringer of wealth Dawn is worshipped in the form of Durga, and is prayed to bless men with plenty. Dawn never grows old, nor does Durga, she is said to be full with the freshness of youth. Durga as Mahamaya was born of Vishnu (the sun), and afterward she was equipped with the arms of the other gods. Indeed, the Devimahatmya which if read with the eye of a worshipper of Dawn, appears nothing more than the Pauranic abnormal development of the myth of the Dawn as fighting with the help of the gods against Darkness, night, the demon, and filling the ten quarters of the globe with her victorious sounds. In the Devimahatmya, Mahamaya is said to have been formed of the glory of Vishnu combined with those of the gods, which expressed in the language of astronomy means the twilight, formed by stray rays of many stars combined with those of the sun. Durga in the Puranas is said to be the light of fire, the light of the sun, the light of electricity, and the light of the stars, and indeed the best of all lights. The above four are indeed the sources of all light. The light generated by chemical and vital actions is the only remaining source of light, which has not been mentioned, but it needs be remembered at what age the Puranas were written, for Western Science has only so late as the eighteenth century discovered these as the only sources of light. Dawn fills the air with light, and the Puranas have expressed the same idea almost in similar words. The glory of Mahamaya filled the ten quarters of the globe. The Vaidic idea of Dawn spreading the sky has been metamorphosed in the Puranas and the Tantras into the wide and terrific-mouthed goddess, for Durga is prayed as the terrific-faced and three-eyed. Forsooth, the only distinctive peculiarity of the Dawn and the Evening is the existence of a single star in the heavens. A greater number of stars than one makes the moment night, and the absence of any star, day. The Dawn and the Gloaming may without violence to imagination be called terrific-mouthed, as they both, as it were swallow the universe, and the goddess Durga is ten-armed, for she embraces the universe from the ten quarters of the globe. As darkness abides in the ten quarters of the globe, Dawn challenges Darkness residing in the ten quarters all at once and with ten weapons. Dawn hides her face in water, for the rays of the sloping sun skim over the surface of water, and in the blaze of day she may be said to hide her face under it, rising once more at the gloaming time with the setting sun. The fountain and the stream are therefore considered the proper places to deposit the image of Durga, so that she may come again, for the Dawn comes again. On the death of Sati, Siva became mad, and filled with grief travelled round the world, and was about to end his solitary life wrapt in devotion for her sake, but regained his senses when Parvati married him. The Sun (Puroravas) travelled round the world and regained Dawn in her image of Gloaming at the threshold of Death. The Puranas and Tantras have developed the gloaming image of Dawn into Syama, Kali, who is also an image of Durga. The beauty of Dawn is said to have deepened in gloaming darkness, and Durga becoming Masi-coloured was metamorphosed into Kali. In the war with Mahisasura the Markandeya Purana describes Durga as the invincible lady who challenged the demon and vowed—
Whoso beateth me in battle fray,
Whoso levelleth my wonted pride,
Whoe'er my rival dares to stay,
Let him alone have me his bride.
Siva accepted the challenge, and vanquished her, and so became her husband. In the Vedas Indra is said to have struck the daughter of Dyus (the Dawn) a woman difficult to vanquish.
As Hari, Vishnu, is the lord of day, and is the sun, so Siva, Saumya, is the lord of night, and is the moon. Indeed, Siva bears on his forehead the crescent moon, and as such interchanges places with Vishnu the lord of day. Both are however the lord of light, and Siva being light in a milder form i. e. borrowed light, is the lesser deity. Siva and Hari may however be said to be identical in many respects, and as such Lakshmi and Sarasvati the twin consorts of Hari are forms of Sakti, Durga, and as Siva's is the derived light from Hari, so conversely Sarasvati and Lakshmi are regarded the daughters of Durga. Siva as lord of night has been represented in the Tantras, which view things mystically, as the most terrific of the gods, and as night is the death of day, the gods, Siva is described in the Puranas as the Destroying Energy of the Divinity. Similarly the Tantras hare pursued the myth of the Gloaming as a form of Dawn, and have given numerous imaginary tales regarding the goddess Kali, a form of the Virgin, discovered by the Sun at the threshold of death, and therefore adorned with wreaths of skulls and like emblems of death. The ravens, which accompany this idol, have their counterpart in the constellation Corvus in the heavens which follows Virgo. It might be mentioned that the asterism Svati is held in the Tantras to be an auspicious junction star of the new moon for the worship of Kali.
In the Sastras Mahamaya as already observed is said to have come forth in the form of glory from the person of Vishnu and to have ascended the heavens, figuring like a mountain on fire. The explanation of this myth is that the rays of the morning sun kiss the mountain tops and tinge them red, giving them the appearance of a body on fire, and that light of the sun descends below from the top of the mountain, the Dawn has been described by the Puranas as the descendant or daughter of Himavat, the prominent range of mountains in the north. Dawn discovers the trees and their fruits by her light, and Durga is therefore worshipped in trees. Trees and plants are the abode of Durga, for Dawn peeps through the windows of their foliage. As Dawn with her solitary ray of light passing through the crevices of the caves pierces as it were the heart of demon Darkness, and sucks out its blood in the redness imparted to the sky by the rising sun, so Durga plunges a spear into the breast of the Asura and draws forth blood from it. Dawn, Durga, predominates and holding the demon Darkness, encircled by eternity (the snake emblem of eternity) by the forelock subdues him by planting her foot on his shoulder. Durga stands with one foot on a lion whose Sanskrit name is Hari, the god of day, the sun, and the other on the demon Darkness, for Dawn may be said to stand on both. The left foot of Durga, with which she crushes the demon, is raised a little in the attitude of employing force, for Dawn virtually makes the demon Darkness bear her weight. As the sun, upon which Dawn may be said to ride, chases away darkness into shadows, so the lion of Durga tars the Asura into pieces.
The Dakshinayana is the night of the gods and the Uttarayana their day. The equinoxes, therefore, are the Dawn and the Gloaming of the gods, the proper moments for worshipping Durga, the Dawn of the Puranas. The Morning of the Equinoxes is the Dawn of Dawns, and hence held sacred to the worship of Durga the goddess Dawn. From the text and the notes it will be seen that the Sastras have laid great stress upon the performance in morning of all ceremonies connected with the worship of Durga, Dawn. According to the Puranas the term Sandhya, junction, Twilight, includes both the Dawn and the Gloaming, but the Tantras have extolled the Gloaming, evening, the Sandhya par excellence, and the worship of Sandhya therefore has superseded that of Dawn. The principal puja of Durga is accordingly held at the great Sandhya of Ashtami and Navami Tithis, a moment very near the centre of the bright fortnight. From the Navami tithi of the bright fortnight the reign of Light may be said to prevail. Springing grass is the emblem of light, for the sun brings forth the plants and the corn, and in the worship of Dawn the precursor of Light, the sun, springing grass is borne on head as the token of the festival. With the approach of spring, which follows the Vernal Equinox plants revive and blossoms burst forth in profuseness and Dawn is therefore said to have appeared in the form of blossoms.
Both the diurnal and the hexamensic Dawns are considered auspicious moments for bathing, and the anointing of Durga at that time is for the same reason held to be meritorious.
Dawn having vanquished the demon Darkness establishes the reign of Light. Durga is therefore designated Vijaya, Victoria, or the bestower of victories. It is remarkable that the constellation of Berenice is on the north of Virgo. The dark fortnight of a lunar month is the period, when darkness predominates and is therefore considered unfit for certain ceremonies. In the bright fortnight also for seven or eight days there is a contest as it were between Darkness and Lights, and it is only on the dasami tithi, the tenth lunation, that the dominion of light is thoroughly established. Following this natural phenomenon in the worship of Durga, the Dasami (Vijaya) may be regarded as the celebration of the victory of Dawn over Darkness, and as the martial exploits of the ancients were commemorated by the presentation or lustration of arms in review so the triumph of Dawn over Darkness is similarly celebrated by the presentation or lustration of (lights) the weapons of Dawn.
Black kid is the most acceptable sacrifice to Durga, Dawn, for blacknight is her victim, and for the same reason the Sastras enjoin that in the Vasanti Puja, dark flowers should be offered to Durga. In sacrificing a goat to Durga the animal is directed to be fixed between cloud-formed pillars and between the pillars which divide the universe.[8] At the approach of Dawn, Darkness is fixed between hazy clouds or properly speaking between the zones of condensed vapour hovering over the horizon, and made palpable in the east and west by the rising and setting sun. Night, Darkness, the demon is fixed between the pillars of Dawn and Gloaming, which divide the day of twenty-four hours or of the Equinoxes which divide the starry heaven into two.
Durga is gold coloured for Dawn is red as gold. But the Bengal pratima has other figures than Durga. Ganesa (Janus) is the God of morning and of day after whom the first month of the year Januarius has been named by the Romans. He is called Ganapati by the Hindus and is the first of a group of gods. He is red coloured as the Brahma Murti of the rising sun. He sits on a lotus, which opens at the approach of the sun. Lakshmi is the ten o'clock sun and she therefore stands on a lotus. Sarasvati is the two o'clock sun the hottest and the brightest and therefore the whitest sun of the day. Kartikeya is the setting sun and is painted yellow. According to certain interpretations of the Puranas and Tantras, Durga has been made to assume a different character, that is Force, Prakrti, Sakti. But when it is remembered that man's idea of the godhead in the infancy of the world was derived from the manifestations of the sun, moon and stars, the identification of Durga with Dawn, it is to be hoped, will not appear altogether extravagant. Indeed, this theory finds a remarkable confirmation in the Invokation to the Goddess sung by Kalidasa in his Sakuntala or the Lost Ring quoted in the title-page. This sublime sloka, though rendered differently by different translators, literally means as follows:
"That which is the first work of the Creator (Light of Dawn), that which bears away the Ghi offered according to law (Light of Fire), that which is sacrificer himself (Light of Life), those two which regulate time (the Dawn and the Gloaming), that which pervades the universe possessed with the object of hearing[9] (Space), that which is said to be the energy of all growth (Light of the Sun), and that with which the animate are living: May Isa, Great God, apparent in these eight benign forms bless you! Amen!"
- ↑ See "Hindoo Patriot," Oct., 25, 1869.
- ↑ Jayasingha in his Kalpadruma states that the Vasanti-Puja should be performed from the pratipada to dasami.
- ↑ Burgess' Surya-Siddhanta.
- ↑ The Taittiriya Yajurveda contains the names of the asterisms of lunar mansions, but it is well known that the work is more recent than the Rig and Sama.
- ↑ The present is the Vaivasvata (Solar) Manvantara. The Manvantara which preceded Savarni was Sarochi. A Manvantara is a cycle of four Yugas. Savarni, Sarachisa and Vaivasvata after whom the cycles are named, are all descendants of the Sun. Literally however they are different names of the sun.
- ↑ Max Muller.
- ↑ Moon is according to the Sastras a male deity. It might be noted that the ancient authors occasionally made no distinction of sex of the gods. Thus Baal is sometimes represented as a woman and Astarte bearded.
- ↑ The Sloka in the text has been translated otherwise. The Sanskrit is "Meghakara stambha."
- ↑ Rendered literally this passage means that which pervades the universe being qualified as Usha the object (of worship) of Sruti (the Vedas.)