May 11, 2002, 12.56am IST.
George Gamow, the physicist, once said, ‘‘the more and more we extend the frontiers of science the more are we convinced that the universe is the product of a great thought’’. Early man worshipped the forces of nature. He feared these forces and sought to propitiate them. In the Vedic age, nature was equated with divinity and the forces of nature were personified and deified. Thus the elements came to be worshipped. This reverence found expression in Vedic chants in praise of the deities. The ritualistic part of such worship was in the form of ‘‘oblations into the fire’’ or yagna where objects dear to man were offered to the sacred fire as sacrifice. The mahamantras in the Vedas such as So hum (I am God) and Aham Brahmasmi (I am Brahman) reveal the great underlying truth that the substratum of all existence is one Supreme Power. The Vedas, however, did not describe or define this power — they could only point out with great difficulty to this all-pervading omnipotent force by saying ‘‘not this’’ and ‘‘not that’’ and that too ineffectively — by a process of reduction causing even more uncertainty.
The Puranic Age marked a difference in approach — it made the Supreme Being more ‘definitive’ and ‘realisable’. Thus God had to be given names, forms and qualities. Thus was born the concept of a personal god in human form easily understood and worshipped by man. Idols, symbols and mystic diagrams (yantras) became popular, leading to ritualistic worship. Therefore, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva came to represent different aspects of the Supreme Being, presiding over the evolutionary processes of creation, sustenance and destruction. The Vedic concepts were now woven round personal gods and the result was the creation of a multitude of gods and goddesses each signifying different aspects of divinity which one could worship according to one’s tendencies or vasanas. This enabled religion to incorporate all forms of belief and worship without necessitating the selection or elimination of any and to see the divine in every manifestation of life. This experience of unity of all existence became possible through saguna worship — worshipping God with form and attributes.
Adi Sankara in his commentaries explains the concept of advaita as the oneness of all creation and the misconception of the ‘‘many’’, caused by delusion. Sankara has also glorified personal gods in his stotras in praise of various deities which are chanted in households all over the country.
In the Bhagavata Purana (canto 8), wherein the Gajendra Moksha episode (Liberation of the Elephant King) is narrated, there is a stanza praising Vishnu as the Supreme Being by a series of negations:
‘‘That which is the cause of creation, yet is not part of it, that being which is not a deva or asura, is neither male, female or neutral, or any form of life, or one that is made up of the gunas or born out of karma, or is manifest or unmanifest, or created, or having any descriptive specifications like substance, attribute or function, but owing to the influence of maya, is residual, after all such negations, let that Supreme Being appear before me’’.
Thus the worship of the formless, attributeless Supreme Being is sublimated to a God with forms, attributes and characteristics. This gave rise to a dual concept in practice — that of purusha (indwelling spirit) and prakriti (root matter) or to be more precise, Shiva and Shakti. Shakti is the great power or energy that is the deriving force of Shiva who is inert or actionless without it. The opening verse of Sankara’s Soundarya Lahari (The Wave of Bliss) describes just this: ‘‘Thou art the very life in Him O Devi! /Without thee Shiva’s dead and unwise /And the manifold worlds He cannot create. /Being thus the most adored of the Great /Brahma Vishnu and Maheswara, how can I, /Devoid of any merit, be able /To offer Thee my prostrations and my praise?
Shakti or power is thus personified as Devi (the female aspect of divinity). We thus have the male- female combination of Vishnu and Lakshmi, Shiva and Parvati, and Brahma and Saraswathi, the emphasis being on the feminine aspect. This developed into the great stream of Shakti worship or adoration of the supreme energy principle in the various forms of Devi. The supreme goddess, therefore, became the hallmark of Hindu religion as it catered to the natural instinct of man, namely, worship of the mother. Thus the absolute being, who is not manifest to the senses or intellect, became definite, clear and easy to grasp in the form of the Divine Mother.
Energy is considered feminine in Hindu religious philosophy and the Supreme Energy becomes the mother of the universe. It is this energy that is sought to be worshipped as the Mother Goddess in the various Shakti Peethas in the country.
(Tomorrow is Mother’s Day)
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