Indian Goddess Durga

2024 Author: Miguel Ramacey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 06:11

Indian spiritual tradition is polytheistic, that is, based on the worship of many gods and goddesses. We will talk about one of them - Durga - in this article.

Meaning of name

The name of the Indian goddess Durga means "invincible". However, it contains much more information than it might seem at first glance. So, the syllable "du" means four great demons called asuras. These demons are the personifications of hunger, poverty, suffering and bad habits. "R" in the name of this goddess means illness. And the final syllable "ga" represents cruelty, unbelief, sins and other things that are evil. All this is opposed to the goddess Durga. The meaning of her name lies in winning and overcoming it all.

Besides, in the holy scripture of the admirers of Durga "Durga-saptshati" there is a list consisting of one hundred and eight of her names. This suggests that the goddess Durga, whose photo is shown above, is not just a goddess, but represents the fullness of femininity in a deity. In other words, she is the Great Mother Goddess, the highest manifestation of divine power in her feminine aspect.

Reverence and worship

Among adherentsHindu goddess Durga is one of the most revered female deities. Myths tell that with her help the legendary Rama defeated the demon lord named Ravana. Krishna also prayed to her, as well as a number of other mythical characters.

Durga is widely revered by worshipers of the god Vishnu. In Shaivism, the goddess Durga is considered the wife of Lord Shiva. Adherents of Shaktism consider her Parvati, thus expressing their belief that the root cause of our world is concentrated in the face of Durga - the world of illusion, matter, forms and names.

Durga Appears

One of the myths that tells how the goddess Durga appeared is contained in the Markandeya Purana. According to this story, a fiery sphere came out of the mouth of the Hindu trinity-Trimurti (Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu) during anger. Then the same realms came out of all the other gods and demigods. Slowly they merged into one huge ball of fire and light, which gradually transformed into a radiant and beautiful goddess. Her face was created from the light of Shiva. Her hair is woven with the radiance of Rama. And the goddess Durga owes her hands to the effulgence of Vishnu. The light of the moon gave her a pair of breasts, and the light of the sun (Indra) gave her a body. The water deity Varuna rewarded her with thighs, and her buttocks arose from the energy of the earth goddess Prithvi. Durga's feet emerged from the light of Brahma, and the rays of the sun turned into her toes. The guardians of the eight directions of the world awarded her with fingers on their hands. The light of Kubera - the god of we alth - gave Durga a nose, and the eyes of the goddess Durga, of which there are exactly three, appeared from the radiancethe three-headed fire god Agni. The ears are derived from the brilliance of the air deity Marut. Similarly, from the light and effulgence of various deities, other parts of Durga's body also originated.

Further, the legend tells how all the gods presented Durga with some weapon as a gift. For example, Shiva gave her a trident, exactly the same as he owns. She received a disk from Vishnu, a shell from Varuna, and a bow and arrows from Marut. From other gods, she received an ax, a sword, a shield, and many other means of defense and attack.

The whole story shows that the goddess Durga is a collective image that combines all aspects of divinity, mobilized in opposition to evil. This goddess carries the essence of each of the gods and unites them in a common fight against darkness, asserting the law of Dharma.

There are other myths about her appearance. They differ in details, but the general concept remains the same - in Durga all divine forces converge. Therefore, in some texts it is even identified with the Absolute.

Durga in Mythology

Many more or less similar stories about Durga create her image as a generalization of all divine powers - such is the nature of the mother goddess. According to Indian mythology, the great mother can be embodied in various forms so that balance and harmony are established on earth. One way or another, all the stories about Durga have a common leitmotif - the fight against the forces of darkness, personified in demons. This struggle is natural to our world of names and forms, which exists through struggle andinteraction of opposites. The forces of evil in the world are very powerful, strong, but in the end they lead to self-destruction. The light side, on the other hand, embodies creation and progress, but its power is somewhat slow and takes time.

The initial advantage tends to be on the side of evil, whose forces quickly combine and begin to act, breaking the balance. However, then, when the forces of light gradually consolidate, personified in the form of a god or goddess, evil is defeated and the lost balance is restored. The forces of evil are based on such qualities as envy, selfishness, self-interest, lust for power, hatred and violence. Goodness invariably consists in non-violence, self-sacrifice, repentance, love, sacrificial service, and so on.

The spiritual meaning of the Durga myths

The confrontation between good and evil, according to Hinduism, flows continuously, first of all, inside each person. Evil is activated whenever anger arises, hatred, pride, greed, and attachment are shown. Their opposite is devotion, mercy, compassion, non-violence, the willingness to sacrifice one's own interests for the sake of others. The image of this particular struggle within each personality is represented by all the myths about Durga. Thus, they have an important psychological and spiritual dimension and meaning, allowing a person to strive upward and develop, overcoming his evil sides and inclinations.

Durga herself, the photo of whose icon is located below, is a personificationall that is good, right and positive in a person. Therefore, her veneration and strengthening of the prayerful and spiritual connection with her allows a person to take root in truth, goodness and justice and develop in the right direction.

Theological meaning of Durga

Passing from the area of subjective-psychological to the theological description of this goddess, we must first of all note that she is a symbol of the non-dual existence of consciousness, full of energy. Like a great mother, Durga overcomes the disharmony that disturbs the natural order of things and the course of history. She always wishes the best for everyone. This fully applies to the demons with whom she fights. The nature of her struggle is such that it does not lead to the destruction of vice and not to the punishment of evil entities, but to their internal fundamental transformation. This is illustrated in one of the myths, where Durga explains that if she simply destroyed the demons with her divine power, they would go to hell, where, tormented, they would end their evolution. But fighting them as equals led them to be able to inherit a higher rebirth and eventually become good beings. Such is the transformative energy of Goddess Durga.

Images of Durga

Iconographically, Durga is depicted as a beautiful woman with eight arms. However, the number of hands can vary and even reach twenty. In them she keeps her weapons and various religious symbols. The throne for her is most often a tiger or a lion. On the whole, there isquite a lot of variety in the images of Durga. This applies to both the details and the overall concept of the icon.

Mantra

The main mantra for Goddess Durga is: “Om dum Durgaye namah”. There are, however, others. For example, there are nine different manifestations of Durga in the form of the nine goddesses of Navaratri. Each of them also has its own mantra.

Worship outside of India

The cult of Durga began to spread outside Hindustan due to the course of cultural processes in the XX-XXI centuries. Firstly, this is due to the interest in the East and exotic spirituality that arose in the West. Its consequence was a huge flow of pilgrims, which greedily absorbed all forms of Indian religiosity.

The second reason was the current in the opposite direction, when many Eastern, including Indian, religious teachers and gurus flooded the countries of the West, organizing their schools there and establishing cults of Indian deities. The popularity of yoga is another factor that played an important role in the spread of the veneration of Durga. Finally, the interest of Western musicians in Indian music and mantras also had an impact. A domestic example of this can serve, for example, as the RZhB track - the eyes of the goddess Durga, or the Calm Gothic composition - Durga.