The Life of Hinduism

(Barré) #1

possession by durga. 163


circumstances, a respectable woman’s hair is tied up and braided, not allowed to
hang loose. In a discussion of hair symbolism among Hindu and Sikh Punjabis, Paul
Hershman mentions that, among the contexts in which the expression val khule
(loose hair) is used, we find “a woman possessed who in a trance whirls her head
with her hair flying free.”^5 In this instance, the Goddess is said to have taken on
pavan rup, “wind form.”
Yet there are also times when the Goddess assumes her “wind form” without en-
tering a human vehicle. In that sense, it is invisible yet perceptible. “Wind” is a sub-
tle form that occupies an intermediate position between the unmanifest Goddess and
a concrete manifestation. It is a form characterized by motion and breath that the
Goddess takes on to move from one place to another or to display her power, but
without becoming fully visible. For example, in several versions of the story of
Queen Tara, the charter myth for the all-night songfest ( jagrata) honoring the
Goddess, the word pavan describes such a form: when King Haricand ’s wakefulness
prevents Tarafrom attending the sweepers’ jagrata, Taraprays to the Goddess,
whereupon a cool breeze (pavan, hava) arises and puts the king to sleep. Likewise,
a holy man who serves at a Durgatemple once told me that he had been called there
by the Mother, who had come to him in the form of “wind.” Whenever he forgets
to do some work, she again comes into his mind as “wind” to remind him. When
this happens, he said, she enters his mind through the breath in his mouth, and he
then sees her in his mind. This is not possession in the usual sense of the term.
Similarly, the expression “playing” is used variously. It can, for instance, refer to
the wild and “playful” head and body movements of the person who is possessed.
The Goddess is said to be “playing” in that person, as in the expression “The God-
dess plays in X,” although sometimes the human vehicle is the agent, as in “X started
playing.” A slightly different but related use of “play” occurs in devotional songs
that turn on the image of young girls(kanya,kajjak),representative of the Goddess
in her virgin aspect, playing in the temple courtyard.^6 These songs represent the
sweet and lovable aspect of the divine play, evokingvatsalya bhava(parental love)—
one of the principal modes of religious devotion(bhakti)—much as in the cult of the
child Krishna. These expressions are tied in with general notions of divine play in the
Hindu tradition.^7 Stories connected with the Goddess variously describe her actions
as play(khel),drama or sport(lila),and art or fabrication(kala).These terms are
used more or less interchangeably to suggest the Goddess’s exuberant, but seemingly
(to humans) purposeless creativity. The wordpossessioncan thus provide only a
rough and partial semantic equivalent for what is a fluid, multifaceted set of concepts.

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