possession by durga. 161
tain specifics of terminology and practice may be unique to this region, I believe that
similar dynamics of Goddess possession can be found throughout India.^2 In north-
west India, the worship of Deviis perhaps the most prevalent manner of religious
expression among Hindus. The region boasts a multitude of pilgrimage sites asso-
ciated with the Goddess, such as Vaishno Devi, Jvala Mukhi, and Chintpurni. Each
of these houses a particular goddess who has her own personality, iconography, and
cycle of stories, and who is simultaneously considered to be a manifestation of the
one all-pervading divine force, fakti. When spoken of in general terms, as she often
is, the Goddess is commonly called Feranvali, “Lion Rider” (a nickname of the
demon-slaying Durga) or simply Mata, “Mother.” In her cult esoteric Tantric ele-
ments mingle with popular devotional worship (bhakti) and folk elements. (See fig-
ure J at the Web site http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/vasu/loh.))
Although this lion-riding mother goddess has mythological and ritual affiliations
with the great male deities Visnu and Fiva, it is in her independent form that she is
most often worshipped. That is, she is not seen as a consort deity, like Laksmior Par-
vati, whose identity is linked with a male deity. Yet she is not completely different
from such goddesses, for on some level all goddesses are one. One way to approach
this complex issue is to view the various goddesses associated with Ferajvalias func-
tioning in an independent (as opposed to a consort) mode. It is this mode that most
concerns us here, since the Goddess manifestations who typically operate inde-
pendently—such as Vaisno Devi, Kali, JvalaMukhi, and SantosiMa—are the ones
most likely to possess human vehicles. Although Punjabis and other people in north-
west India are familiar with Laksmiand Parvatiand do worship them on occasion,
I have never heard them speak of these goddesses as possessing people.
The goddess Ferajvaliis both transcendent and immanent, her functions rang-
ing from such cosmic concerns as the creation, preservation, and destruction of the
universe to personal concerns—curing diseases, helping people in distress, and so
on. She is the embodiment offakti, the dynamic power of the universe. Implicit in
the theology of this Goddess is a monism in which matter and spirit are not differ-
entiated but rather form a continuity that is subsumed within fakti, the feminine cre-
ative principle. Whereas the Faiva and Vaisnava theologies both recognize fakti to
be the active (feminine) aspect of the Divine, the complement to the inactive (mas-
culine) aspect, the goddess-focused Fakta theology understands fakti, which is iden-
tified with the Great Goddess, to be the ultimate reality itself and the totality of all
being. The general thrust ofFakta theology is to affirm the reality, power, and life
force that pervades the material world. Matter itself, while always changing, is sa-
cred and is not different from spirit. The Goddess is the totality of all existence; ac-