{"id":2396,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:21","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2396"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:21","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:21","slug":"70-reviews-hymns-to-the-goddess-vol-01-early-cultural-writings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/01-early-cultural-writings\/70-reviews-hymns-to-the-goddess-vol-01-early-cultural-writings","title":{"rendered":"-70_Reviews – Hymns to the Goddess.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\n\n
<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t“Hymns to the Goddess” <\/b>
\n\t\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t1<\/sup><\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/b><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/font> <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\tT<\/font>HIS IS<\/font><\/b>
\n\t\t\tone of a series of publications by Mr. Arthur Avalon consisting of
\n\t\t\ttexts and translations of the Tantras. The hymns collected and
\n\t\t\ttranslated in this volume are, however, taken from other sources
\n\t\t\tbesides the Tantras. Many of them are from the considerable body of
\n\t\t\tdevotional hymns attributed by tradition to the philosopher
\n\t\t\tShankaracharya, a few from the Mahabharata and the Puranas. Most are
\n\t\t\twell-known stotras <\/i>addressed to the various forms and names of the female Energy, Mother of the worlds, whose worship is an \t\t\timportant part of that many-sided and synthetic whole which we call Hinduism.
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe work of translation has been admirably done. The one slight defect is the preservation untranslated of Sanskrit words \t\t\tother than names which might well have been rendered into English. The translation is at once faithful, simple and graceful in \t\t\tstyle and rhythm. No English version can reproduce the majesty of the Sanskrit rhythms and the colour and power of the original, \t\t\tbut within the limits of the possible the work could hardly have been better executed.
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe translation is accompanied by brief but numerous notes. Mr. Avalon has made a principle of submission to the authority \t\t\tof the Hindu commentators and learned men whom he has consulted or taken as his guides in the study of the Tantra. He writes, \t\t\t“It is necessary to study the Hindu commentators and to seek the oral aid of those who possess the traditional interpretation of \t\t\tthe Shastra. Without this and an understanding of what Hindu worship is and means, absurd mistakes are likely to be made. \t\t\tI have thus, in addition to such oral aid, availed myself of the Commentaries of Nilakantha on the Mahabharata, of Gopala <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t1 Translated from the Sanskrit by Arthur and Ellen Avalon (Luzac and Co., London).  
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 569<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tChakravarti and Nagoji Bhatta on Chandi, and of Nilakantha on the Devibhagavata. As regards the Tantra, the great Sadhana \t\t\tShastra, nothing which is both of an understanding and accurate character can be achieved without a study of the original texts \t\t\tundertaken with the assistance of the Tantric gurus and pundits who are the authorised custodians of its traditions.” This careful
\n\t\t\tscrupulousness is undoubtedly the right attitude for the work which
\n\t\t\tMr. Avalon has set himself, -to present to the English-reading public the philosophy and worship of the Tantra and the way of the Shaktas as they have been traditionally practised \t\t\tand understood in mediaeval and modern India. The method followed assures a sound basis free from the vagaries of learned
\n\t\t\tignorance and unfettered ingenuity which render so much of the work
\n\t\t\tof European scholarship on Indian subjects fantastic, unsound and ephemeral. It cannot, we think, be the final attitude; an independent scrutiny of the ancient scriptures and \t\t\tforms of philosophy and religion is needed through the whole range of Indian thought and devotion both to recover their more \t\t\tancient and original forms and principles often concealed by later accretions and crystallisings and to separate from them \t\t\twhatever is of imperishable worth and utility for the spiritual future of mankind. But meanwhile, and especially when a great \t\t\tand difficult subject is being for the first time brought forward in an adequate manner to general notice, the conservative method \t\t\tis undoubtedly the most desirable.
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tCommentators, however, even the most learned, are subject \t\t\tto error, as Mr. Avalon has had to recognise in his translation of the verse which declares that all women without exception \t\t\tare forms of the Great Mother. The commentator would have
\n\t\t\t.<\/i> \t\t\t us believe that the phrase striyaḥ samastāḥ sakalā jagatsu <\/i>means
\n.<\/i> all women who possess the sixty-four arts and are devoted to \t\t\ttheir husbands, are modest, etc. The translator rightly rejects this conventional distortion of a great and profound philosophical \t\t\ttruth; he translates “all women without exception throughout the world”. We wonder whether the phrase does not admit of a \t\t\tdifferent shade cutting deeper into the heart of things. The lines are,<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 570<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tVidyāḥ samastās tava devi bhedāḥ<\/i>
\n.<\/i> \t\t\t <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tStriyaḥ samastāḥ sakalā jagatsu.<\/i>
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tIs there not a hint of a distinction between the simple bhedāḥ<\/i> and sakalāḥ<\/i>? “All sciences, O Goddess, are different parts of \t\t\tthee, all women entirely in the worlds.” The sense would then be that wherever the feminine principle is found in the living \t\t\tpersonality, we have the entire presence of the world-supporting maternal soul of the Divinity. The Devi with all her aspects, \t\t\t kalās<\/i>, is there in the Woman; in the Woman we have to see
\n\t\t\tDurga, Annapurna, Tara, the Mahavidyas, and therefore it is said in
\n\t\t\tthe Tantra, in the line quoted by Mr. Avalon in his preface, “Wherever one sees the feet of Woman, one should give worship in one’s soul even as to one’s guru.” Thus this thought \t\t\tof the Shakta side of Hinduism becomes an uncompromising declaration of the divinity of woman completing the Vedantic \t\t\tdeclaration of the concealed divinity in man which we are too apt to treat in practice as if it applied only in the masculine. We \t\t\tput away in silence, even when we do not actually deny it, the perfect equality in difference of the double manifestation.
\n\t\t\t<\/span>
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThere are other instances in which the translators seem to us not to have escaped the misleading wiles of the commentator. We
\n\t\t\tmay instance the passage in the Hymn to Mahadevi in which the
\n\t\t\tGoddess is described as being "both black and grey". "Smoke coloured” would be a closer rendering of the epithet dhūmra<\/i>. \t\t\tWe are told in the note that it means “that which is with smoke, the sacrificial rite, here the knowledge of the rites”. This is a \t\t\tscholastic interpretation which we cannot accept. The different hues of the Goddess are always psychologically symbolic and \t\t\tMr. Avalon has himself an excellent passage to that effect in his Introduction. But, although occasionally provoking dissent, the \t\t\tnotes are throughout interesting and instructive and often throw a new light on the implications of the text.
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tMr. Avalon in his publications insists upon the greatness of the Tantra and seeks to clear away by a dispassionate statement \t\t\tof the real facts the cloud of misconceptions which have obscured our view of this profound and powerful system. We shall<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 571<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\thave occasion to deal with this aspect of his work when we come to speak of the Mahanirvana Tantra. In this volume he justifies \t\t\tagainst European prejudice the attribution of the feminine form and quality to God and against modern ignorance generally the \t\t\timage-worship which the Tantra in common with other Hindu systems makes part of the first stage in religious progress. On \t\t\tboth points we are in general agreement with his standpoint, though we do not hold that religious evolution must necessarily \t\t\tfollow the line laid down by the Tantra.
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tHuman conceptions of the Divine divide themselves first \t\t\tinto the worship of the formed and the aspiration towards the formless, secondly, into the adoration of the Qualified and the \t\t\turge of the rarest spirits towards the Unqualified, the Absolute. For all these stages the Tantric worship and discipline \t\t\tprovides. How can the Formless invest Himself with form, asks the religious rationalist. The universe is there to reply. Hinduism \t\t\tworships Narayana in the stone, the tree, the animal, the human being. That which the intellectual and spiritual pride or severity \t\t\tof other religions scorns, it makes its pride and turns into its own form of logical severity. Stocks and stones, the quadruped \t\t\tand the human being, all these are equals in God, our brothers in the Divine, forms that the Omnipresent has not disdained to \t\t\tassume. But beyond the material forms there are others that are ideal and symbolic, but not less, if anything more real, more full \t\t\tof divine power than any actual physical manifestation. These are the mental images in which we worship God. The Hindu \t\t\tbelieves that to whatever form he brings his devotion, the love of God is bound to assume and vivify it, and we cannot say \t\t\tthat the belief is irrational. For if there is a Consciousness in the universe and transcending it which answers to the yearning of \t\t\tall these creatures and perhaps Itself yearns towards them with the love of the Father, the Mother, the Friend, the Lover, and a \t\t\tlove surpassing all these, then it is idle to suppose that It would assume or create for its own pleasure and glory the forms of \t\t\tthe universe, but would disdain as an offence to Its dignity or purity those which the love of the worshipper offers to It and \t\t\twhich after all Itself has formed in his heart or his imagination.  
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 572<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tTo these mental forms mental worship may be offered, and this is the higher way; or we may give the material foundation, the 
\n\t\t\tpratiṣṭh<\/i><\/font><\/span>ā<\/i><\/span><\/font>, of a statue or pictured image to form a physical nodus \t\t\tfor a physical act of worship.
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tIn the formless also we worship God, in His qualities, in \t\t\tHis Love, Power, Bliss, Wisdom, in the great cosmic Principles by which He manifests Himself to the eye of knowledge. We \t\t\tworship Him as the Impersonality manifested in these things or the Personality containing them. And we rise at the apex of \t\t\t the pinnacle into that which is not only formless, arūpa<\/i>, but
\n\t\t\tnirguṇa<\/i>, qualityless, the indefinable, anirdeśyam<\/i>, of the Gita.
\n.<\/i> In our human ignorance, with our mental passion for degrees \t\t\tand distinctions, for superiorities and exclusions, we thus grade these things and say that this is superior, that is for ignorant \t\t\tand inferior souls. Do we know? The Theist looks down with reprobation on the form-adoring man-worshipping idolater and
\n\t\t\tpolytheist; the Adwaitin looks down with a calm and tolerant
\n\t\t\tindulgence on the ignorance of the quality-adoring
\n\t\t\tpersonality-bemused Theist. But it seems to us that God scorns nothing, that the Soul of all things may take as much delight in the prayer of a \t\t\tlittle child or the offering of a flower or a leaf before a pictured image as in the philosopher’s leap from the summit of thought \t\t\tinto the indefinable and unknowable and that he does best who can rise and widen into the shoreless realisation and yet keep the heart of the little child and the capacity of the seer of forms.
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tAt any rate, this is an attitude towards which these Hymns \t\t\tto the Goddess bring us very near. They are full of the glories of her form, her visible body; full of the thinker’s perception \t\t\tof her in all the shapes of the universe; full of the power of her psychological aspects; pervaded too by a sense behind and \t\t\toften expressed of her final unity and transcendence. Mr. Avalon brings this out with great force and vividness in his Introduction.
\n\t\t\tBut it should be manifest even to a careless reader of the Hymns.
\n\t\t\tTake the following passage: –<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tReverence to Her who is eternal, Raudra, <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tTo Gauri and Dhatri, reverence and again reverence,<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 573<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tTo Her who is moonlight and in the form of the moon, <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tTo Her who is supreme bliss, reverence for ever. <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThat is from the famous hymn in the Chandi-Mahatmya, deservedly one
\n\t\t\tof the best known in sacred literature; but everywhere we find the same crowding of different aspects. In a hymn of which the eleventh verse is a sensuous description of \t\t\tthe physical goddess, –<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tO Gauri! with all my heart <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tI contemplate Thy form, <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tBeauteous of face, <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tWith its weight of hanging hair, <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tWith full breasts and rounded slender waist, <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tHolding in three hands a rosary, a pitcher and book <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAnd with thy
\n\t\t\tfourth hand making the jnanamudra, –<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t(mark how the close passes naturally into the psychological symbolism of the form), the ninth is a remarkable piece of Yogic \t\t\timagery, –<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tO Mother! like the sleeping King of serpents \t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tResiding in the centre of the first lotus, <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThou didst create the universe. <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThou dost ascend like a streak of lightning, <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAnd attainest the
\n\t\t\tethereal region; –<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tand the opening is the highest philosophy expressed with great poetic force and interspersed with passages of the richest poetic \t\t\tcolour –<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe cause and Mother of the world, \t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tShe whose form is that of the Shabdabrahman, <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tAnd whose substance is bliss. <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThou art the primordial One, <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tMother of countless creatures, <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tCreatrix of the bodies of the Lotus-born, Vishnu and Shiva, <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tWho creates, preserves and destroys the worlds. . . .<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 574<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\t\t<\/font><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tAlthough Thou art the primordial cause of the world, <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tYet art Thou ever youthful. <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tAlthough Thou art the Daughter of the Mountain-King, <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tYet art Thou full of tenderness. <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tAlthough Thou art the Mother of the Vedas, <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tYet they cannot describe Thee. <\/font>
\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tAlthough men must meditate upon Thee,
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tYet cannot their mind comprehend Thee.
\n\t\t\t<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThis hymn is quoted as culled from a Tantric compilation, the Tantrasara. Its opening is full of the supreme meaning of the great Devi symbol, its close is an entire self-abandonment to the adoration of the body of the Mother. This catholicity is typical \t\t\tof the whole Tantric system, which is in its aspiration one of the greatest attempts yet made to embrace the whole of God \t\t\tmanifested and unmanifested in the adoration, self-discipline and knowledge of a single human soul.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tPage \u2013 575<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/font>
\n \t\t\t<\/font>
\n\t\t\t
\n \t\t\t<\/font>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Hymns to the Goddess” 1   THIS IS one of a series of publications by Mr. Arthur Avalon consisting of texts and translations of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-early-cultural-writings","wpcat-49-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}