{"id":460,"date":"2013-07-13T01:28:08","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=460"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:28:08","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:28:08","slug":"42-hymns-to-the-goddess-vol-17-the-hour-of-god-volume-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/17-the-hour-of-god-volume-17\/42-hymns-to-the-goddess-vol-17-the-hour-of-god-volume-17","title":{"rendered":"-42_Hymns to the Goddess.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n
\n

Hymns
\nto the Goddess*<\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n


\n                THIS<\/font><\/b> is
\none of a series of publications by Mr. Arthur Avalon consisting of texts and
\ntranslations of the Tantras. The hymns collected and translated in this volume
\nare, however, taken from other sources besides the Tantras. Many of them are
\nfrom the considerable body of devotional hymns attributed by tradition to the
\nphilosopher Shankaracharya, a few from the Mahabharata and the Puranas. Most
\nare well-known stotras <\/i>addressed to the various forms and names of the
\nfemale Energy, Mother of the worlds, whose worship is an important part of that
\nmany-sided and synthetic whole which we call Hinduism.<\/p>\n

    The work of
\ntranslation has been admirably done. The one slight defect is the preservation
\nuntranslated of Sanskrit words other than names which might well have been
\nrendered into English. The translation is at once faithful, simple and graceful
\nin style and rhythm. No English version can reproduce the majesty of the
\nSanskrit rhythms and the colour and power of the original, but within the
\nlimits of the possible the work could hardly have been better executed.<\/p>\n

    The translation
\nis accompanied by brief but numerous notes. Mr. Avalon has made a principle of
\nsubmission to the authority of Hindu commentators and learned men whom he has
\nconsulted or taken as his guides in the study of the Tantra. He writes,
\n"It is necessary to study the Hindu commentators and to seek the oral aid
\nof those who possess the traditional interpretation of the Shastra. Without
\nthis and an understanding of what Hindu worship is and means, absurd mistakes
\nare likely to be made. I have thus, in addition to such oral aid, availed
\nmyself of the commentaries of Nilakantha on the Mahabharata, of Gopala
\nChakravarti and Nagoji Bhatta on Chandi, and of Nilakantha on the
\nDevibhagavata. As regards the Tantra, the great Sadhana Shastra, nothing which
\nis both of an understanding and accurate character can be achieved without a
\nstudy of the original texts<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

\nPage \u2013 267<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

undertaken with
\nthe assistance of the Tantric Gurus and Pundits who are the authorised
\ncustodians of its traditions." This careful scrupulousness is undoubtedly
\nthe right attitude for the work which Mr. Avalon has set himself, \u2014 to present
\nto the English-reading public the philosophy and worship of the Tantra and the
\nway of the Shaktas as they have been traditionally practised and understood in
\nmediaeval and modern India. The method fol\u00adlowed assures a sound basis free
\nfrom the vagaries of learned ignorance and unfettered ingenuity which render so
\nmuch of the work of European scholarship on Indian subjects fantastic, un\u00adsound
\nand ephemeral. It cannot, we think, be the final attitude; an independent
\nscrutiny of the ancient scriptures and forms of philosophy and religion is needed
\nthrough the whole range of Indian thought and devotion both to recover their
\nmore ancient and original forms and principles often concealed by later
\naccretions and crystallisings and to separate from them whatever is of
\nimperishable worth and utility for the spiritual future of mankind. But
\nmeanwhile, and especially when a great and difficult subject is being for the
\nfirst time brought forward in an adequate manner to general notice, the
\nconservative method is undoubtedly the most desirable.<\/p>\n

    Commentators,
\nhowever, even the most learned, are subject to error, as Mr. Avalon has had to
\nrecognise in his translation of the verse which declares that all women without
\nexception are forms of the Great Mother. The Commentator would have us believe
\nthat the phrase striyah samastāh sakalā jagatsu<\/i> means all women who
\npossess the sixty-four arts and are devoted to their husbands, are modest, etc.
\nThe translator rightly rejects this con\u00adventional distortion of a great and
\nprofound philosophical truth; he translates "all women without exception
\nthroughout the world". <\/b>We wonder whether the phrase does not admit
\nof a different shade cutting deeper into the heart of things. The lines are,<\/p>\n

 <\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Vidyāh samastāstava devi
\nbhedāh.<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

striyah samastāh sakalā jagatsu<\/font><\/span>.<\/font><\/p>\n

    Is there not a hint of a
\ndistinction between the simple bhedāh <\/i>and sakalāh<\/i> ? "All
\nsciences, O Goddess, are different parts of <\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 268<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n

thee, all women
\nentirely in the worlds." The sense would then be that wherever the
\nfeminine principle is found in the living personality, we have the entire
\npresence of the world-supporting maternal soul of the Divinity. The Devi with
\nall her aspects, kalās, <\/i>is there in the Woman; in the Woman we have to
\nsee Durga, Annapurna, Tara, the Mahavidyas, and therefore it is said in the
\nTantra, in the line quoted by Mr. Avalon in his preface, "Wherever one
\nsees the feet of Woman, one should give worship in one’s soul even as to one’s
\nGuru." Thus this thought of the Shakta side of Hinduism becomes an
\nuncompromising declaration of the divi\u00adnity of woman completing the Vedantic
\ndeclaration of the con\u00adcealed divinity in man which we are too apt to treat in
\npractice as if it applied only in the masculine. <\/b>We put away in silence,
\neven when we do not actually deny it, the perfect equality in diffe\u00adrence of
\nthe double manifestation.<\/p>\n

    There
\nare other instances in which the translators seem to us not to have escaped the
\nmisleading wiles of the commentator. We may instance the passage in the Hymn to
\nMahadevi in which the Goddess is described as being "both black and
\ngrey". "Smoke-coloured" would be a closer rendering of the
\nepithet dhūmra.<\/i> We are told in the note that it means "that which
\nis with smoke, the sacrificial rite, here the knowledge of the rites".
\nThis is a scholastic interpretation which we cannot accept. The different hues
\nof the Goddess are always psychologically symbolic and Mr. Avalon has himself
\nan excellent passage to that effect in his Introduction. But, although
\noccasionally provoking dissent, the notes are throughout interesting and
\ninstructive and often throw a new light on the implications of the text.<\/p>\n

    Mr.
\nAvalon in his publications insists upon the greatness of the Tantra and seeks
\nto clear away by a dispassionate statement of the real facts the cloud of
\nmisconceptions which have obscured our view of this profound and powerful
\nsystem. We shall have occasion to deal with this aspect of his work when we
\ncome to speak of the Mahanirvana Tantra. In this volume he justifies against
\nEuropean prejudice the attribution of the feminine form and quality to God and
\nagainst modern ignorance generally the image-worship which the Tantra in common
\nwith other Hindu systems makes part of the first stage in religious progress.<\/p>\n

\nPage \u2013 269<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

On both points we are in general agreement with his standpoint, though we do
\nnot hold that religious evolution must necessarily follow the line laid down by
\nthe Tantra.
\n       
\nHuman conceptions of the Divine divide themselves first into the worship of the
\nformed and the aspiration towards the formless, secondly, into the adoration of
\nthe Qualified and the urge of the rarest spirits towards the Unqualified, the
\nAbsolute. For all these stages the Tantric worship and discipline provides. How
\ncan the Formless invest Himself with form, asks the religious rationalist.
\nThe universe is there to reply. Hinduism worships Narayana in the stone, the
\ntree, the animal, the human being. That which the intellectual and spiritual
\npride or severity of other religions scorns, it makes its pride and turns into
\nits own form of logical severity. Stocks and stones, the quadruped and the
\nhuman being, all these are equals in God, our brothers in the Divine, forms
\nthat the Omnipresent has not disdained to assume. But beyond the material forms
\nthere are others that are ideal and symbolic, but not less, if anything more
\nreal, more full of divine power than any actual physical manifestation. These
\nare the mental images in which we worship God. The Hindu believes that to
\nwhatever form he brings his devotion, the love of God is bound to assume and
\nvivify it, and we cannot say that the belief is irrational. For if there is a
\nConsciousness in the universe and transcending it which answers to the yearning
\nof all these creatures and perhaps itself yearns towards them with the love of
\nthe Father, the Mother, the Friend, the Lover, and a love surpassing all
\nthese, then it is idle to suppose that It would assume or create for its own
\npleasure and glory the forms of the universe, but would disdain as an offence
\nto Its dignity or purity those which the love of the worshipper offers to It
\nand which after all Itself has formed in his heart or his imagination. To these
\nmental forms mental worship may be offered, and this is the higher way; or we
\nmay give the material. foundation, the pratisthhā, <\/i>of a statue or
\npictured image to form a physical nodus for a physical act of worship.
\n       
\nIn the formless also we worship God, in His qualities, in His Love, Power,
\nBliss, Wisdom, in the great cosmic Principles by which He manifests Himself to
\nthe eye of knowledge. We<\/p>\n

Page-270<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

worship Him as the Impersonality manifested in these things or the Personality
\ncontaining them. And we rise at the apex of the pinnacle into that which is not
\nonly formless, arūpa, <\/i>but nirguna, <\/i>qualityless, the
\nindefinable, anirdeśyam, <\/i>of the Gita. In our hu- man ignorance, with our
\nmental passion for degrees and’ distinctions, for superiorities and
\nexclusions, we thus grade these things and say that this is superior, that is
\nfor ignorant and inferior souls. Do we know? The Theist looks down with
\nreprobation on the form-adoring man-worshipping idolater and polytheist; the
\nAdwaitin looks down with a calm and tolerant indulgence on the ignorance of the
\nquality-adoring personality-bemused Theist. But it seems to us that God scorns
\nnothing, that the Soul of all things may take as much delight in the prayer of
\na little child or the offerings of a flower or a leaf before a pictured image
\nas in the-philosopher’s leap from the summit of thought into the indefinable and
\nunknowable and that he does best who can rise and widen into the shoreless
\nrealisation and yet keep the heart of the little child and the capacity of the
\nseer of forms.
\n       
\nAt any rate, this is an attitude towards which these Hymns to the Goddess bring
\nus very near. They are full of the glories of her form, her visible body; full
\nof the thinker’s perception of
\nher in all the shapes of the universe; full of the power of her psychological
\naspects; pervaded too by a sense behind and often expressed of her final unity
\nand transcendence. Mr. A valon brings this out with great force and vividness
\nin his Introduction. But it should be manifest even to a careless reader of the
\nHymns. Take the following passage:-<\/p>\n

\n

\nReverence to her who is eternal, Raudra,
\nTo Gauri and Dhatri, reverence and again reverence, <\/p>\n

To Her who is moonlight and
\nin the form of the moon, <\/p>\n

To Her who is supreme bliss, reverence for ever.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nThis is from the famous hymn in the Chandi-Mahatmya, deservedly one of the
\nbest known in sacred literature; but every- where we find the same crowding of
\ndifferent aspects. In a hymn of which the eleventh verse is a sensuous
\ndescription of the physical goddess, –<\/p>\n

\nPage-271<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\n

O Gauri! with all my heart
\nI contemplate Thy form,
\nBeauteous of face,
\nWith its weight of hanging hair,
\nWith full breasts and rounded slender waist,
\nHolding in three hands a rosary, a pitcher and book
\nAnd with thy fourth hand making the Jnana-mudra, –<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

(mark how the close passes naturally
\ninto the psychological symbolism of the
\nform), the ninth is a remarkable piece of Yogic imagery, –<\/p>\n

\n

\nO Mother! like the sleeping King of serpents <\/p>\n

Residing in the centre of the
\nfirst lotus, <\/p>\n

Thou didst create the universe.
\nThou dost ascend like a streak of lightning, <\/p>\n

And attainest the ethereal region;
\n–<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

and the opening is the highest
\nphilosophy expressed with great poetic force and interspersed with passages of the richest poetical colour,-<\/p>\n

\n

\nThe cause and thinker of the World,
\nShe whose form is that of the Shabdabrahman, <\/p>\n

And whose substance is bliss.
\nThou art the primordial One,
\nMother of countless creatures, ,
\nCreatrix of the bodies of the Lotus-born, Vishnu and Shiva, <\/p>\n

Who creates,
\npreserves and destroys the worlds…. <\/p>\n

Although thou art the primordial cause of
\nthe world,
\nYet art thou ever youthful.
\nAlthough thou art the Daughter of the Mountain-King, <\/p>\n

Yet art thou full of
\ntenderness.
\nAlthough thou art the Mother of the Vedas,
\nYet they cannot describe Thee.
\nAlthough men must meditate upon Thee,
\nYet cannot their mind comprehend Thee.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\nPage-272<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

\nThis hymn is quoted as culled from a Tantric compilation, the Tantrasara. Its
\nopening is full of the supreme meaning of the great Devi symbol, its close is an
\nentire self-abandonment to the
\nadoration of the body of the Mother. This catholicity is typical of the whole
\nTantric system, which is in its aspiration one of the greatest attempts yet
\nmade to embrace the whole of God manifested and unmanifested in the
\nadoration, self-discipline and knowledge of a single human soul.<\/p>\n

\nPage-273<\/font><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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