A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses by Michael Slouber;

Author:Michael Slouber;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520976214
Publisher: University of California Press

SOURCE

The narrative translated in this chapter comes from the Śrī Bahucarā Ārādh­anā (Adoration of Bahucarā), just one among the many economically printed, Gujarati-language pamphlets about gods and goddesses that are widely available at book stalls in Becharaji and beyond. For just 50 rupees (approximately a dollar) or less, these publications provide texts of prayers, praise poems (stuti), and devotional songs, as well as accounts of miracles a deity has performed. They may also provide instructions for carrying out particular domestic rituals and votive rites. Owing to their status as spiritually charged objects, the pamphlets themselves are commonly included among devotional items in household shrines as articles of worship. In addition to their ritual uses, these publications spur the imagination of devotees, providing stories, testimonials, and folk etymologies that root familiar gods and goddesses in contexts that are at once Sanskritic and vernacular, pan-Indian and localized, timeless and contemporary.

The Śrī Bahucarā Ārādhanā is no different, and the main narrative translated here, the “Bahucarmānī Utpatti Kathā” (The origin story of Bahucarā), strives to establish Bahucarā in all these contexts. In pitting her against a demon threatening the entirety of the cosmos, the narrative evokes tropes of the Purāṇic, Sanskritic past, when goddesses like Durgā and Kālī vanquished similar threats to the cosmos. To the same effect, the story regularly refers to Bahucarā as the Supreme Feminine Power (Ādyaparāśakti) or variations thereof, lofty epithets with which Durgā and Kālī are synonymous, calling to mind the universal, monotheistic overlay often propounded in mainstream, Brahminical Hinduism. As could be expected of a Sanskritic goddess, Bahucarā as she is depicted in this narrative decries the killing of animals and endorses a Brahminical ritual repertoire. Even more remarkably, the demon himself claims an aversion to consuming animal products, further underscoring the Brahminic sensibilities (in this case vegetarianism) that inform this telling. The tale also emphasizes Bahucarā’s long-standing homology with the Tantric goddess Tripurāsundarī of the Śrīvidyā tradition. At the same time, the story incorporates familiar landmarks of Bahucarā’s śakti pīṭha, such as the Varakhaḍī tree and the Mansarovar. The wish-fulfilling stream is, as could be expected, referenced vis-à-vis gender, but in this case, curiously enough, it is the water’s ability to restore full masculinity that is highlighted. Rather than validating or even acknowledging the transgender identity of the Pāvaiyās or Hijras, the story keeps Becharaji’s purview within mainstream Indian procreative or heteronormative mores of sexuality. Beyond all the localized associations, in the story translated here Bahucarā seems by no means limited to the site of her pīṭha or her region; rather, she is truly a divinity who can move many places—heaven, earth, and the underworld, among others—and is in that way suggestive of a Great Goddess in the pan-Indian idiom.

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