The Goddess in Hindu-Tantric Traditions by Anway Mukhopadhyay

Author:Anway Mukhopadhyay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

However, unlike Doniger O’Flaherty, I will read this myth not merely as an erotic trope, but rather as a trope that successfully problematizes the epistemologies of life and death, as the corpse-turned-yoni may represent not just the “strong tie between love and death” but also the porous border between death and life. I would also disagree with O’Flaherty’s view that Sati is the “subject of a Liebestod or erotic death” and that her myth is aligned with “the cycle of myths of the castration of Shiva” (cited in Ramos’ Pilgrimage and Politics in Colonial Bengal 41–42). Rather, the point I would like to focus on is this: a corpse that can become a yoni may stand for a corpse, an apparent token of death, which is able to emerge as a birth-giver.

We need to notice that, according to the mythological account of the Brihaddharmapurana and Annadamangal, in the beginning there is – not the Word, nor a living Goddess – but a corpse. However, this corpse is not the Shiva-as-corpse which the Saundaryalahari would envision. This is an active corpse, full of potentials, and represents not a closure but endless openings. It is not the end but the beginning. When Shiva sits on it, the Shakti embodied in the corpse is not only awakened but also united with him. His penances are successful, and he is given the rare opportunity of having the Devi as his wife. Brahma and Vishnu, the gods associated with the orthodox systems of mainstream Hinduism, are unable to decode the mystic symbol the corpse embodies. They see the corpse as a closure, and hence are unable to awaken the energy embodied in it. The tantric Shiva, on the other hand, knows how to reveal the secret of the Devi-as-corpse, how to open it up to new possibilities, and hence is gifted with co-creatorship with the Devi. The immanent Shakti in the corpse is unpacked when Shiva sits in meditation on it, and the divine union becomes possible.

We need to ponder on this primordial figure of the Devi-as-corpse in the context of the corpse of Sati as well. Sati’s corpse, in a similar way, invites Shiva to sit on its parts and unpack the energy embodied in them, for the benefit of humankind. The Creation begins with the corpse form of the Devi, and the sustenance of the material universe becomes possible thanks to the scattering of Sati’s energy-filled members over the earth. Just as the primordial corpse form assumed by Devi had indirectly urged Shiva to participate in the process of creation, the members of Sati also invite Shiva to engage in the act of preserving the stability of human life and offering the humans complete eudaimonia.

David Frawley describes Sati as the “power of existence (Sat-Shakti)”. For Frawley, Sati is actually the power of the Absolute Being that cannot be confined to the realm of becoming, the playfield of the outward mind, that is, the world of Daksha. Hence:

The soul must sacrifice its involvement in the external realm and go beyond its conditioning in order to discover its real being.

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