“There is no need to request You, Oh Durga,
To protect and save us.
For does the mother on whom children solely depend,
Ever need such a request?
And so our salutations to You;
So pray the Gods to You.”
Nau Raat begins this Wednesday. Nau Raat is the time Hindus specifically dedicate (twice annually) to worshipping God as “female”. As a Hindu young woman who has chosen to worship God as female — in my case specifically Mother Saraswati — I’ve sometimes wondered how some Hindu men, who also worship the Divine in her various female forms and incarnations, can inflict violence on females. But, of course, violence against women isn’t confined to Guyana, and certainly not only to Hindus.
It’s just that since we Hindus were enlightened enough to have elevated women to the ultimate Divinity, I was kind of hoping that our menfolk would’ve seen us in a bit kinder light than those men from other religions who insist that God is exclusively male.
In Hinduism, by contrast, while God is ultimately beyond categories — including sex or gender — the conceived female aspects are actually endowed with the Shakti, or animating power. In other words, the male manifestations are posited as completely inert (Prakriti) without the female. They can’t do a thing! So we have, for instance, the Creator, Vishnu, with his female counterpart, Lakshmi. She’s the power behind whatever “creation” — or “projection”, as we Hindus prefer — that’s going on. One-third of Hindus are “Shaktas” – those whose major object of worship is the Mother in her various manifestations. In Guyana, most Shaktas originated in South India, and are lumped together as “Madrassis”, since they left India from the port of Madras.
While Vishnu has incarnated first as fish, tortoise, boar and half-man/half lion, in all his human incarnations — whether as Ram or Krishna — Vishnu is accompanied by his Shakti. As Ram, for instance, his double is Sita. Bringing matters to the human level then, supposedly to provide a model for us to imitate, when one marries, the women is said to be “the Lakshmi of the house”. In offering prayers to the Divine, the male householder is incomplete, and the offerings aren’t accepted if he’s not accompanied by his “Lakshmi”.
So what goes with all this wife beating and violence against females in our society? Why hasn’t our elevation of women among Hindus as Goddesses increased respect for women? Well, for one, in the “modern” world, we have all accepted that “religion” is just one aspect of “life”. Religion, as “Dharma”, a seamless, integral way of life as posited by Hinduism, is “old fashioned” and “backward. Traditional Hinduism, we are convinced, can’t be “modern”. So our menfolk worship the Mother of the temple in the temple, and then knock around the Mother of the house in the house.
The view that the man is the owner of all he surveys — in reflection of the man with the grey beard, who’s floating in the sky above, looking down at us — undergirds what is called “patriarchy”. In modern Hindu homes, unlike the original model of society in which the female was the boss in her own domain, boys and men are still socialized to see females as “their own”. And in a capitalist society, this becomes translated as their “property”. And more to the point, “sexual property”, which he “jealously” guards.
If we’re ever going to get rid of this mind-numbing violence that’s inflicted daily on females, this structural power imbalance between males and females — which starts in the home, ironically by mothers — must be eliminated.
What was it they said about “the hands that rock the cradle”? It can help to make “ruling the world” a bit more fair. All hail the Devi!
