Why we Invoke Devi Ma

Why do we celebrate Navaratri, a festival that exalts Devi in her various forms — and that, too, more than once a year

— even as despicable instances of crime against women continue in our daily lives?

Combining festivity with faith and transforming ritualism and austerity into a carnival, Navaratri, the nine-night celebration of faith in the Feminine Principle, is resplendent with its cultural colour and content. Rigorous fasting and temple visits by fervent devotees, hymn-humming old and young seekers and children in fancy dress that resonate a mystic seriousness, peal of bells, full-throated invocation of Devi for her accomplishments, fragrance wafting forth from ritual hearths — all these enrich the collage of tradition that is an ode to the Sacred Feminine.

Dance of Religion

Add to this richly bejeweled and brilliantly costumed dancers moving in circles around the ritual pot that symbolises absolute good — that Navaratri’s presiding deity, the Devi as Sarva Mangala, represents — manifesting the socio-religious texture of Navaratri, and you have one of the region’s most widely celebrated festivals.

Not an ancient convention or the texts’ mandate, Navaratri, the nine-day-and-night long festivity seems to have sprung out of a prevailing cult of personal austerities for a desired end dedicated to Shakti, the supreme female power. Perhaps it is also something that spilled out of a shrine’s rituals onto the streets, flooding the minds of people seeking to revive qualities of inherent determination and spiritual strength to fight evil in any form and for any period.

All For The Girl Child

Certainly not a one-time initiative or an individual mind’s creation, Navaratri perhaps began as expression of an agitated mind unwilling to accept the prevailing exploitation of foreign invasions and rules.

Navaratri found expression in Devi’s diverse manifestations, each representing an aspect of divine energy, inspired by her confidence-generating acts against corruption and crime as enumerated in Devi-related texts, and imbibing its basic spirit — people’s desire to regain what had been seemingly ‘lost’.

More importantly, the medieval mind seems to have embraced Navaratri as correction of the general attitude towards the girl child. Over the years, as the girl child or woman became victim of violence at the hands of intruders, she came to be seen as a ‘curse’, as someone who could irreparably dent family ‘honour’. Hence, it became necessary to exalt her with dedication for nine days and nights, each celebrating the Devi’s various divine forms.

While most other festivals, religious or social, are annual features, Navaratri is celebrated several times in a year, perhaps to keep alive the spirit of social transformation that would restore to women the respect due to them. Two of them, Vasanta and Sharada Navaratris — respectively, the first nine days of the second halves of Chaitra and Ashvina, the first and the seventh months of the Indian calendar  

The first ending with Rama Navami, and the other, with Dussehra, have greater significance than the other three occurring in the months of Ashada, Pausha and Magha. Devi leads one from darkness to light; the festival is hence called Navaratri, nine nights.

Ritual celebration is dedicated to Durga, one of Devi’s manifestations. Followers of classical texts like the Devi Mahatmya or Devi Bhagavata dedicate Navaratri rituals to her three early forms: Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati.

·         Mahakali, destroyer of all impurities and vices, is invoked the first three nights,

·          Mahalakshmi, destroyer of poverty and provider of means and abundance, the next three, and

·         Mahasaraswati, destroyer of ignorance and provider of divine wisdom, the last three days.

Austerities dedicated to these three forms, representing tamas, rajas and sattva, three elemental constituents of the manifest cosmos, help the seeker transcend the perplexing diversity of manifest existence to ultimate union with the Supreme. This is Navaratri’s higher spiritual perspective.

The average mind perceives Devi as enshrining all forms and hence as one with myriad manifestations, though for purposes of ritual it identifies nine of them as principals to preside over each day’s rites. They represent nine supreme auspices and forms of life.

Usually Navaratri rites are dedicated to these nine forms: one day’s rites to one form, rendered on a specially painted and consecrated altar. Some of its Mata-de-Pachedi type regional variants represent only Devi’s arch form or as one of the Matrikas — Devi in another early cult, with legends of her brave actions.

Whichever the medium, Devi is represented invariably in her multi-armed warrior form carrying different attributes. Regional variations apart, Navaratri traditions name the nine forms as Shailaputri, Brahmacharini, Chandraghanta, Kushamanda, Siddhidatri, Skanda Mata, Katyayani, Kala Ratri and Maha Gauri.

Nine Powerful Forms

Eight of them represent Devi’s various aspects while the ninth, Siddhidatri is Sarva Mangala, the all-auspicious and all-accomplishing One, sum aggregate of her divine power. Siddhidatri occupies a central position in some traditions and is invoked on Mahanavmi, Navaratri’s concluding day. With fulfillment as its essence, Siddhidatri images are conceived with two of their hands held in varad mudra, denoting accomplishment. Shailaputri, Parvati’s other name, is exalted the first day, Brahmacharini, engaged in penance, the second day, Chandraghanta, with a bell-shaped mark of moon on the forehead on the third, Kushamanda on the fourth, Skanda Mata, Kartikeya’s mother, on the fifth, Katyayani, on the sixth day, the fierce-looking Kala Ratri on the seventh, and Maha Gauri, the elegant, beautiful and delightful aspect of the Goddess, on the eighth day.