ASCETIC MARRIAGE OF SHIVA PARVATI BY SUNTHAR VISUVALINGAM

The ascetic marriage of Shiva-Pârvatî - how the Hindu brideg

Posted by: "Sunthar Visuvalingam" suntharv@yahoo.com suntharv

Sun Aug 8, 2010 10:06 am (PDT)

[p.68>] Now, if we are to understand the salient points of a wedding, particularly a wedding [Other
Brahmans, even when they do not look on their bridegrooms as Shiva, nevertheless approve the Negara
custom], and not get confused by the multitude of minor ceremonies, interesting as each of them is, we
must grasp the idea that on their wedding day, and for at least three days after, the little bride and
bridegroom represent the god Siva and his wife Pârvatî; and we must remember that it is the many-
sided god in his character as the supreme ascetic that is represented. In conformity with this idea, the
bride and bridegroom fast all day, and, as we shall see later, dress in accordance with the part. They
themselves take no share in the visits and return visits, but sit fasting like sages ("ŗși') in their own
homes.

These visits must all be over by twelve, for at noon the bride's relatives ask all the little children from the
bridegroom's lodgings to lunch.

About three o'clock the bridegroom's party come again to the house, bringing with them clothes and
gold and silver jewellery. It‘s quite an understood thing, in an ordinary [<68–69>] middle-class family
that the clothes should be worth about three hundred rupees, the silver ornaments about twenty-five,
and the gold about five hundred. (These presents are really the settlements made by the groom on his
bride and become her absolute property.)

But, as on this day the girl is to represent an ascetic and can wear none of these beautiful things, the
bridegroom's friends also bring a gold ring and a special sari of white muslin with a red border for the
bride to wear during the ceremony. In order to represent Pârvatî as completely' as possible, she will
wear no camisole and no skirt, but only this narrow toga-like garment of white muslin, about six to eight
yards in length, which is wound round her in graceful folds.

The bride now bathes with hot water and washes her hair with Kakkola berries (Myrtus Pimenta), and (if
she can be quite sure that there is no animal fat in it, she may also use scented soaps. Her hair is left
loose, as it ill becomes an ascetic to adorn herself with braiding of the hair. The water in which the bride
has bathed is made the occasion for some mild horse-play. It is poured into pots, and, together with the
rest of the berries and the soap (if any), is taken in procession to the bridegroom's lodgings. The women
who carry it go singing all the way, and they must be accompanied either by the bride's father and
mother or by the bride's elder brother and his wife. Besides the bath, they also take a piece of silver
thread exactly the size of the Brahmanical sacred thread, and (in allusion to his impersonation of the
divine ascetic) sandals either of wood or metal, and most important of all, the loin-cloth of white muslin
with a red border that the bridegroom will wear during the ceremony.

The bride's women friends have great fun in trying to pour the water from her bath over the
bridegroom's head. He struggles, resists, and dodges, and, after a good deal of [<69–70>] harmless and
irresponsible nagging, all the bath-water is eventually poured on the ground over or near the big toe of
the lad's right foot. Then red powder is rubbed on him, very likely on his hand, and the thread, gold ring,
and sandals are given to him.

As soon" as the bride's friends leave, the boy proceeds to get ready for another procession and bathes,
probably using the bride's soap. He puts on the muslin loin-cloth the bride has sent him and. wraps a
rich gold scarf about his shoulders, adding some gold ornaments and a gold ring, whilst garlands are
hung round his neck, wrists, and elbows.

It is after his bath that the bridegroom begins actually to represent Siva, and, as we have seen, the bride
represents Pârvatî, so that not only do the wedding guests have all the fun and frolic of a really first-class
entertainment, but (oh, lucky folk I) at the same time that they are being thoroughly amused, they also
acquire religious merit by venerating the gods and taking part in their wedding. As the god is being
represented in his ascetic character, the bridegroom cannot wear a coat, so he confines himself to the
loin-cloth, the scarf over the shoulders, and the sandals. On his head the boy wears a cardboard crown
covered with gold and silver I paper, on which the river Ganges is represented, as well as the half moon
which the god obtained from the ocean when it was churned. The poison that Siva drank is symbolized
by a tight necklace round the bridegroom's throat placed half-way down his neck, to show that the
poison did not go the whole way.

The garlands he wears represent snakes. The bride as Pârvatî wears her hair loose and the white muslin
shawl, but no gold ornaments, only the ivory bangles her uncle has brought her.
In the case of other Brahmans, such as the AudIca and Sârasvata, for example, though the Nāgara
custom is much approved, their brides and bridegrooms do not represent Siva and Pārvatī, and so the
girl wears a white sārī, white bodice, green silk skirt, and silver rings on her toes, but no gold [<70–71>]
ornaments, and keeps her hair loosened. Amongst them also the bridegroom wears full dress, with a
lime and very often a needle in his turban to keep off' the evil eye. As the bride has not to go out in the
procession and face the glances of all sorts of poor and wicked people, and as moreover she is wearing
no jewels, she needs no protection from the evil eye. [<p.71] […]

[p.71>] The bridegroom himself has as much attention paid him as if he were a ruling chief for an
umbrella as an ensign of rank is held over him, and the best man fans him. and attendants walk beside
the richly caparisoned horse, which moves slowly [<71-72>] round the town, its paces being so timed
that the whole procession may reach the bride's house some twenty minutes before the sun sets. Very
often the state band is lent, and all the folk in the procession give themselves up to the delights of music
and singing.

Immediately behind the bridegroom's horse walks his own mother, carrying in her hand a stand of tiny
lamps in which cotton seeds are burning. The mother wears two saris, a thing which is only done on
great days of high ritual, such as the times when śraddha is performed, or some great sacrifice offered.
Sometimes she scatters salt as she walks, in order that any harshness or roughness in the bridegroom's
temper may from henceforth be dispersed. […]The bridegroom is then worshipped as the representative
of the god Siva. A lamp is brought filled with red powder and clarified butter, in which four crossed wicks
are burning, and [<72-73>] this is waved three or four times in front of his face, whilst the priest recites
mantras. […]

The bride may not see her groom's face yet, but at this point she is allowed to see the big toe of his right
foot, on which she promptly makes a red mark and so intimates that she is worshipping the feet of a
god. Whilst this is being done, the priest again murmurs mantras. Now it comes to the turn of the boy's
mother-in-law to make the red auspicious mark on his forehead and stick some rice grains on it. Boy or
god, the mother-in-law is out for a lark (for nothing will ever make a Brahman lady a prig), and so, while
she is doing this and moving her hand three times round the god's face, she seeks an opportunity to pull
that divinity's nose.

Wise women in England say that the sure sign of a weak man is his terror lest in public (whatever may
be the real case in private) he should appear to be ruled or even counselled by his wife, and, as our
literature shows, it has always been a matter, half of jest, half of anxiety, as to whether or no a man is
the master in his own house. The old jest holds just as good in India, where a wife's and mother's
influence (generally exercised against any innovations) is enormous, and [<73-74>] a great deal of the
by-play in an Indian wedding is directed to finding out which of the young couple will wear the
breeches'. The bridegroom accordingly exercises all his skill to defend his nose from his mother-in-Iaw' s
assaults, for if she succeed, he will just be a hen-pecked man for all his married days! […]

It is worth stopping here a moment to notice the costumes of the, parents. The bride's father or his
representative is dressed in a silk loin-cloth and wears a silk scarf over his shoulders. The bride's mother
has on a red silk sari, which, unless at another daughter's wedding, can never be worn again. Over this
she wears a scarf representing a second sari, and as much jewellery (nose-ring, bracelets, anklets, &c.),
as ever she likes. [<p.74>] – Chapter 4, “The Wedding”

[p.97>] It will be remembered that amongst the Negara the young bride and bridegroom were looked on
as incarnations of Siva and Pârvatî (hence the religious merit derived from worshipping them [note #1:
By the twice-born castes otber than Brahmans, and even by some of the low castes, the bridegroom is
looked on as a king, not a divinity), and for three nights, at the very least, they have observed celibacy
and abstained from salted food. Nor is this all, but during the days when they are representatives of the
deity they must not bathe, so after the bath of ceremony y taken on the wedding day they can bathe no
more for three days. In the same way, the white cloth which each put on when they began to play the
part of the great ascetic and his wife must not be taken off night or day till these three days have
elapsed, but, on the third day after the wedding, they take off the cloth and bathe, so washing away
their divinity. Even then they do not become ordinary mortals, for they are looked on as a king and
queen till the end of the festivities, and as such the groom wields a sword. [Note #2: No permission from
the state is needed for the bridegroom to hold this sword, so agreed is every one that for the time being
he is a king.] A Brahman, however, only holds the sword (which other bridegrooms keep all the time) for
an hour or so. The respective fathers-in-law provide each of the happy pair with a new dress to put on
after the bath, the bridegroom's being of red silk with a gold border, and the bride's of any coloured silk,
or the parents may compound by giving them each five or ten rupees in cash. [<p.97] — Chapter 5,
“After the Wedding”

Mrs. Sinclair Stevenson, The <http://books. google.com/ books?id= e0suAAAAYAAJ& printsec=

frontcover& dq=%22Rites+ of+the+Twice- Born%22+Sinclair +Stevenson& source=bl&
ots=jxy7UMY1JH& sig=v0zl3jJOHV2s Owz22ITe3OKiGQY& hl=en&ei= e9BeTMXKBIT7lwf7 2tyZCA&sa=
X&oi=book_ result&ct= result&resnum= 1&ved=0CBgQ6> Rites of the Twice-Born (Oxford University
Press, 1920)
[p.287>] The Dhāmī, a farmer, wears royal emblems that he receives personally from the king in
Katmandu. Vajrācārya priests, who come all the way from Katmandu to direct the festival on the king’s
behalf, administer the bath that qualifies the Dhāmī to assume his divine role. It is after this “royal
consecration” (rājābhiṣeka) that the Dhāmī dons the dark blue costume of Bhairava, bearing the
auspicious emblems that he wears only during this festival and when he visits the king once every twelve
years in Katmandu. All the indices converge to identify this farmer, like the lowly gardener also clad in
dark-blue and possessed by (Pacali) Bhairava, with the royal dīkṣita. The inalienable though hidden ritual
identity of the king, engrossed with the day-to-day politics of the state, has been simply delegated to the
drama of life, reunion, death and rebirth played out annually by the Dhāmī and his wife, the Dhamini, as
Bhairavī.

Despite the active role of the Goddess in the origin myth and the subsequent dedication of the festival
to Bhairavī, despite the indispensable presence of the Dhamini and the absence of any major temple to
Bhairava in the itinerary of the divine couple, it is the Dhāmī who is the ritual focus of the festival. On
the full moon (pūrnimā), the Dhāmi has to take a bath in water given by the Kumārī of Nuwakot, who is
his brother’s daughter. After his “royal unction” [<287-288>] (rājābhisheka), the Vajrācāryas not only
hand him the dark-blue costume but also communicate the necessary mantras to facilitate his
possession by Bhairava. He then runs to the house of the Dvāre, the permanent representative of the
Shah king. There he partakes of an immense bowl of rice (mahābali) prepared and offered by the guthi
of the Taleju temple. In reality, it is before the house of the Dvāre that the Dhāmi begins to tremble in
the manner of the possessed and of the shaman. This mahābali—which has all the sinister connotations
of the enormous quantities of rice (and goats) that king Pacali Bhairava used to consume—is then
carried to the temple of Bhairavī. The first pole is erected in front of the temple of [<287-288>] Maitī
Devī, also called Būdhi Mā, who is considered the mother of Bhairavī. The Dhāmi should remain there,
outside the ritual boundary of the town, until the pole is erected: completely covered with a white cloth,
he lies down like a dead man on the ground beside the pit that will support the pole. Once it is erected,
the Dhāmi is nourished with balls of rice as if he were a new-born. Then, playing on a damaru—the same
hour-glass shaped drum once used by the Kāpālikas—he visits all the sanctuaries of the village, stopping
before the houses to receive offerings from the ordinary villagers. He then proceeds to the place where
the second pole has been raised upright before the temple of Bhairavī. He performs two rituals, one for
the pole and the other for the aṣṭamātṛkā in the Bhairavī temple. Behind the effacement of the Dhamini,
it is still the Goddess who is empowering the Dhāmi. [<p.288]

Elizabeth Visuvalingam, “Bhairava <http://www.svabhina va.org/goddess/ index.php> and the Goddess:

Tradition, Gender and Transgression,” Wild Goddesses in India and Nepal (1994-96)

Friends,
Juxtaposing the Newar Dhāmi’s royal consecration during the Bhairavī festival to the treatment of the
Hindu bridegroom sheds much mutual light on the sacrificial underpinnings of both kingship and
marriage

The bridegroom becomes Shiva only after bathing in the amniotic waters of the (still virgin-) bride, and
the marriage itself is an androgynous union. That the worship of his toe by bathing it in her bath-water
and then reddening it amounts to a symbolic castration, is underlined by the subsequent attempts by
her mother, wearing a red sari (worn only when giving away her daughters in marriage), to pull out his
nose, which may be compared to Samvāhaka’s broken bleeding nose after transforming himself into the
goddess in the womb of the (derelict) temple. Conversely, the Dhāmi (-to-be-damaru- brandishing-
Kāpālika) bathing in the Kūmārī’s water may now be recognized for what it is: a sacred marriage, in
which he becomes the goddess Bhairavī. During the three days that the couple assume the role of Śiva-
Pārvatī, they do not bathe for they are in the state of (sacred) impurity that characterizes the dīkșā. Note
also that semiotically there is no difference between the ‘orthodox’ Vedic and the ‘radical’ Tantric
(Kāpālika) consecration. Also, the role of the bride’s mother might be seen in the light of the symbolic
identification of Vasantasenā with her own mother: behind the (Freudian) displacement, prenatal
psychoanalysts (like Peerbolte) claim that during childbirth the mother (unconsciously) relives her own
birth.

The (primordial) waters, as the Śatapatha-Brāhmaņa insists, constitute the ‘truth’ of our being and
restore ‘autonomy’ (svarājya = svātantrya) to the dīkșita, who embodies the asceticism of Śiva: the
Hindu king is semiotically no more than the sacrificer par excellence.

On a personal note, I was told by an enigmatic astrologer in Benares that I would marry an exceptional
wife, but we should nevertheless worship Śiva-Pārvatī together to ensure that the marriage was not
marred by competing egos and remained a happy one…

Sunthar

PS. For those interested in better understanding the sacrificial underpinnings of the Hindu life-cycle
ceremonies, I’d strongly recommend (pondering over their details in) Mrs. Stevenson’s book (available
in its entirety at Google Books) written with much humor.
[Rest of this thread at Sunthar V.

“Mother-Goddess, <http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/Abhinavagu pta/message/ 5772> Great Brahmin,

and Pot-Bellied Son - why do Hindus worship a bungling clown before every undertaking?” (24 July
2010)

Transcending <http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/Abhinavagu pta/message/ 5730> "The Storm"

(Mrcchakatikâ Act V- 2) - self-abnegation and consummation in the sacrificial fire of love (28 May 2010)

From: Sunthar Visuvalingam

Sent: Friday, May 28, 2010 8:41 PM

To: Abhinavagupta@ yahoogroups. com; 'Ontological Ethics'; 'Hindu-Buddhist'

Cc: 'Akandabaratam' ; 'Dia-Gnosis'

Subject: Transcending "The Storm" (Mrcchakatikâ Act V- 2) - self-abnegation and consummation in the
sacrificial fire of love

>

See, my belovèd, see!

The heaven is painted with the blackest dye,

And fanned by cool and fragrant evening airs;

Red lightning, glad in union, clasps the sky

With voluntary arms, and shows on high

The love that maiden heart to lover bears.46

[Vasantasenā betrays her passion, and throws her arms about Chārudatta. Chārudatta feels her touch,
and embraces her.]

The Little Clay Cart, Act V “The <http://www.sacred- texts.com/ hin/lcc/lcc11. htm> Storm” (Ryder
translation)

Friends,

Part 2 of my hermeneutics of “The Storm” (Act V), the counterpoint to the preceding part 1, focuses
instead on how the ‘great brahmin’ rāja-purohita (‘royal chaplain’) educates his sacrificer-patron and
alter-ego into becoming a Shiva-yogin in the midst of enjoyment:

The four aims of life (purushârtha) legitimized by Hindu tradition are ego-configurations stretched out
between indulgence and transcendence. The aggressive pursuit of wealth (artha) secures the
wherewithal for the measured satisfaction of (erotic) desire (kāma) by restraining, channeling, and
'rationalizing' the underlying libido. Commitment to the socio-religious order (dharma), in turn, ensures
the relative stability of material well-being even while further relaxing the natural tyranny of sex instinct.
Progressive damming, sublimation, and transmutation of the life-force, deliberately reinforced by
ascetic discipline, culminates in the paradoxical possibility of transcendence through unleashing the
'barrage' as erotic consummation (bhoga = mokSa). This self-deconstruction is externalized in the public
drama of the sacrificial cycle, whereby the lord of the earth generously dispossesses himself of all his
ego-investments to (re-) unite with the wife-mother and uproot the (banyan) tree (azvattha) of
attachment (rāga) at its prenatal source. In contradistinction to the munificent 'protective' (pâlaka) role
of the king amidst his 'ordered' subjects as the 'walking' Vishnu on earth, Shiva-Rudra represents the
dîkshita in both phases: renunciatory (sensuous Samvāhaka turned Buddhist monk in Act II) and
transgressive (gambler Darduraka and thief Sharvilaka rushing to join Aryaka). The polarity constitutive
of the erotic ascetic is expressed mythologically through the creative tension inherent in the god's
androgynous union with his gambling consort, (Gaurî-) Pârvatî, Mother of the Universe. Whereas
lovelorn Cârudatta gives himself over to the sensuous pleasures of their stormy union, the inner
detachment that grounds the sacrificial play is embodied by the uncouth vidûshaka: by reviling the lowly
maids he is attacking the wellspring of desire. […] The desire for wealth is willfully equated to carnal
pleasure through the gold finery adorning the courtesan's precious body and deposited for safe-keeping
in the great brahmin's codpiece. Spurning the abundant self-serving 'generosity' of the royal
Samsthânaka, Vasantasenâ's overpowering love is as selflessly exclusive as that of the mother for her
poor, helpless, newborn bereft of all possessions. With nothing left of his own to purchase her ultimate
pleasure, the sacrificer has to surrender his life-essence and his self-possession for the obscure object of
his primal desire: the golden womb (hiraNya-garbha) of Cupid's temple where their shared passion was
mutually conceived. That this 'enjoyer' (bhogî) inwardly remains a yogî is disclosed by the playwright in
his opening benedictory invocation (nândî) of the prologue: "His bended knees the knotted girdle holds,
fashioned by doubling of a serpent's folds; his sensive organs, so he checks his breath, are numbed, till
consciousness seems sunk in death; within himself, with eye of truth, he sees the All-soul, free from all
activities. May His, may Shiva's meditation be Your strong defense; on the Great Self (Brahman) thinks
he, knowing full well the world's vacuity" (I.1). As for the thrill of fair Vasantasenā's arm: "May Shiva's
neck shield you from every harm, that seems a threatening thunder-cloud, whereon, bright as the
lightning-flash, lies Gauri's arm" (I.2, both <http://www.sacred- texts.com/ hin/lcc/lcc06. htm> Ryder
translation) . The blazing fire of love, kindled in Abhinavagupta' s 'original sacrifice' (âdi-yâga) is self-
consuming.

>

Enjoy (protected by Shiva-and-Gaurî )!

Sunthar

[Rest of this thread at Sunthar V.