20.5x28.5 inches; Pen drawing on handmade paper with watercolour wash (Click on image to enlarge)
SOLD. In private collection
Lajja Gauri / Aditi Uttanpad
Aditi is the Primal Creatrix. The name Aditi means ‘boundlessness’
and ‘freedom’ and conveys the concept of liberty from suffering and bondage. In
the Rig Veda, the name is mentioned Eighty times, denoting the importance given
to this goddess in the early Vedic times. She is the divine mother of all the
Vedic gods and thus the source of the entire evident reality: past, present and
future, ‘all that has been and will be born’. She is born from what she gives
birth to and is self procreative. Aditi’s womb is unambiguously identified with
the centre of the earth and hence mother earth is another aspect of her cosmic
presence.
She is considered to be a very ancient deity whose importance faded
in the late Vedic period. As celestial mother of every existing form and being,
she is associated with space (Vyom) and with mystic speech (Vāc). There is no
hymn addressed exclusively to her, unlike other Vedic gods. She is perhaps not
related to a particular natural phenomenon like other gods and hence unbound,
unlimited and unfettered! Aditi challenges the modern idea that the early Vedic
people were patriarchal. Aditi was regarded as both the sky goddess, and earth
goddess, which is very rare for a prehistoric civilization. Most ancient
civilizations regarded the sky as a male and the earth as female, which is not
the case here.
This primal deity has been represented mostly in the form of the
more popular ‘Lajja Gauri’ (also known as Aditi Uttanpad) in Indian goddess
iconography. The image of a headless naked woman with her legs bent and opened
wide to expose the female genitalia, is older than the Indus Valley Civilization.
But in India the first example of such an image comes from an Indus Valley
Seal. She is popularly associated with fertility rituals but such association
must be a narrow interpretation of the original scope of this deity. The
association might be directly related to the figurative representation of the
deity. This enigmatic form of a woman with a blooming lotus for her head is
usually portrayed with legs opened and raised in a manner ambiguously
suggesting either childbirth or sexual receptivity. Hence, hinting at the
creative and regenerative powers of a fertile womb.
Goddesses such as Durga
hold symbolic objects to express their power in their multiple arms but Lajja
Gauri’s elemental power of sexuality, fertility and creation is solely
expressed through her body, the locus of her power. This body is devoid of any
ornamentation except armlets and anklets formed of serpents which again are a
symbol of regeneration, the eternal cycle of birth, death and rebirth. The
lotus flower (in her hands and in place of her head) has been used through
centuries, as symbolism of life, spiritual awakening, sexuality, mystic
knowledge and enlightenment. Such a bold iconography of shakti (pure energy)
which was not bound to any tradition or subservient to a male power was very
threatening to the Hindu patriarchs of later ages because the popularity of
this deity had not shrunk into oblivion and hence was ‘harnessed’ and
appropriated to suit the changing moral codes of those ages.
Several myths
exist concerning Lajja Gauri, but scholars consider them to be inauthentic,
late attempts to replace the Goddess's original lore which was eclipsed by the
rise of the power of male gods. Many of these tales involve a dominant Lord Shiva
testing his wife's modesty by publicly disrobing her, whereupon her head either
falls off or sinks into her body from shame, thereby proving her ‘purity’ and
providing a Shiva-centric explanation of how such a boldly self-displaying
Goddess got a name like "Lajja Gauri" (Gauri of modesty) which seems very
far-fetched and forced. A typical tale concocted from the perspective of male
domination, to bind this unruly feminine into the garb of a tamed wife
acceptable by patriarchy.
If we want to search for her actual essence and get an inkling of her forgotten lore it might be useful to listen to folktales from
the oral tradition of India that still circulate about her in rural India. Lajja
Gauri /Aditi is often referred to as Maatangi in certain parts of Central and
south India, who is the "Outcaste Goddess" form of shakti, known for
ignoring and rejecting society's rules, hierarchies and conventions. She is also
called Renuka, a low-caste woman beheaded by a high-caste man. Rather than
dying, she grew a lotus in place of her head and became a Goddess, Gram Devi.
These stories involving the deification of an outcaste/caste-less/low-caste woman seem to suggest
the uncontainable Feminine Principle, its disregard of and ultimate superiority
over any man-made social system that would attempt to contain or control its
pure force.
Reference:
Book - Images of Indian Goddesses: Myths, Meanings, and Models by Madhu Bazaz Wangu
