20.5x28.5 inches; Pen drawing on handmade paper with watercolour wash (Click on image to enlarge)
SOLD. In private collection
Chhinnamasta / Chhinnamastika / Chhinnamunda
Chhinnamasta is one of the most mysterious,
misunderstood and feared Tantric goddesses. She has been shrouded with such
enigma and she inspires so much dread in the heart of people because of her
sexually explicit and violent iconography.
Traditionally Chinnamasta has been imagined as a
young woman who has beheaded herself. This scene is mostly set in a wild and unfriendly
landscape with a river flowing in the foreground, or in the midst of the
cremation ground. The Devi is mostly represented in the nude with her genitals
either covered or visible. She has blood red or dark blue skin but she has been
described as glowing like a thousand suns! She has a scimitar / a pair of scissors
/ a sharp weapon in her right hand with which she has chopped off her own head,
which she holds in her left hand. She is often represented with four hands
instead of two. She has companions, the two Yoginis named Varnini and Dakini, who
are also depicted without a shred of clothing, holding a weapon in one hand.
From the wounded neck of the Devi, three streams of blood spurt out like a
fountain. Two of these streams feed her companions and one stream feeds the
Devi’s own decapitated head. Chhinnamasta wears ornaments of skulls and snakes
and so does her companions. She is either depicted as standing or sitting on a
copulating couple, mostly identified as the couple Kama and Rati, who symbolize
erotic love and desire in Hindu mythology, with Rati on top. In some
traditional representations, Krishna and Radha take their place. In certain
variations of this iconography, Chhinnamasta is shown to be engaged in coitus
sitting on Shiva’s phallus, while Shiva lies prone under her headless body.
Depending on the surroundings of the scene, either this entire group is placed
on a lotus or a cremation pyre.
Such explicit imagery surely provides enough
fodder for speculation and centuries of speculation has given rise to awe and
fear for this goddess who doesn’t think twice before cutting off her own head.
The question is, ‘Why is such a violent and sexually explicit imagery required
to depict the essence of this goddess?’ To find answers one has to delve deeper
into the interpretation of the symbols that this iconography represents and how
it challenges our understanding of life, death and sexuality.
Primarily, Chhinnamasta is part of the ten
incarnations of Mahadevi (The great untamed goddess Aditi, the eternal feminine
who, much like Visnu, is believed to maintain the cosmic order.) which forms
the group known as Dasa Mahavidyas, which means the ‘ten great cosmic wisdoms’.
She also appears in tantric Buddhism. She is known as Chhinnamunda, a form of
Vajrayogini. Scholars believe she first appeared in Buddhism before entering
the Hindu tradition. The iconography of this goddess in Buddhism is very
similar, except she is not depicted as standing on top of a copulating couple.
Chhinnamasta’s origin has been related in
the Pranatosini-tantra,
Pancharatna Grantha and Svatantra Tantra. With minor variations all
these books relate the tale of goddess Parvati, the reincarnation of Sati and
the eternal feminine power (Shakti), who once went bathing with her two Yogini
followers, Dakini and Varnini. While bathing Parvati was overcome by erotic
desires, which made the colour of her skin to change to a darker hue. The two Yoginis
were hungry and appealed to the goddess to provide them with nourishment. She suggested
that they wait until they returned home to satisfy their hunger. But for some
cosmic reason her companions were unable to delay their cravings for
nourishment and begged the merciful goddess for immediate satiation. The goddess
rose to the need of the moment and severed her own head with a sharp instrument
and let her blood flow to nourish her companions. Her severed head attained a
trance like state and she also drank of her own blood. Thus Chhinnamasta was
revealed to the world. Once their hunger was satisfied, the goddess became
whole again and returned to her previous form of Parvati.
Chhinnamasta embodies the age old wisdom of people who have been
connected to nature. She reveals the intricate relationship between life,
sexual energy and death. Life needs to end, die and decay to provide
nourishment for new life to begin. Death nourishes new life and life harbours
death. It is an eternal cycle of transformation. Chhinnamasta’s image shows contradicting
forces working together. It shows giving and taking, creation and destruction,
and life and death without making it obvious who is the receiver and who is the
giver. Her image depicts the cyclical nature of the universe and how seemingly
opposite forces work in unison to maintain the cosmic balance. The nudity and dishevelled
hair associated with Chhinnamasta’s image reveal her sense of untamed freedom
and rejection of societal values. She is seen both as the embodiment of sexual
energy as well as the channel through which sexual desire can be transformed
into spiritual energy. She is Kundalini uncoiled.
If we delve into the psychological impact of
Chhinnamasta’s imagery, we come to understand why people fear and reject the
concept of a headless deity. It is the suggestion of ‘lack of identity’, which
people instantly associate with their own person and become defensive. This is
symbolic of detaching the ego or existential identity from one’s body. A body
without a head is just a bundle of meat.
In our mundane world where existence is everything, and our way of thinking
is largely based on rationale and logic, losing one’s head is equated with
insanity and losing touch with apparent reality. In such a world, Chhinnamasta
poses a huge challenge to our perception of reality. In the path of spiritual awakening
this self sacrifice, symbolized by the decapitation, suggests the separation of
the mind from the body, which sets the consciousness free from the traps of the
physical body. The ego has to be sacrificed to nourish spiritual hunger. Hunger
itself is a metaphor in this tale of Chhinnamasta. It is physical, emotional
and spiritual.
Most Hindu deities face their devotees, so that
the devotees feel reassured by the fact that the deity is looking at them and
hence listening to their prayers and blessing them. In case of Chhinnamasta, she
faces her own body. She breaks the duality of external gaze and prods us to
look inside our own mind. This is indicative that the answers we are looking
for are within us. No external force can help us find spiritual enlightenment
if we do not seek it within ourselves and the path of such spiritual awakening
will only manifest once we have detached our mind from all form and thought and
sacrificed our ego in the process.
References:
Book - Chinnamasta:
The Aweful Buddhist and Hindu Tantric Goddess, Author – Elisabeth Anne Benard.
