A beautiful idol of Kamakhya Devi
About four years back I bought a metal idol of Kamakhya Devi.
The Kamakhya Temple is a Hindu temple at Nilachal hills in Guwahati, Assam, dedicated to the mother goddess Kamakhya. It is one of the oldest and most revered centres. Structurally, the temple is dated to the 8th-9th century with many subsequent rebuildings, and the final hybrid architecture defines a local style called Nilachal. It is also one of the oldest of the 51 pithas in the Shakta tradition.
An obscure place of worship for much of history it became an important pilgrimage destination, especially for those from Bengal, in the 19th century during colonial rule. The main temple is surrounded in a complex of individual temples dedicated to the ten Mahavidyas of Saktism, namely, Kali, Tara, Tripura Sundari, Bhuvaneshwari, Bhairavi, Chhinnamasta, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, Matangi and Kamalatmika.
The intriguing idol
Shiva, with his third eye, even sets Kama afire, but the eye (aksha) and desire (kama) merge to create Kamakhya.
They transform Shiva from Kamantaka, the killer of desire, to Kameshwara, the lord of desire. In South India, Kamakhya is called Kamakshi, and she is visualised with the symbols of Kama: sugarcane, flowers, and the parrot. In Assam, she is visualised very differently – as a six-headed, twelve-armed goddess, seated on a lotus that rises from the navel of Shiva, who rests on the back of a lion.
This image reminds one of the more popular Vaishnava image of Brahma seated on a lotus, rising from the navel of Vishnu, sleeping on the coils of a serpent. While in Vaishnava traditions, Brahma is visualised as frightened after his birth, Kamakhya of the Shakta traditions is visualised as all- powerful, even placing her foot on Shiva’s chest.
A place in my puja room
The idol was kept in my puja room and I started chanting the mantra for Devi daily.
Since the idol never tarnished, I used to clean it only by dusting, and it never fell down from my hands.
The idol broke, breaking my heart
One day while dusting it, just like that it broke horizontally into two pieces, in my hands.
Even now I am at a loss to understand how it could have broken, and I really felt very sad. Some consider that broken idols should not be kept at home. Somehow I didn’t feel like discarding it and on second day I got the message how to proceed.
So I set out to do as I was guided. I stuck the two broken parts in such a way that Shiva and Kamakhya are now in same level, with the lotus in Devi’s hand placed near the chest of Shiva.
I felt a tremor of Bhakti on seeing the end result!
The logical mind’s explanation
Looking at the idol brings these general thoughts to mind, though it has personal connotations for me too.
Generally, especially in India, girls WERE traditionally groomed to become good wives and mothers. According to a popular verse of Neeti Sara, the 6 Noble Virtues a housewife should have are summed up in the verse:
‘Karyeshu Dasi, Karaneshu Manthri; Bhojeshu Mata, Shayaneshu Rambha, Roopeshu lakshmi, Kshamayeshu Dharitri, Shat dharmayukta, Kuladharma Pathni’.
The meaning being, “Be like a servant in doing the chores of the house, give intelligent advice like a minister to her husband, serve food to the husband as lovingly as a mother feeds her son, be like a courtesan in the Bedroom, beautiful like Maha Lakshmi and have the forbearance of Mother Earth.”
Changing priorities
But as women entered the general work force and men didn’t change their habits to share household responsibilities, there was friction and women started feeling better and superior to men, thus reducing their respect towards men. But now times are slowly changing, a man and woman are slowly becoming equal partners, as my new idol depicts!
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