Lord who melted in an embrace

 

Writers have an agenda, who on earth would still be parroting the lines of Wordsworth even for poetry which he himself had contradicted. Modern writing and publishing should be more of “emotion recollected in tranquility” rather than “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”. The reader too can belong to multiple categories, as the world of “ideological” literature would want us to be – divided and agenda driven even as readers, not just as writers. No, this isn’t some inane and long drawn intro, this is my view of looking at certain books that I have been forced to read for the sake of controversies the books or the writers are involved in, that I have to choose whether I am a “lay” reader or an “ideological” reader. It is a divisive world, with those who chose the labels deliberately driving it to be so. When news which is supposed to “neutral” has by far turned agenda driven, responses in terms of independent bloggers, tweeples, facebookers all are obviously going to be agenda driven too, isn’t that inevitable? Therefore, as a lay reader, lay in the sense of “not a scholar”, “not a researcher” but as a reader reserving her right to express dissent.

Feels really tragic and painful that it is in this context I have to bring up one of the beautiful iconographic depictions I have known, a beautiful purana that is the basis of quite a few temples, two very close to the region where I grew up, and one in the Chola heartland. That is the iconography of a petrified Parvati embracing the Shivalinga for the fear of it getting swept away by the floods of the river Kampa for she had made it out of the sands and worshipped, the waters are threatening to dissolve the image she worshipped.  The Ekambranatha temple at Kanchipuram has an image of this, but more than that the calendar art of this image is what I have grown up with and which is very popular in my area. Kamakshi has her own shrine, temple, in the centre of the city of Kanchipuram. Kamakshi as I remember reading from an early temple travelogue – was scared, but didn’t lose her confidence and embraced the lingam to save it from the waters. Needless to say, her tapas was fulfilled.

 

This visual is not hidden or there was no need to hide it as it was not about the sexual, gender connotations, but faith and fulfilment. The worshippers without the knowledge of the English translation looked at the image Kamakshi embraced only as the representation of Shiva, it is and always a Shiva Linga, not as what English or western writers translate it as. In fact, not far from Kanchipuram is a temple called “Thazhuva Kuzhaindeeswarar”, thazhuva kuzhainda eeswarar translated as the Eswara who melted in the embrace. Sorry don’t bring the gender here to say the temple is named after the male god who gave boon to his other half, a female. We all worship who we want in the way we want, and where else the diversity is so visible than Kanchipuram – one can be a Shaiva, Shakta, Kaumara, Vaishnava and not to forget temple for Chitragupta and various other devatas. To the point that at some place in Gujarat where the devotees couldn’t accept the idea of a lady touching a Linga so the devotees could have either destroyed it, sold it or hidden it sounded too presumptuous to me. Coming from where I am we have never been used to touching the deities in the temple, we don’t enter the garbhagriha in Tamil Nadu and even when I visited numerous temples in the north and the west of this country, where one was allowed to freely touch the deities, hug them I have reserved my habit, and refrained from touching. To me the devotion doesn’t have to be expressed only by touching, mere sight is enough. But, we never looked at Kamakshi embracing the Linga with a different lens, the male, the female, the misogyny, the masculinity etc., Similarly who knows what the west or the north has gone through, how their attitude towards the deities might have changed, what a millennia of attacks, destruction might have done. How in Ujjain or a Varanasi one can touch and worship the Shivalinga, but not in some province in Gujarat? Different regions, conditioned by their own history, evolution, changing customs.

Thazhuva kuzhainda eeswarar at Padappai may not be very well known, but the Chola country “Thiruchatti Mutram” or the Thiru Sakti Muttham has one of the most beautiful images of Kamakshi in embrace, and the sculptor deserves all the awards possible for what he has depicted. “mattaar kuzhali malaimagal poosai magizhndu arulum ittaa thiruchatti muthathu uraiyum sivakozhundhe” sings Appar peruman. This temple shares the sthala purnam with that of the earlier two temples. The Lokamata in her embrace leaves the mark of her bangles, bosom and her kiss – mutham=kiss. Thirusathimutham, wonder how it is today, where that particular murti is, and if Pazhayarai, Patteeswaram, Thiruchattimuttam will ever be as glorious in its earlier days ever. If the murti of Shakti’s embrace of Shiva goes missing, I am not going to scream misogyny, I know it. If Appar peruman has sung her in such glory, it is an ignorant mind that can try to erase it, and the gender of that ignoramus is irrelevant to me.

It gets disgusting when the deities we worship should be taken out of, and interpreted to us in the contexts the researchers and academicians want to put them in … I am not going to use the terms they use or the phrases they use and the attributions they give. They may say I do not have the qualification, research, titles to do so, but I go with my devotion and the love of fellow pilgrims to temples all across the country. But, before ending this topic of Shiva and Jagadamba’s penance I couldn’t help talking about Thiruvanaikaval, yes going from the Prithvi Kshetra to the Apas Kshetra. At Thiruvanaikaval the Lokeshwara tells Lokamata that He appears as a bhogi as well yogi to teach devotees both the aspects. They interchange their appearance for a day as seen on the Chithirai day in the month of Panguni during the Panchaprahara Utsavam. Brahma is enticing all the women, how to teach him a lesson, what if he looks at Parvati in her beautiful form and plays mischief when they appear before him, so Ishwara and Ishwari appear as the other before Brahma. I am not going to bring gender in to play as “gender studies” people would do, for devotees “ammai appan” are always “ammai appan”. A few pictures where I absolutely delight in the form and roles the ammai and appan play. We may change, we may evolve, but parents would always be parents, do I see the gender (gender alone) in them! If He plays both the roles, as Yogi and Bhogi what use picking up only the latter, and if there are four purushartas why pick on only one.

Ref: Venkatam Mudal Kumarai Varai by Tho.Mu.Bhaskara Thondaiman

         Thazhuva Kuzhaindeeswarar Sthala Puranam from Dinamalar

Picture Credit: Thiruchattimuttam from Venkatam Mudal Kumarai Varai

                            Kamakshi and Ekambreshwara from the official website of Arulmigu Ekambaranathar Temple, Kanchipuram

                            Kampanidhi and Kamakshi from the internet 

 

P.S. Please do let me know if there are factual errors, would like to correct