MĀ MAHĀSHAKTI

According to Tantra Shāstra, the Mahāshakti is a fully conscious Spirit and hence is an object of worship and veneration.

Instead of controlling, Tantra endeavours to establish communion with Shakti. Shakti for a Tāntric is not only conscious

but benignantly gracious also. The kindly disposition and heartfelt affection of the Shakti is deeply personal and

unfathomably profound. No phrase of dictionary can adequately give expression to this gracious aspect of te Shakti.

One single term and that one only, that possesses magically curative power is “Mā”. This is the most magnificent of all

designations of the Great Shakti.

Mahāshakti is the Highest Being, the Brahman of the Upanishads. She is supremely motherly accrding to Tantra. She is

all-existent, all-consciousness and supreme beatitude. She is an object of highest love and adoration. Devilish Shumbha

and Nishumbha wanted to control the Mother and the outcome was total frustration and ultimate destruction. Modern

science is taking recourse to this Asuric way in attempting to control the forces of nature. The Tantra Shāstra longs for

establishing communion with Her through loving Puja i.e. Worship.

MANIFESTATIONS OF CHANDIKĀ

Chandikā, the Divine Mother, embodies in Herself the multifarious modes of life. All contradictions merge in Her

dynamic personality. She is tranquil and turbulent, serene and fierce, Soumya and Roudra at the same time. She is

serene like the azure sky but boisterous like the thunderbolt.

Etymologically, Chandikā means vehement. She is an affectionate Mother but a frantic Killer. Her all-embracing

motherliness makes her intolerant of those who are inimically disposed towards Her human and divine children. With

all Her might does She destroy the demon of darkness that hinders the evolution of Her creation and revelation of the

Divine Light.

The Tantras maintain that Chandikā is the queen-consort (Patta-Mahishī) of the Absolute Brahman, meaning thereby

that She is the Supreme Energy and Absolute Being—the Agent. For the purpose of creation, the Absolute Being

divides Itself into two—Shiva and Shakti. They are essentially identical but functionally different. For the object of

creation, prservation and destruction, she assumes triune forms: Mahā-Kālikā, Mahā-Lakshmī, Mahā-Saraswatī.

SHE IS YOGA-NIDRĀ

The Vedas begin with the Great Purusha with a desire to be many. The Tantra goes deeper. With Purusha it starts, to be

sure, but having no desire or action. The Purusha, in the Saptashati, rests in deep slumber. He is existent and non-

existent at the same time, so to say. Who does then exist in that nocturnal abyss of complete silence? She is the Yoga-

nidrā, the great motherly energy that upholds the Cosmmic Sleep, the Mahā-Kālikā, who embosoms even the Supreme

Purusha Vishnu and reigns all over that is or was or will ever be.

SHE IS MAHĀ-KĀLIKĀ

On the navel lotus, the centre of creative vibration of Vishnu, is seated the Creative Energy, embodied in Brahmā, the

Logos, Shabda-Brahma, lost in the contemplation of the new creation to dawn. Madhu and Kaitabha, the two

principles—Rajas and Tamas—Passion and Ignorance, that bring friction to cosmic motion, came out of Vishnu and

aimed at destroying the creative meditation, personified in the Logos Brahmā. He was to awaken Vishnu and with that

end in view, sang a panegyrical hymn to eulogise Mahā-Kālikā and implored her earnestly and reverently to give up

Her hold on Supreme Purusha Vishnu. She did accordingly relinquish Him and appeared before Brahma who witnessed

Her all-veiling existence. This is Mahā-Kālikā.

ASHTA-SHAKTI

Shakti—the source, support and end of all Existence and Life, is one and unique, but She does retain the potentiality of

manifesting Herself in innumberable forms. Expressing, as She does, motherly affection, She is pre-eminently a mother,

so tender, so benignant, but controlling, as She does, the destructive agencies, She is terrific and fierce. She is Kalī of

extremely black complexion. She is Uma of golden hue. Uma imparts highest knowledge to the enghtened devas. Kalī

devours Her own sucklings and keeps them in bondage by the chain of Maya. All these contradictions find harmony in

the all-embracing totality of Shaktis that is Mahāshakti.

Force is inherent in existence, so is Shakti in Sadāshiva, the eternal Brahman. The primordial Shakti is identical with

Brahman, the Absolute. The objective universe is a projection of Her inner being. She is endowed with all-will, all-

knowledge and all-action. She is Mahādevī. Multifarious are Her emanations and She is one-in-many.

Chanda and Munda, the two generals of the demon king Shumbha,were beheaded by her dazzling sword, and when that

information reached Shumbha, he was mad with rage and very wrathfully issued an order to all his batallions to proceed

to the war front and fight their umost to win. ‘Pull that proud Durgā by hair to my harem or finish her for good’—was

the standing order of the demon king.

The mighty army, headed by Raktabīja, whose each drop of blood could produce another Raktabīja of equal valour,

marched onward and Mahādevī cast a significance glance at the enemy, blew Her conch and threw down the gauntlet.

The devas in heaven, however, were much troubled and alarmed. Their perturbation created a throbbing in their hearts

and out of the emotion came out of the devas their respective Shaktis.

These Shaktis were in fat inherent in Mahādevī as an integral part of Her all-absorbing Being, hithertofore unmanifest

and then incarnate.

And again, to anticipate the final stage, all would be found merging completely in the Supreme Personality of Mahādevī

called Mahā-Saraswatī in Tantra.

Seven matronly Shaktis descanded and one came forth out of her own person and thus the mystic number Eight was

reached, Brahmānī, Māheshwarī, Kumārī, Vaishnavi, Vārāhi, Nārsimhī , Aindrī and Chandikā—they are known as

Ashta-Shakti.

CHANDIKĀ

The Seven Shaktis spoken above of, came from Chandikā, the eighth and last of Ashta Shaktis manifested herself from

the very person of Mahādevī Herself. She is otherwise named, the unconquerable one. She is the emblem of dismay and

dreadfulness. She remains surrounded by innumerable jackals, who inhabit graveyards and live on carcasses. In brief,

Chandikā stands for Death itself.

She sent Shiva on an embassy to the opponent with the ultimatum that either Indra should have his heavenly throne

back or the demon armies should perish and their flesh eaten up by her jackals. Thus Shiva being Her messenger, She is

Shiva-dūti or Shiva-envoy.

Chandikā is essentially the transforming energy of Time, which works from within and makes every object on the

mundane plane attain maturity. Everything that is mortal is controlled and conditioned by the great time energy.

Chandikā, though dismal and indomitable, has Shiva, the goodness as Her envoy, indicating thereby that all

transformations aim at ultimate excellence. Death, though terrific in appearance, is in reality the single gateway to a

realm of beautiful existence.

May the Ashta-Shakti of the great Mother protect us from eight directions, so that we may live in peace and have

spiritual growth in harmony.

Mahānāmbrata Brahmachārī