The Angelic Hymn to Dea
From the Devi Gita: an Indian Scripture
dating from the 13th-16th-centuries that sets forth for the
later Kali Yuga the Eternal worship of Dea. It is the feminine equivalent
to the Bhagavad Gita.
The Angels (devas),
having seen Dea in Her supernal form, salute Her as the Supreme Being.
Hail Dea! Hail Great Dea! Hail forever most auspicious Dea!
Propitious Lady of all Nature. we prostrate ourselves to Thee forever.
O Mother! Thou art the colour of fire; blazing like the Sun with the
Light of Wisdom. As pure consciousness Thou shinest everywhere, and art worshipped
for the fruits of action.
We take refuge in Thee, O Durga. Hail to thee O Dea, Who art the Barque
of Swift Crossing.
The angels created Speech which pervades
all things, and whereby all creatures speak.
Most comely is this Speech: a Heavenly Cow yielding
food and all desires. Through her do we praise You. May she dwell ever among
us.
O Dea, Thou art the Night of Destruction at the world’s
end, worshipped by Brahma. Thou art Vaisnavi, Thou art the Mother of Skanda,
Thou art Sarasvati, Thou art Aditi, Thou art the Daughter of Daksha. Thou
dost purify the world in Thy many forms. We bow down to Thee.
We know Thee to be Mahalakshmi, we
meditate on Thee as the underlying Power of all things.
O Mother, shed Thy light on us, that we may know Thee
through meditation.
O Dea! Obeisance to Thee in the shining order of the
world-body; obeisance to Thee in the subtle thread of the world-spirit.
Obeisance to thee in the Unmanifest State; obeisance
to thee in the glorious form of Absolute Deity.
Through Thy power of nescience doth the world appear,
like to a rope appearing as a serpent or as a garland of flowers.
Through Thy power of Knowledge
Thou dissolvest the world back into thine own Self. Glory unto Thee, the
Empress of the Universe.
We glorify Her, Who is pure consciousness and whose
essence is That.
Whose being is Bliss unmelded, Whom all the Scriptures
know as their final goal.
Thou transcendest the five bodies.
Thou art the Witness of the three states of consciousness.
Thou art the essence of the fragmentary soul, known
by the name of thou.
O Mother! Hail to Thee who art OM, the primordial
Word. Hail to Thee Who pervadest all as HRIM.
Hail to thee, Mother of all sacred
sounds. All-compassionate Mother, we bow down at Thy lotus feet.
Commentaries
Hail Dea! Hail Great Dea! Hail forever most auspicious Dea!
Propitious Lady of all Nature. we prostrate ourselves to Thee forever.
Commentary:
Hail Dea!
We render “Devi” here
as Dea, for the word means simply God Who Is Our Mother. The term “Goddess” is
misleading, implying something secondary to a male “God”, or one
of a multiplicity of divinities. Here we are referring to Supreme Deity.
Propitious Lady of all Nature.
“Nature” (prakriti) is an aspect, or power, of Dea. It does not
refer to insensate matter, but to the Divine reality that lies behind all manifest
being. Nor is this a question of “nature worship” according to
the modern misunderstanding of the term, but a recognition that all nature
springs from Dea.
O Mother! Thou art the colour of fire; blazing like the Sun with the
Light of Wisdom. As pure consciousness Thou shinest everywhere, and art worshipped
for the fruits of action.
We take refuge in Thee, O Durga. Hail to thee O Dea, Who art the Barque
of Swift Crossing.
Commentary
O Mother! Thou art the colour of fire; blazing like
the Sun with the Light of Wisdom.
Our Mother burns
like the Sun, for She is the pure light of Wisdom (cf. Greek Sophia).
She is not a “lunar
goddess”, but
is often depicted in Solar terms.
As pure consciousness Thou shinest everywhere, and
art worshipped for the fruits of action.
Although She represents
the highest Wisdom, attained by strict asceticism, she also is the provider
of the fruits of all worldly actions, and because of her loving kindness,
she grants those fruits to those who worship Her, both human maids and angels.
Pure Consciousness (Chaitanya) is a concept closely related to the
Divine Act of the creation and sustaining of the Universe. The Pure Consciousness
of Dea pervades the universe. She is Ultmately the only Consciousness, of which
our lesser consciousnesses are but fragments.
As it is written in another of Her Scriptures,
the Tripura
Rahasya (Mystery of Threefold Dea):
That which shines as “Is” is Her Majesty the Absolute Consciousness.
Thus
the universe is only the Self — the One and one only.
Tripura Rahasya 85
And again:
Absolute
Being, the One Queen, Parameswari (Transcendental Goddess) overwhelming
the three states and hence called Tripura. Though She is undivided the
whole universe manifests in all its variety in Her, being reflected as
it were, in a self-luminous mirror. The reflection cannot be apart from
the mirror and is therefore one with it. Such being the case, there cannot
be difference in degrees. Bodies are mere conceptions in the lower order
of beings and they are not to the point in the case of God. Therefore,
be wise, and worship the one pure, unblemished Transcendence.
Tripura Rahasya 93
(Translation of Swami Sri Ramananda Saraswathi)
We take refuge in Thee, O Durga. Hail to thee O Dea,
Who art the Barque of Swift Crossing.
She is the sure refuge of
the soul. Even the angels take refuge in Her. In seeking Her protection,
they may run to Her warlike form of Durga (Vikhë), the great Protectress
and Destroyer of Evil. The image of the vessel that brings the soul to the “nether
shore” may
be found in many traditions. Taking refuge in Dea, we allow Her to conduct
us safely over the turbulent ocean of this world, the storm-tossed sea of
werde (samsara).
The angels created Speech which pervades
all things, and whereby all creatures speak.
Most comely is this Speech: a Heavenly Cow yielding
food and all desires. Through her do we praise You. May she dwell ever among
us.
Commentary:
The angels created Speech which
pervades all things, and whereby all creatures speak.
According to the modernist
doctrine, speech “evolved” from
animal squeaks and grunts. Yet a study of language teaches us that the earliest
languages are the most complex and expressive, while the latest ones are
the simplest. Language is continually simplified for the lesser minds of
the Age of Iron (Kali Yuga). Even as this Age progresses, language
is continually “scaled down”. So modern Italian is a much simpler
language than Latin.
Where, then, does language come from? Tradition
teaches us that it proceeds from the single Word, in which all speech and all
being is immanently contained. In the sacred language of Sanskrit, this single
Word is represented in our earthly speech by the sacred monosyllable OM,
or by the seed-mantra sacred to Dea, HRIM.
Most comely is this Speech: a Heavenly
Cow yielding food and all desires. Through Her do we praise You.
May She dwell ever among us.
From the single Divine Word grows the
first language, the Language of the Angels. Thus we are told that the angels
created speech. But speech (Vac), in the earliest Vedic literatures,
is Herself known as a Form of Dea. She is the all-pervading cosmogonic (world-creating)
Deity. Vac is associated with the cow, which represents the nourishing Mother,
the Source of all good things*. Thus Speech, in Her highest aspect, is a
manifestation of Dea Herself.
The Language of the Angels passed to maids
upon earth, and in the earliest days our human speech was very pure, very close
to the Angelic Language. But as the Age of Gold gave place to the Age of Silver,
and the Age of Silver to the Age of Bronze, so human speech became less perfect,
less an instrument for expressing pure Truth. At last there came a time when
the Primordial Language was broken into different tongues — at first
only a few, representing the major divisions of humanity, and then each of
these languages split into various increasingly simplified sub-dialects,
until we have the multiplicity of languages that we find today. This is the
meaning of the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel.
Thus it is said that the angels created
Speech, but also that Speech, in Her purest essence, is an aspect of Dea
that transcends even the angels. Ultimately, it is only through Dea (in Her
form as Speech) that we praise Dea.
O Dea, Thou art the Night of Destruction at the world’s
end, worshipped by Brahma. Thou art Vaisnavi, Thou art the Mother of Skanda,
Thou art Sarasvati, Thou art Aditi, Thou art the Daughter of Daksha. Thou
dost purify the world in Thy many forms. We bow down to Thee.
Commentary:
O Dea, Thou art the Night of
Destruction at the world’s end, worshipped by Brahma.
Even as the Mother creates the world at its beginning,
so also she breathes it back into Herself at the end; for the worlds in truth
were never any other than She.
Thou art Vaisnavi, Thou art
the Mother of Skanda, Thou art Sarasvati,
Vaisnavi, the Mother of Skanda and Sarasvati
represent in this context the Trimurti — Creator, Sustainer
and Destroyer of the Universe, represented in the patriarchal Hindu
tradition as Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. While The forms of Devi are
said in this tradition to be “consorts” of the three male
deities, in the true tradition of Dea, She represents in Herself the
three aspects of Deity.
Thou art Aditi,
Aditi is a very ancient
name of Dea. The name means unfettered or limitless, characteristic of
the Cosmic Sky-Deity, though it also has Solar connotations. The Vedas
hint that She was once recognised as Supreme and is still the Mother of all
gods or angels. She is undoubtedly pre-Vedic in origin. The Devi
Gita continues
the thread of this ancient tradition, affirming the supremacy of Dea.
Thou art the Daughter of Daksha.
The Daughter of Daksha, Sati, is an Avatar
of Dea. Her story is told in many forms, all surviving ones being patriarchal
(and, indeed, forming the basis for the cruel patriarchal practice of the
burning of widows); nevertheless Sati, the Incarnation of Dea who immolates
Herself in the sacrificial fire is the type of the Sacrificial Daughter as
seen in other cultures under such names as Persephone, Ishtar and Inanna.
This verse bears very closely on the Aristasian concept
of the Mother, the Daughter and the Dark Mother, which we discuss elsewhere.
We know Thee to be Mahalakshmi, we
meditate on Thee as the underlying Power of all things.
O Mother, shed Thy light on us, that we may know Thee
through meditation.
Commentary:
We know Thee to be Mahalakshmi,
Sri Lakshmi, Great Lakshmi (Maha Lakshmi), is another
form of Dea that goes back beyond Vedic times, but unlike Vac and Aditi,
She is worshipped by millions under this name today. While attempts have
been made to bring Mahalakshmi into the patriarchal ambit, she remains the
Great Mother, the Giver of both worldly enjoyment and spiritual realisation.
we meditate on Thee as the underlying
Power of all things.
“Underlying Power” is our translation
of the word Shakti.
Those familiar with Hinduism will be aware that in patriarchal usage a Shakti
designates the female power of a male god; but there is no doubt in the Devi
Gita that Dea is the One Supreme Deity and Her Shakti is Herself.
O Mother, shed Thy light on us, that
we may know Thee through meditation.
This verse is used as a preparation to meditation.
It also reminds us of the fundamental spiritual truth that it is only through
Her Grace that we may come to Her; only through Her Light that we may see Her;
only through Her Love that we may love Her.
O Dea! Obeisance to Thee in the shining order of the
world-body; obeisance to Thee in the subtle thread of the world-spirit.
Obeisance to thee in the Unmanifest State; obeisance
to thee in the glorious form of Absolute Deity.
O Dea! Obeisance to Thee in the shining
order of the world-body;
The Cosmos is the body of Dea (viraj).
The word comes from a root meaning both to rule and to shine. Thus, the Cosmos
as the Body of Dea is the Cosmos in Thamë, manifesting perfectly the
Golden Order.
obeisance to Thee in the subtle thread
of the world-spirit.
Through this world-body runs the thread-spirit
(Sutratman) whereon all the worlds are threaded like pearls upon a string.
Obeisance to thee in the Unmanifest
State; obeisance to thee in the glorious form of Absolute Deity.
While Dea is both the body and the soul
of the manifest world, she also precedes manifestation. She is not limited
by the manifestation of the physical universe or the non-physical universes.
Ultimately, She is Absolute Deity (Brahman), beyond being and non-being.
The four half-lines
of this verse describe the four cosmic aspects of the Supreme Being, reflected
in the human microcosm as the four states: the waking state, dreaming sleep,
deep and dreamless sleep and the final state of pure Spiritual Realisation.
The Mandukya
Upanishad relates
these states to the three component sounds of OM (or AUM): A-U-M. A is the
waking state (or world-body), U is the sleeping state (or world-spirit) M is
dreamless sleep (or the Unmanifest Causal Body of Dea) and Absolute Deity is
the AUM taken as a whole.
Note that the A is pronounced like the
e in “her”,
U as in “put” and M like the Me in “Merchant”.
Through Thy power of nescience doth the world appear,
like to a rope appearing as a serpent or as a garland of flowers.
Through Thy power of Knowledge
Thou dissolvest the world back into thine own Self. Glory unto Thee, the
Empress of the Universe.
Through Thy power of nescience doth
the world appear,
“Nescience” here is an advanced
metaphysical concept. It would be usual to translate it simply as “ignorance”,
but this would inevitably have false connotations for the Western ear. The
Sanskrit term is avidya: ignorance, or most literally non-(right)-seeing. Vidya is
closely related to Latin video, “I see”, and thus to English
words such as vision. A-vidya is simply vidya with the privative a- (as
in amoral or agnostic).
What we need to understand is that, in traditional
thought, ignorance is not a mere negative, but is an actual thing — a
barrier between ourselves and the innate Knowledge of Truth that we possess.
Thus the Tibetan llama makes the dorje gesture when teaching an important
point. The dorje is the thunderbolt that breaks through the barrier
of ignorance. In Greek the word for truth is alethea “unforgetting” (forgetfulness
= lethe). Truth is in us, and ignorance is that which prevents us
from seeing it.
Ultimately the Truth is that there is nothing other than
Dea. So the appearance of the world is, in a sense, an illusion. Or to put
it another way, manifestation itself — the Creation — is dependent
upon avidya. Without avidya, nescience, there is no universe.
The path to Pure Enlightenment consists of
destroying avidya and
seeing through the illusion of the world. Thus the simplistic Western mind
in the Kali Yuga, having grasped this point, is apt to reason that avidya is
simply a Bad Thing. But actually it is not that simple. For souls who are not
at the stage of Enlightenment, our Mother creates this beautiful world as a
haven. And this world-haven is created from her power of nescience or avidya. The
heaven-worlds to which Her devotees may attain who have loved her but not achieved
Enlightenment are likewise manifested through Her power of avidya.
like to a rope appearing as a serpent
or as a garland of flowers.
The appearance of the world through ignorance,
just as a rope in the half-light may appear to be a snake, is a traditional
Vedantic image. The image of the garland of flowers, uncommon in patriarchal
texts, stresses the beauty and variety of the lovely world created by Dea.
Note that these images very literally present the metaphor of seeing mistakenly
Through Thy power of Knowledge dost
Thou dissolve the world back into hine own Self.
But ultimately Her opposite power of vidya — knowledge
or Truth — will dissolve the manifest world back into Herself, whether
at the Enlightenment of the individual soul or at the end of time. Thus, in
Her aspect as the Dark Mother, the Destroyer of the Worlds, She may seem terrifying
to the unenlightened, but She is ultimately the Highest Good.
Glory unto Thee, the Empress of the
Universe.
Thus this statement
is followed by a gloria. To quote an inspired Aristasian text: “She
will do what She will do, and blessed is Her Name”.
We glorify Her, Who is pure consciousness and whose
essence is That.
Whose being is Bliss unmelded, Whom all the Scriptures
know as their final goal.
We glorify Her, Who is pure consciousness
It is the consciousness of Dea that upholds
the world. She is the one Consciousness of the cosmos, of whom every lesser
consciousness (including you, dear reader) is but a fragment. The word for
consciousness here is Chit, the middle term of the formula Sat,
Chit, Ananda — Being,
Consciousness and Bliss. In the next line She is also referred to as Bliss,
while Dea as Being — both the Being of the universe and the Being that
lies beyond it — is the subject of these two verses.
and whose essence is That.
The word That (Tat) comes
from the great Vedantic formulation, Tat tvam asi: “That
thou art”. Here That
(Tat) means the supreme Brahman, absolute Deity, while tvam (thou)
is the individual, or fragmentary soul, the jivatma. The meaning of the saying
is that ultimately the soul is none other than Deity, if only the veil of
avidya were drawn aside. Realisation is the ultimate understanding
that neither the universe nor the individual self is anything other than
Dea.
This verse makes it clear that God the
Mother is Tat — absolute
Brahman and thus the Supreme Goal of the Vedas (Scriptures).
Thou transcendest the five bodies.
Thou art the Witness of the three states of consciousness.
Thou art the essence of the fragmentary soul, known
by the name of thou.
Thou transcendest the five bodies.
The five bodies, or sheaths (kosas),
are the vehicles of the soul. They enclose the fragmentary (individual) soul,
or jiva, like
the successive skins of an onion, each enclosing all those within it, and
enclosed by those without it. A full explication of the kosas would
be a study in itself, but briefly they are:
1)
Food sheath (Anna-maya kosa): This is the physical
body. It is really the only body recognised by modern “science”, which
acknowledges neither the subtler bodies outside it, nor the soul within.
2)
Vital-Breath sheath (Prana-maya kosa): the first
subtle body, though its lower part is continuous with the gross body. While this
governs the senses and other physical functions, it is nevertheless of a subtler
order than that which it governs. It would perhaps constitute the difference
between “living” and “non-living” matter
which modernist philosophers, with their purely material perspective, find so
difficult to define.
3)
Mental sheath (Mana-maya kosa): the mental/emotional
body, seat of feelings, impulses and thoughts. This governs the sheaths below
it, so when the feelings and thoughts are disturbed, the physiological functions
suffer.
4)
Intellectual sheath (Vijnana-maya kosa): the intellectual
body. The representaive of the Solar Intellect in maid. As the moon reflects
the sun, so the mind (mana, mental, mind, moon, month are all related) reflects
the Intellect. This intellectual body is the seat of the power of discrimination
and reason, and is the lesser reflection of pure Intellect (jnana).
5)
Bliss sheath (Ananda-maya kosa): the causal body.
This is only realised in dreamless sleep. It governs the other bodies and contains
all the impressions and latent energies (vasanas) that go to make
up the individuality. The relative bliss achieved in dreamless sleep should
not be confused with the Bliss of final Enlightenment, but it is a reflection
thereof.
It should be realised that in traditional thought, whatever
applies to the human microcosm applies also to the macrocosm of the universe,
thus Dea transcends the gross subtle and causal bodies of all things.
Thou art the Witness of the three states
of consciousness.
Similarly, as the Witness of the three states
of consciousness (waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep), Dea is She who causes
these states but is not part of them. She is the essence of the fourth or transcendent
state signified by the entirety of the word OM (AUM).
Thou art the essence
of the fragmentary soul, known by the name of thou.
In the previous verse it is explained that Dea is the That
(tat) of
the Upanishadic Tat tvam asi ("That thou art"), in
other words, She is the Absolute Brahman or Deity. Now it is made clear that
she is also, in essence, the second term:thou (tvam: root tv/tu,
common to Latin tu, Greek thu,
German du,
and English thou,
from earlier thu).
She is both the Atman,
the All-Spirit, and the individual fragmentary soul in its essence. In the
end there is nothing that is not Dea.
So the Enlightened
soul sees Dea in every being. Thus when the Aristasian bows and greets
others with the greeting Rayati (hail to thee as an incarnation of the Sun),
she is acknowledging that each one of us is ultimately not other than Dea.
O Mother! Hail to Thee who art OM, the primordial
Word. Hail to Thee Who pervadest all as HRIM.
Hail to thee, Mother of all sacred
sounds. All-compassionate Mother, we bow down at Thy lotus feet.
Commentary:
O Mother! Hail to Thee who art OM,
the primordial Word. Hail to Thee Who pervadest all as HRIM.
While OM (AUM) represents the primordial Word,
HRIM is the audial embodiment of the World Mother that reverberates throughout
the universe and through the hearts of all beings, uniting all opposites in
the perfect harmony of the Golden Order. Thus the two sacred syllables, each
representing the primordial Unheard Word, represent, respectively, Dea transcendent
and Dea immanent in Her creation.
Hail to thee, Mother of all sacred
sounds.
From the Primordial Word, all sacred
sounds (mantras) unfold, and from the sacred sounds of the Angelic
Language proceed all sounds, all words, all language.
All-compassionate Mother, we bow down
at Thy lotus feet.
Our Mother has compassion on the whole world
and we, like the Angels, bow down at Her lotus feet. Wherever we see Sri Lakshmi
standing, Her feet rest on a blossoming lotus: for it is where Her feet touch
the waters of substance that the universe blossoms forth.
The Lotus feet of Dea create for us the beautiful
earth and the heavens, wherein we may live and find refuge. They also create
the vision of our Mother, wherein we may find both worldly enjoyment and eternal
bliss.
All hail the World-Mother! Take refuge at Her lotus feet!
* Curiously, some scholarly Western commentators
have expressed surprise at this maternal, cow-related aspect of Vac in addition
to Her grander “cosmic” nature, but the name is clearly related
to Latin vacca,
a cow (French vache)
as well as to
vox, voice etc.
The cosmogonic nature of Speech — the
association of Speech with the world-creating Power — is clear in the
light of the metaphysical link between the naming of things and their creation.
The names of things are not mere arbitrary “signs”, ultimately
evolved from animal noises, but contain, in the Primordial Language, the real
Essences of those things. Thus in Sanskrit we have the distinction between nama and rupa:
nama being
the name of a thing — its Angelic or primordial Name, and hence its Archetype
or real Essence — and rupa, or shape, being its outward or worldly
manifestation. In a sacred language like Sanskrit, which still retains unbroken
links to the Primordial Language, certain names or mantras contain the essence
of that which they name. Hence, most obviously, the importance of the Primordial
Words OM and HRIM, but also many other words and mantras.
The importance of words and of the Primordial
Word (Logos) was understood by classical Greek philosophy and passed
into Christian thought (note the opening of the Gospel according to St. John).
However both Greek and Latin had already ceased to be true Sacred Languages,
even though Latin functioned as an ecclesiastical language in the West.
In the Old Aristasian calendar, the name
of the eighth month, Vois (pron Voish), means both speech and butter.
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