MANNERS OF THE MÁTRIKA GODDESSES.
Argument.--Bhusunda traces his origin from the Mátres, whose manners
and revelries he describes in length.
Bhusunda related:--There is in this world, the god of gods Hara
(Horus?) by name; who is the chief among the celestials, and honoured
by all the divinities of heaven.
2. He had his consort Gaurí constituting the better half of his body,
and by whom he is embraced in the manner of an ivy clasping the young
Amra tree. Her bosom likened a cluster of blooming blossom, and her
eyes resembled the lines of black bees fluttering in the summer sky.
3. The hoary locks of hair on the braided head of Hara, were entwined
as with a white lace, by the snow white stream of Ganges, whose billows
and waves as clusters of flowers on the hair-band.
4. The crown of his head was decorated with the gemming milk-white
disk of the moon, which sprung from the bosom of the milky ocean; and
spread her bright radiance and ambrosial dews about his person. (The
streams of ganguari are represented as consorts of Hara, and the moon
as forming the discus on the braces of the hairs on his head).
5. The incessant effusion of ambrosial draughts, from the disk of the
moon on his crest, has made him immortal by assuaging the heat of the
deadly poison which he swallowed, and has marked his throat with the
bluish hue of the sapphire or _lapis lazuli_, whence he named the blue
gulletted Níla Kantha. (Hara is said to have swallowed the kála-kuta
poison, as Hercules drank his full bowl of henbane).
6. The god is besmeared with powdered ashes on his body, as
emblematical of the particles of dust, to which the world was reduced
by the flame of his all destructive conflagration; while the stream
of water flowing from the Ganges on his head, is typical of the
current of his clear knowledge of all things. (Others make the burning
fire of his frontal eye _bhála netra_ to represent the flash of his
cognoscence--jnánágni).
7. His body is decorated with strings of blanched bones, which are
brighter far than the silvery beams of fair moon, and these serve as
necklaces of argent and pearly gems about his person. (Hence he is
named as Jala-padda-málika).
8. His vest is the open sky with its plates of folded clouds, which
are washed by the milk white beam of the moon, and studded with the
variegated spots of the stars. (This means the nudity of the god, hence
called Digamvara or sky attired).
9. He is beset by the prowling shakals, devouring the burnt carcasses
on funeral grounds, and holds his abode beyond the habitations of men,
in cemeteries and mortuaries in the outer skirts of cities. (Whence his
name of Smashána sáyí).
10. The god is accompanied by the Mátres, who are decorated with
strings of human skulls about their necks, and girt with the threads of
their entrails on their bodies; while the fat and flesh of dead bodies,
and the blood and moisture of putrid carcasses, form their delectable
food and drink.
11. Their bodies are soft and shining as gold, and moving about with
sparkling gem on their heads and bracelets of snakes curled round their
wrists.
12. The acts of this god are dreadful to relate, and strike terror in
hearts of the gods and demons, and all beings beside. One glance of his
eye (coup d'oeil) is enough to set the mountains in a blaze, and his
hunger grasps the whole world in one morsel.
13. The perpetual rest of his meditative mind in holy trance samádhi,
hath restored the world to rest; and the movement of his arms at
intervals, is attended with the destruction of demons.
14. His forms of the elements are intently lent on their fixed
purposes, without being deterred from them by the impulses of his
anger, enmity or affection; and the wind of his breath makes the
mountains to tremble, and turn the humid earth to arid ground.
15. His playmates are the devils with their heads and faces, resembling
those of bears and camels, goats and serpents; and such as have their
heads for hoofs, and their hoofs as their hands, and whose hands serve
as their teeth, and who have their faces and mouths set upon their
bellies and breasts.
16. His face shone brightly with the rays of his three eyes (whereby he
is denominated the triple eyed god _trinetra_); and the _mátres_ were
dependant on him as his dependant demoniac bands--_gana-devatás_.
17. The Mátres joined with the bands of demons, dance about him lowly
at his bidding, and feed upon the living bodies, that are born and dead
in all the fourteen regions of creation.
18 The Mátres having their faces as those of asses and camels, rove at
great distances from him; and are fond of feeding on the flesh and fat,
and drinking the red hot blood of bodies as their wine. They have the
fragments and members of dead bodies, hanging about their persons as
strings of pearls.
19. They reside in the hollows of hills, in the open sky and in other
regions also; they dwell also in the holes underneath the grounds, and
like to abide in cemeteries and in the holes and pores of human and
brute bodies.
20. There are the goddesses known under the names of Jayá and Vijayá,
jayantí and Aparajitá; and again siddha Raktá and Alambushá, and also
another bearing the name of utpatá.
21. These eight are denominated the Nayikai of leaders, of the whole
body of Mátrikas; the others are subordinate to these, and there are
others again subordinate to them.
22. Among all these venerable Mátres, there one by name of Alambushá,
that is the source of my birth; and this I have revealed to you on
account of your great favour to me, by your kind call to my cell.
23. She had the crow by name of Chanda for her vehicle, which had its
bones and bills as strong as the bolts of Indra's thunder; it was as
dark as a mountain of jetblack or blue agate, and served her goddess as
Garuda served the consort of Vishnu.
24. This octad of Mátri goddess were once assembled together, and bent
their course in the ethereal firmament on some of their malevolent
purposes.
25. They made their merry makings and religious revels in the air, and
then turned their course to the left side where they halted at the
shrine of Tumburu, which was sacred to Siva.
26. They there worshipped the forms of Tumburu and Bhairava, which are
adored in all the worlds; and then regaled themselves with a variety of
discourses, seasoned with drinking and to ping.
27. Then they look up the topic among other subjects of their
conversation, as to whether they were slighted and disliked by their
paramour--the spouse of Umá, who is taken to share one half of his
body. (In the shape of androgyne--Umá--Maheswara or Hara--Gaurí; having
the male and female bodies joined in two halves in one bisex forms).
28. We shall now show him our prowess, that he may never think of
despising our great powers even by a contemptuous look, for though the
god feigns to be single and naked, yet we know he is bipartite with his
consorts Umá forming his better half.
29. Thus determined the goddesses overpowered on Umá by some potent
charm of theirs, and by sprinkling a little water upon her, as they
do to captivate a beast, which they are going to sacrifice before
the altar, and by this spell they succeeded both to change the fine
features of Durga, as also to enervate her frame.
30. They succeeded also by their power of enchantment, to detach Umá
from the body of Hara, and set her before them, with an imprecation of
converting her fair form to their meat food.
31. They made great rejoicings on the day of their execration of
Párvati; when they all joined in dancing and singing, and making their
giddy revelries before her.
32. The shouts of their great joy and loud laughter resounded in the
sky, and the jumping and hopping of their big bodies, laid open their
backs and bellies to sight.
33. Some laughed as loudly with the deafening clappings of their palms,
that they rebounded in the sky as the roarings of lions and clouds.
They showed the gestures of their bodies in their warlike dance, and
the sound of their singing rang through the forests and reached in the
mountains.
34. Others sang as loud as it rang through the mountain caves, and ran
to the depth of the ocean; which rebillowed with its surges as at the
time of the full-moon tide.
35. Others drank their bowls, and daubed their bodies from head to foot
with liquor; and muttered their drunken chatters, that chattered in the
sky.
36. They drank over and sang louder and louder, they turned about as
tops, and uttered and muttered as sots. They laughed and sipped and
chopped and fell down and rolled and prattled aloud. Thus they reeled
in fits, and bit the bits of their flesh meats, till these Bacchanal
goddesses did all their orgies in their giddy revels.