The Mother Goddess

THE MOTHER-GODDESS

By U. R. EHRENFELS, Ph. D. (Vienna)
and M. S. GOPALAKRISHNAN, M.A., Dip. Anth.
(University of Madras)

Sivaism and the Mother Goddess

The discussion about the Somnath Temple and its reinstitution led Mr. Philip Spratt ¹ to reflect also on the sociological functions and psychological implications of the Mother Goddess concept, which no doubt holds a key position in Sivaitic religion generally and that of South India in particular. He perceives the connection between Sivaism, the Mother Goddess idea and the appearance of Yoga as one of the most typically characteristic features of religious development in the Indian area. He further concludes that the emphasis on the Father God was “more favourable to the rise of a broader loyalty; and historically the emergence of nations from the tribal stage is associated with loyalty to great kings, and the fusion of tribal gods.” ² On the other hand he thinks that “devotion to the mother is a regression; at the deepest level a regression to the inter-uterine stage, i. e., to identification with the mother.” ³

The Mother Goddess and matrilineal culture patterns

This side-track of Mr. Spratt’s article raises the question of the indirect influence which the Mother Goddess concept may exercise on culture patterns, and this is no doubt of more than a peripheral interest to the understanding of South Indian culture.

The first thing which we have to take into account here is the probability of a specialized, in no way primitive, yet no doubt pre-Aryan type of Mother Goddess religion, which was rooted in a matrilineal city civilisation.⁴ It is possible that this civilisation was identical, or at least connected, with the ancient pre-Aryan Indus civilisation and thus gave a common ground to all Indian cultural developments since about 2,500 B. C. Assuming this as a preliminary working hypothesis, we will undoubtedly find a plausible explanation for the introverted and non-violent elements in Indian culture, by equating them with the Mother Goddess ideal and the attempt at identification with Her. But the claim that the same identification was only a regression appears to be at least doubtful, whilst the other contention, viz., that the father concept makes for unification, must be considered to be more than doubtful. Matrilineal civilisations flourished because of, and along with, the discovery of plant cultivation–probably an achievement of primitive women. ⁵  “India herself appears to have been the centre of not only one, but even various different matrilineal cultures, from simple village to specialized city civilisations, which left a deep impression on the entire culture-historic configuration of this country.” ⁶ Patrilineal and Patriarchal civilisations with a strong father emphasis developed in nomadic herdsman cultures ⁷  and partly also in those of totemistic hunters. ⁸ In the former, feudal warfare, and in the latter the splitting up of society into numerous, and sometimes even hostile, sub-groups, was just as characteristic as the consolidation of populous co-operative village and city organizations was typical of matrilineal civilisations. The Father God concept should, under these circumstances, be rather seen as making for competition, even tribal warfare, and the Mother Goddess concept for a more protective mentality and economico-political co-operation than vice versa. Thus far, conclusions from anthropological and archaeological fact-finding among actual matrilineal and patrilineal societies and their pre-historic fore-runners.

Sivaism a pre-Aryan Religion

Let us, however, also consider the matter from the culture-historic approach to religion. Sivaism, as the present religion we know, can hardly be called original. It is a sect within Hinduism. Hinduism is a great system of ideas, composed of various blendings of pre-Aryan and Aryan thought. It is a norm of life, followed in different ways by different types of Hindus.

What exactly was the religion of India, before the Aryans came, can only be cenjectured on the basis of archaeological evidence, aboriginal parallels and survivals, traceable in folklore, mythology (legendary history) and literary sources.

Male and Female Deities

Archaeological excavations, conducted in the valley of the Indus, have shown the permanence of an old Indian civilisation which the Aryan invaders with their new set of thoughts and materials could not yet completely destroy. The pre-Aryan civilisation of the Indus valley has also left traces of a religion, connected with an oft-represented Magna Mater and a Siva-like male deity. In this setting we find objects, believed to symbolise linga-yoni. If the theory of linga-yoni worship among the Indus people can be accepted, it is hardly too bold a conclusion to hold that some sort of ‘Saivism’, without its present Vedic elements, was prevalent in the Indus civilisation before the Aryans came.

We do not know how and when exactly the concept of a Mother Goddess came to be closely associated with that of Siva, or whether both are rooted in a common source. Siva who is considered to be an ascetic, is also glorified as the Original source from which all things emerge. In this way He is the creator and similar to the Magna Mater concept of a creatrix; Though the creatrix concept was not prominent in the Vedas and the Upanishads, in the Puranic period, the role of the Mother became important to the further development of Aryan Hinduism. With the growth of the Tantras the cult of the Mother became complex and great Hindu metaphysicians found no difference between Siva and Sakti. Has here a circle of ideas been closed which passes from original, pre-Aryan oneness, through sex-differentiation and the deity-concept and the suppression of its female aspect in the earlier Vedic period, and finally arrived at a second trend of unification in early medieval Hinduism? This non-differentiation between a male god and a female goddess is also present in other Indian religious systems, as for instance in the Khasi attitude towards U Blei-Ka Blei. From researches ⁹ and an analysis made of the U Blei –Ka Blei idea among the Khasi, it would appear that the “Magna Mater or “Great Goddess” concept of the Khasi is fused with the Creator God idea into one indivisible, yet sexually differentiated unit.” ¹⁰ The double-sex aspect of a Creator is also noticed in the belief of primitive non-agricultural food-gathering tribes, such as the Kadar of Cochin, ¹¹ Negritos of Malaya¹² and others.¹³ Thus we find the idea that one is within the other, and the very appearance of duality to be only a sort of veil over the great principle of unity, a veil or illusion, however, which appears to be very ancient. Though the worship of the Mother Goddess was prevalent in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete, Greece and other ancient civilisations, India is the land where the cult attained not only a very high philosophic significance but also persisted up to this time.

The Mother Goddess and Yoga

Mr. Philip Spratt connects with this fact that, “yoga may have to be regarded as a unique and inexplicable contribution of India.”14 The process of introspection is not, as yoga, unique to India alone. There is the esoteric religion of ancient Egypt, the Greek Mystery cults and the practices and attitudes of Medieval European mystics and the Sufis of the Islamic world. There is also the belief in individual guardian spirits, to be personally acquired, by the Sioux and many other American aboriginal groups;–also indirect indications of a similar introverted attitude in pre-Columbian American civilisations. Yoga can hardly be defined as aiming at a return to the womb, pure and simple, as Mr. Spratt suggests.¹⁵ It also means a fusion, stateless state of non-existence beyond humau comprehension. It is said that for one who practises yoga, through the power of concentration, an absolute identification with the object of contemplation is achieved. By this achievement he experiences in himself all the power and qualities of the object of meditation.¹⁶ We don’t think that the picturing of the Goddess within the heart of the contemplative yogi leads him actually to the womb, though perhaps to a state of mind which is comparable to that experienced there. Identification with the Mother imagined within the subject’s body cannot be interpreted as literally a return to the womb; but it means a return to oblivion; oblivion, that is to say, of the transitory, the ‘non-real’ aspects in the Ego. This state of freedom from the inessential implies the annihilation of separateness–but not of consciousness. This mental attitude appears to have been present also in the initiates of such cults as that of Isis-Osiris, Demeter-Persephone, Aphrodite or Artemis,¹⁷ Baal-Ashtarot and at the root of the Arabian goddess Al-Lat.¹⁸ The figure of the Mother Goddess plays an important part in all these manifold cults.

The vision of God as Mother¹⁹ is the expression of a longing for compassion and grace, for tenderness and sympathy–mental qualities which are generally more manifest in the feminine than in the masculine aspect of humans. This does not mean that the actual masculine individual is necessarily devoid of these qualities, though it is in a few only that they can be established alongside the masculine traits.

The religious images of Ardhanarishwara and Hermaphrodite–contributions of Indian and Grecian mythology and sculpture to the world of art–illustrate this aspect in their sphere. It is man who strives to understand the feminine already in him, and woman who strives to comprehend the male. The supreme is the womb of all manifest things. This metaphorical simile finds a parallel in the Arabic Al-Rahman Al-Rahim as one of the most important attributes of God which are literally derived from the Arabic root RHM (womb), and mean “The Beneficent–The Merciful”. The conciding use of this word for the same idea in various languages is no doubt more than mere accident–but it is also more than mere desire for return to the physical womb. Return to the pre-natal stage thus would seem to indicate something different from, and more than, the mere todestribe, the urge for death, which Freud acknowledged besides libido, in its physically destructive desire for annihilation of the manifest ego.

The character of Siva as destroyer does therefore not mean that he is the representative of a Father-God idea, full of terror, as was suggested.²⁰ Siva as Mahakala can perhaps be seen as the element of Time. In swallowing all created things, the feminine aspect Mahakali yet predominates. Thus He-She withdraws into Him-Herself: the Universe. It is in our will to realise whether, “Time must have a stop or not.” If one can destroy one’s subjection to time, one is beyond time. The transgression beyond time offers us the Timeless. Thus Siva, the destroyer, becomes Siva the redeemer. It is this truth that the great Saivite saints taught us. The yogi full of silence and peace understands this Father in whom the grace of the Mother is always immanent.

Devotion to the Mother taken in the sense of bhakti requires absolute self-surrender and self-abnegation. Self-surrender, however, is not identical with regression.

Conclusions suggesting that devotion to the mother leads to “a weakening of national solidarity,” ²¹ and devotion to the father (as no absolute identification is possible with him), is favourable “to the rise of a broader loyalty”, ²² are thus not only in discord with general culture-historic, anthropological experience, but also with a psychological analysis of religious concepts.

In Hinduism, for instance, devotion to the guru, who is to be given all the regard and respect shown to a father, is to culminate in identification with him by his chela who strives to understand the Ultimate. This attitude falls no doubt under the yogic mother-goddess pattern of mental behaviour, though applied to a man. History shows us, moreover, that loyalty to kings (or dictators) did not prevent wars, rather the opposite, and fostered a spirit of competition which is typical of patrilineal and patriarchal societies. This answers the question whether, or how far, matrilineal civilisations are to be considered as belonging to a fundamentally different sociological and religious pattern, as compared to patrilineal cultures.

Conclusions

In conclusion we see how the study of matrilineal civilisations reveals the worship of a feminine deity. This goddess is frequently, yet not always, interconnected with agricultural, rites, but not exclusive of the male-god worship. It should also be stressed that primitive food-gatherers of primeval, bilateral social organisation, such: as e. g. the Kadar of Cochin, are not unaware, of the feminine principle in creation and being. Perry thought: “The Great Mother seems to be all alone in the days before the discovery of irrigation. Later she is accompanied by a son, who is also her lover. This son is personified on the earth by the kings...; and the king, the god and the mother goddess are primarily associated with irrigation, fertility, vegetation and similar things.” ²³

It would now appear to be more correct to say that originally there was a conception of the deity, comprising the double aspect of its sex character. This concept seems to have been followed by various more concrete deities in which at some times and at some places the male, at other times and at other places the female aspect predominate. If, however, we compare these two developments from the common original source, the female one can be seen associated with large agricultural civilisations which are based on co-operative activities (irrigation and storing of grains), whilst the male aspect is generally found in strongly centralised States which have been built on military expansion and thus gave rise to a spirit of competition.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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¹ Spratt, ‘Triveni’ (1951) p. 108.
² Spratt, ‘Tnveni’ (1951) p. 112.
³ Ibid.
⁴ Ehrenfels, (1941) PP’ 171 seq.
⁵ Childe (142) pp. 48, 49 etc.
⁶ Ehrenfels, (1951) page 3.
⁷ Turner (1941) Vol. I., pp. 242. seq., 361, seq., 473.
⁸ Schmidt-Koppers (1926).
⁹ Conducted in 1949-50 by Dr. U. R. Ehrenfels, Head of the Department of Anthropology, University of Madras, with the financial and from the Viking Fund Inc., now: Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Inc., New York which has dedicated another Grant-in-aid to the comparative study of matrilineal societies in India to the Madras University, to be carried out by Dr. Ehrenfels in 1951-53.
¹⁰ Ehrenfels (1950 B) p, 31.
¹¹ Ehrenfels (1950 B)
¹² Evans (1937) pp. 140, 143.
¹³ Among whom special interest attaches to the far-off Ainu, comp. Osamu Baba (1949), p. 27, where Chise-korokamui, the husband of the all-important hearth-goddess in Hokkaido is mentioned.
¹⁴ Spratt ‘Triveni’ (1951) p. III.
¹⁵ Ibid.
¹⁶ Judge (1930) p. XVIII.
¹⁷ Bo Yin Ra: (1935) p. 115.
¹⁸ Robertson-Smith: (1885) pp. 292-300.
¹⁹ Bo Yin Ra: (1932) pp. 126-27, where a deeper understanding of these relations is made accessible.
²⁰ Spratt ‘Triveni’ (1951) p. 112.
²¹ Spratt ‘Triveni’ (1951), p. 112.
²² Ibid.
²³ Perry (1923), p. 221