Dear Editor,
During the last two weeks, the Hindu community engaged in nine nights – “Nau Raat” – of the worship of God as “female”. One of the major causes of our divisive ethnicised politics are the stereotypes of the “other” so it is critical that effort be made to understand each other’s practices. This is an attempt to explain Nau Raat. While in primary school, I discovered, that “God as Female” was a very strange notion to most of my Christian African-Guyanese friends. At Uitvlugt Church of Scotland School, attendance of Wednesday services in the Church was compulsory. I was more interested in the gleaming brass pipes of the huge organ which we boys had to supply with air from bellows within its maws, as Miss La Rose plunked away sedately and the rest of the school sang hymns lustily. But I gathered from the sermons that God was REALLY a male who was somewhere “up there in heaven”.
However, when I attended Mandir on Thursday evenings (in the beginning, more for the “parsaad”, I confess) arrayed in front of me, was a complete pantheon of Gods. There were males of various visages, females of as many visages, half-man-half woman, half-man half beast, all “beast”, and seemingly everything in between. The “in between” alternated between various symbols (the sound of Om and formless Lingas) and even silence. Heavy stuff for a ‘force ripe’ boy. So as a Hindu, worshipping God as “female” was as natural as breathing air. There was no one conception of God to which worship was offered in one way. To me, what was preached in the Church of Scotland was quite strange. I was raised by my grandparents and my Nana was somewhat of a nonconformist. He didn’t attend Mandir and preferred to expound at home on his favourite text, the Ramcharitmanas – the exploits of Sri Ram – from his tattered but treasured copy.
Very early on, he challenged me to think about whether a God that pervaded the entire universe – “here there and everywhere” – could possibly have a particular form, much less a male and not a female form. His position was you worshipped whatever form or manner you were comfortable with. He often chanted the portion of the Ramcharitmanas where Sri Ram, the incarnation of God (as Vishnu) prayed to God as not just female – but a “warrior” female – Durga Devi. Once you could get your head around that concept there’s no going back to God as a jealous, grey-bearded man in the sky. The interesting thing about Hinduism is that it starts from the premise that if we are incapable of comprehending the nature of even the physical universe – even at Zeelugt High school a few years later, the notion that electrons could simultaneously be both waves and particles boggled the mind – what about God in which that universe itself is immanent? Can we dare to limit God by gender or number? But all is not lost.
If we cannot ‘comprehend” God, Hindus have discovered several paths – Yogas – through which one can directly “apprehend’ God. And one of these is to love and worship Her in whichever way you can through whatever form you can respond to. Or no “form” for that matter. In Hindu semiotics – discussed early in Ramcharitmans in distinguishing “name and form” – females are the signifiers of power – Shakti – and males are merely the “inert” ground – Prakriti. So in the bi-annual nine days of Nau Raatri, during the fall, we just worshipped nine forms of the Devi. Next Spring, we will worship Her first as “Durga” who possesses all the weapons and strength of the Gods – the same Durga worshipped by Ram before he went into battle against Ravana. While mothers are usually thought of as peaceful, no one will defend her children as ferociously as she will. We all have battles to fight and so for three days we pray to the Mother Durga to guide us. During the next three days, we focusing on Her as Maha Lakshmi, the bestower of abundance, auspiciousness and wealth.
In Hindu culture it is the female who is the conserver of the wealth in the family, necessary for a life of dignity and integrity. And the last three days, worship is to Mother Saraswati, the bestower of knowledge without which no battle can be won, or wealth acquired.
Sincerely,
Ravi Dev
