Mother Devi has many names and forms. She is the mother of all. In her hands, She holds joy and pain; life and death. While She brings rain and prosperity She also brings disease and destruction to complete the cycle of life. Humans go through these experiences as per their karmaphala. We are to receive karma phala as the Mother’s prasada.
Mother Devi’s saguna diagram or Her mansions are replete with decorations. This is the external beauty that man has made in his or her image of the Divine. Saraswathy is knowledge. Simple white cloth adorn Her to reflect Her purity of knowledge. Saraswathy rejects materialism and rarely wears jewels. Lakshmi is wealth. She is the mistress of bounty and is adorned with all jewellery. Red is the colour of fertility and the sap of life, so Lakshmi wears all red.
Parvathi is courage and love. She is unique in her saguna forms in that, like all married women, She wears all the sixteen love charms, the solah shringar. Whether married women follow this is another matter. One has to be practical also, especially in today’s working environment. It would be odd going to office looking like a bride or a deity..... ‘Idam- porul- Eval’ means ‘place, matter, purpose.’ This purports that one has to be practical in the circumstances. So moderation is the exception to the rule. Parvathi’s solah shringar decorations acknowledge and celebrate the beauty and divinity of the human body. They are divine reflections.
1. Bindi or kumkum red dot on the forehead
2. Mangalasutra, the sacred thread of marriage round the neck
3. Tumeric pase annoting the body
4. Fragrant flowers
5. Perfumes
6. Betel leaves chewed to make the mouth fragrant
7. Black beauty dot to ward off evil
8. Kohl or black eye liner
9. Mehendi on the hand
10. Alta, red dye for the feet
11. Brightly coloured sari
12. Jewels for the hair; tiara, hairpins
13. Jewels for the head; earrings, nose-rings, necklaces
14. Jewels for the waist; cummerbund or waist band
15. Jewels for the arms; armlets, bracelets, bangles, rings
16. Jewels for the feet; toe-rings and anklets.
Parvathi’s decorations are also the guises of Jaganmata, the Great Mother Devi. Jaganmata is mother of the universe. But we would still like to see Mother in Her best according to customs and rituals to reflect our own Self. So we see Jaganmata as saguna with the shringhar as well as the nirguna aspect. While She assumes cosmic proportions, Her inner beauty is beyond all physical attributes. She is many and she is One. The world that Devi is can enchant us because she is the One in the many; many in the One.
In Her nirguna form Mother is all infinite Beauty and that is what should be aspired as Realization. She has been sending a message of Yoga if you cared to hear. Yoga with Mother Goddess requires absolutely discarding all external rules and rituals. Meditation and merging begins when you transcend external beauty to realise Her inner beauty. That is Self-realization. Her omniscience of infinite knowledge, omnipresence everywhere and omnipotence of unlimited power is the Divine Mother’s extreme beauty and ageless eternity. That decoration starts from within. Hari Om
Yogi Ananda Saraswati