Das Mahavidyas - The 10 Tantric Goddesses of Wisdom

Who are the Das Mahavidya - Goddesses of Wisdom?

The divine feminine – Shakti, is a powerful force that works and moves in limitless forms in every aspect of the material and spiritual world.  She is the nurturing mother. It is her energy that sustains us, and she also destroy that which no longer serves us.

Within yogic mysticism and Tantra, the Das Mahavidyas display the scope of the divine feminine in many powerful ways. These Ten powerful goddesses each represent a distinct aspect of the personality, wisdom, and truth of the divine feminine. Their primary intention is to guide the sincere spiritual seeker towards Moksha - liberation.

These divine mothers are not one dimensional.  Each brings a unique power and novel qualities.  They do, however, have in common a strong persona, and they are teachers and models for divine female strength.

For the devotional seeker, the Bhakta, approaching these forms with deep reverence, love, and increasing intimacy offers an ancient, grand, and noble path to liberation. For the more knowledge-oriented seeker, the jnan yogin, these great beings with their dynamic qualities represent various states of inner awakening along the path to enlightenment, a state which itself is beyond qualities. 

In truth, most spiritual aspirants are themselves beyond the one-dimensional classification of a jnan yogin or a bhakta.  Most aspirants are a mixture of both, depending on their mode of consciousness and spiritual nature.

Both spiritual emotional natures, or bhav, leads to knowledge of the true Self, and ultimate freedom.  That kind of ultimate freedom and enlightenment are expressions of the cosmic oneness, whose essence is consciousness, bliss, love, and light.

The term Das Mahavidyas comes from the Sanskrit, dasa, meaning “ten,”; maha, meaning “great” and vidya; meaning “knowledge.” The Shakta Maha-Bhagavata Purana narrates the advent of the Mahavidyas, which occurred in Deva Loka, the divine celestial realm.  Sati, the consort of Shiva, was also the daughter of King Daksha Prajapati, who was of noble birth, having descended from Brahma.

Sati had married Shiva against the wishes of her father. Subsequently, King Daksha had planned to perform a great yagna and he invited the divine beings of the realm, the devas, except Lord Shiva, and his own daughter Sati.  This, of course, was a great insult to both Shiva and Sati.

Nevertheless, Sati expressed to Shiva that she wanted to attend, saying to him that a daughter did not need an invitation from her own father.

Daksha was intentionally trying to insult Shiva, and Shiva reminded her of this, so even if Sati attended the yagna, the fruit of the sacrifice would not be auspicious, and thus, Shiva strongly discouraged her attendance.

Sati became furious, feeling that Shiva was treating like a person of ignorance and not as an unlimited cosmic being. So, to show Shiva who she really knew herself to be, she assumed a different form – the aspect of the awesome Divine Cosmic Mother, Maha Kali. In her doing so, the oceans raged, the mountains shook, and the atmosphere was filled with the wonder of her form and energy.

Shiva himself sought to leave the scene filled with intensity, but every direction toward which he turned, the Divine mother stopped him for she had multiplied herself into ten different forms, each guarding one of those ten directions. Try as he might, Shiva could not escape from her intensity.

Puja is ceremonial ritual of worship, leading to communion with the Divine.  As a result of this manifestation of the Divine Mother into the Goddesses of the ten directions, these ten Mahavidyas are called upon with mantra by the pujari at the beginning of a puja, I  order to seal the energy and protect the sanctity of the Puja in a ritual called Digbhanda. 

The story reminds us also, that peace is not the only characteristic that emerges from the divine realm, and that there is a place for righteous anger and even forceful action against forces that which oppose the dharma.

Each of the Das Mahavidya has her own name, qualities, mantra and yantra. 

Each form of the Divine Mother Kali is a Mahavidya. These Mahavidyas are: Kālī, Tārā, Ṣodaśī, Bhuvaneśvarī, Chinnamastā, Bhairavī, Dhūmāvatī, Bagalāmukhī, Mātangī & Kamala

In India, there is a powerful, famous, and ancient complex of tantric temples dedicated to the Das Mahavidyas. It is on the outskirts of the city of Guwahati in the far North-eastern state of Assam.  The main temple is that of Kamakhya. This magnificent complex of temples is situated on a large hill overlooking the Brahmaputra River.

The entire hill has been sacred grounds since ancient times. Two thousand years ago, it seems to have been a region having a strong Shiva presence, but in subsequent centuries, Shakti arrived in force.  It is said that wherever Shakti is tangeably present Shiva will soon arrive, and wherever Shiva is present, Shakti arrives.

The Kamakhya temple in Assam is widely accepted as one of the most powerful Shakti temples on the Indian subcontinent. It is graced by an energy vortex that has drawn practitioners of yoga and tantra to her for sell more than two thousand years.

Radiocarbon studies have determined that there are multiple ancient levels of construction under the Kamakhya temple, the oldest laid down at least 2200 years ago.  It is likely that the location may have been a tribal pilgrimage long before more the later extensive constructions, especially since it’s location also has natural artesian wells of fresh water, and its proximity to a navigable river.

The temple was an important and long-established tantric center described in the Hevajra Tantra. Adding to the sanctity of the great temple the Kalika Purana, glorifies the temple as the ancient spot where Sati, the spouse of Shiva, would retire in secret to satisfy her desire for physical love with Shiva. The famous Yogini Tantra associates Kamakhya with the goddess Kali and emphasizes its creative symbolism of the yoni.

Swami Premajyoti and I have spent time at Kamakhya on several occasions including the experience of receiving darshan from each of the great mothers and meditation with them in their respective temples.  It is a place of indescribable reverence and incredibly strong energy.

The sanctum sanctorum of the entire complex is an underground cave temple where a representation of the Yonii of the Goddess has been visited for worship for untold centuries.   

Kali

When approaching the ten Mahavidyas, we call upon each of these aspects of the Divine Mother. Kali is called to first, for she represents the power of consciousness in its highest form, and all these great mothers emerge from her. She is at once supreme power and ultimate reality, underscoring the fundamental Tantric teaching that the power of consciousness and consciousness itself are one and the same.

Kali Maa is the sole reality. Mother is all, and all is Mother.

Om Tat Sat

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