North Indian Inscriptions

RELIGIOUS HISTORY

kha, and, another, Skanda, Kumāra, Viśākha and Mahāsēna. What is further noteworthy is that these names have each a figure corresponding to it. Skanda, Kumāra, Viśākha and Mahāsēna evidently represented four different gods in the Kushāṇa period. And as Huvishka could not have been separated from the Gupta epoch by more than one century and a half, the four gods could not have been identified with one another or looked upon as names of the same god during the supremacy of the early Gupta kings. Nevertheless, this much is certain-that when the Bihār pillar was erected, Skanda alone, and not any other of the four gods, was associated with the Divine Mothers. As in the Amarakōsha the god has been called Agnibhūḥ, ‘son of Agni’, the story of the Skandōpākhyāna, that he was the son of Agni and Svāhā may be accepted though it is mixed up with details, connected with the other gods such as Shaḍānana, later known as Kārttikēya. When Svāhā threw the infant on one of the hills of the Himālayas, the Mothers rallied to the child and reared it up. This seems to be the story connected with the birth of Skanda-Guha as contradistinguished from that of Shaḍānana. This much of the Skandōpākhyāna may be accepted as being known to the Gupta period. There, however, remains a third point to be discussed in connection with the Bihār pillar inscription, namely, the erection of a Yūpa. Where was the necessity of raising a sacrificial post for the worship of these Mothers, such as Bhadrāryā and others? Let us recall to memory what has been summarised above from the Vishṇu-Purāṇa. We have pointed out there that Vishṇu ordered Yōganidrā of the Creator to transfer some extraneous foetuses, in succession, to the womb of Dēvakī and that if she carried out this behest (and we know that she did it), she would have the honour of being addressed twice every day by human beings as Āryā, Durgā, Ambikā, Bhadrā, Kshēmā and so forth, and, above all, being propitiated with the offerings of wine and flesh (surā-māṁs-ōpahāraiś=cha bhakshya-bhōjyais=supūjitā). After this explanation one can easily understand that the post (yūpa) was erected to offer an animal sacrifice to the Mothers.

       The other Gupta record that refers to the Mātṛis is the Gaṅgdhār inscription of Viśvavarman, of which verse 23 speaks of Mayūrāksha, the counsellor of the king, having built a for-midable edifice of the Divine Mothers (Mātṛis), interspersed with female ghouls (Ḍākiṇī)-the Divine Mothers who stir up oceans with mighty gales through magic incarnation. Here two things are worthy of note. The first is that Ḍākiṇīs were associated with the Divine Mothers. And the second is that the Mothers were endowed with magic powers. Let us take the first point first, namely, the association of Ḍākiṇīs with Mātṛis. The Vanaparvan (chapter 227) describes the followers of Skanda who are not only terrible but also curious-looking. Verse 8 distinguishes the female followers into two classes: Śiva and Aśiva, ‘auspicious spirits’ and ‘evil spirits’. This suits here excellently, because the Mātṛis are the Śivā, and the Ḍākiṇīs the Aśiva, class of his retinue. The second point is that the Mothers were somehow connected with Tantra or Magic formularies. When we speak of Tantras even now, we think primarily of the ‘Great Śakti’, the ‘Great Mother’ who is one, though known by such countless names as Durgā, Kālī, Chaṇḍī and so forth. The worship of Durgā plays a great part in the Tantras and goes back to the Vedic period. “There is no doubt that this goddess and her cult do unite traits of very different deities, Aryan as well as non-Aryan. It is probable, too, that the system of the Tantras adopted many characteristics from non-Aryan and from non-Brahmanical cults. On the other hand, some essential traits of the Tantras can be found as far back as in the Atharva-vēda, as well as in the Brāhmaṇas and the Upanishads.”¹ Originally, the Śakti cult was most probably saturated with wild superstition and confused occultism and disfigured by wild orgies inculcating reprehensible morals. Later on, the lofty spirituality of the Hindus sublimated the lewd and repulsive features of the cult and suffused it with a faultless social code of morality and rigid asceticism.
______________________

¹ Winternitz’s A History of Indian Literature (English Translation), Vol. I. p. 605.