University of Groningen. The rise of the warriors goddess in ancient India Yokochi, Yuko

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1 University of Groningen The rise of the warriors goddess in ancient India Yokochi, Yuko IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite from it. Please check the document version below. Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Publication date: 2005 Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Yokochi, Y. (2005). The rise of the warriors goddess in ancient India: a study of the myth cycle of Kau sik i- Vindhyav asin i in the Skandapur ana s.n. Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum. Download date:

2 The Rise of the Warrior Goddess in Ancient India A Study of the Myth Cycle of Kauśikī-Vindhyavāsinī in the Skandapurāṇa Yuko Yokochi Groningen, December 2004

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4 RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN The Rise of the Warrior Goddess in Ancient India A Study of the Myth Cycle of Kauśikī-Vindhyavāsinī in the Skandapurāṇa Proefschrift ter verkrijging van het doctoraat in de Godgeleerdheid en Godsdienstwetenschap aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen op gezag van de Rector Magnificus, dr. F. Zwarts, in het openbaar te verdedigen op maandag 10 januari 2005 om uur door Yuko Yokochi geboren op 27 augustus 1959 te Ise

5 Promotores: Beoordelingscommissie: Prof. Dr. H.T. Bakker Prof. Dr. H. Isaacson Prof. Dr. J.N. Bremmer Prof. Dr. H.W. Bodewitz Prof. Dr. H. von Stietencron

6 Preface I first read the myth cycle of Kauśikī-Vindhyavāsinī in the Skandapurāṇa, the main material for this thesis, in August 1995, using the editio princeps by Kṛṣṇa Prasāda Bhaṭṭarāī. I had learned from the article that announced the new critical edition of this text prepared in Groningen (Adriaensen, Bakker, and Isaacson, 1994) that this original Skandapurāṇa contained a myth cycle of the Goddess. However, I had not expected most of the myth cycle to be the myth of the goddess Vindhyavāsinī. Many years earlier, when writing my MA thesis on the Devīmāhātmya at the University of Tokyo, the figure of Vindhyavāsinī, the dark ferocious virgin goddess of the Vindhya mountains, had stuck in my mind and I decided to study her more closely. In subsequent years, my plan to study the early history of this goddess was frustrated because of the lack of suitable material. In order to break this deadlock in my research, I turned my attention to the sacred places linked with goddesses, above all Vindhyācal, currently the most popular pilgrimage centre for Vindhyavāsinī. Thus I came to Groningen from Tokyo in August 1995 to study the historical development process of Vindhyācal and other sacred places for goddesses in and around the Vindhya mountains. It is hard to find the words to express my delight at the discovery of this myth cycle in Groningen. Alongside my study of this myth cycle I also continued with my original plan, that is, research into the history of Vindhyācal as a sacred place. Although this research provided me with a valuable opportunity to experience the actuality of goddess worship in modern India, it has not been incorporated into the present thesis. The reason is that it became clear as a result of my research that Vindhyācal s history as a sacred place is only attested since the twelfth century, so that it was difficult to synthesize with the main subject of this thesis, the evolutionary process of Vindhyavāsinī into the Warrior Goddess from the early centuries of our era down to the eighth century. Mainly because I have had a full-time teaching job in Japan since April 1997, first in Kochi and then in Kyoto, the completion of this thesis has taken much more time than I originally intended. Yet there are still many shortcomings and several chapters of the myth cycle that remain to be edited.

7 vi Preface Nevertheless, I am delighted to present this myth cycle of Kauśikī-Vindhyavāsinī in the Skandapurāṇa and to show how valuable it has been for the study of the early history of the Goddess in India. I would not have been able to complete this thesis without help from various people. First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Prof. Hans T. Bakker. His constant encouragement and patience, and the many rounds of discussion with him about the Hinduization process of goddess worship, were indispensable in the process of the transformation of my original idea into the hypothesis maintained in this thesis. My second promotor, Prof. Harunaga Isaacson, turned me from someone who had not dealt with any manuscripts before coming to Groningen into an editor of the Skandapurāṇa; I was extremely lucky to be trained by the best scholar in this field. Furthermore, his suggestions and corrections helped me to avoid a number of pitfalls. Although I alone am responsible for the edition of the Skandapurāṇa contained in Part Three of this thesis, it forms part of the Skandapurāṇa project at the Institute of Indian Studies in Groningen and benefited from discussions with all the participants in this project. In addition to my two promotores, Bakker and Isaacson, my special thanks go to the two regular members of the project, the late Rob Adriaensen and Dr Peter Bisschop. I also thank Dr Judit Törzsök, Dr Kengo Harimoto, and Dr Arlo Griffiths, who were present at some of the sessions. Dr Kengo Harimoto and Dr Roelf Barkhuis kindly helped this computer illiterate with various technical matters. The Language Centre of the University of Groningen checked and corrected the English; their help was indispensable in making this thesis readable. My particular thanks go to Dr Julia Harvey and her team. The fieldwork in India was conducted in four separate seasons: August September, 1996; January February, 1997; October, 1997; February March, 1999 (joint fieldwork with Bakker), which would have been impossible without the help of many friends and colleagues in India. First of all, Dr Rāṇā P.B. Singh s deep knowledge about the sacred topography around Vārāṇasī was invaluable for my research. He and his students, especially Mr Ravi S. Singh and Mr Śyām Pyare Singh, as well as his colleague Dr D.P. Dubey, accompanied me during my fieldwork in Vindhyācal and the Mirzapur District, and imparted much of their knowledge to me. Dr D.P. Dubey and Dr Sudharkar Malaviya provided me with copies of the lithograph edition of the Vindhyamāhātmya and Prof. R.C. Gaur of Aligarh, who was the superviser of the excavation at Vindhyācal, gave me valuable information about the excavation. I also thank Dr Ishwar Sharan Vishwakarma and his student Ms Rohini Pande for their help during my research around Bhopal, and Prof. R.N. Misra and Dr R.P. Pandey for theirs around Gwalior. My special thanks are due to Prof. Chandrasekhar Gupta who accompanied myself and Bakker on the Vindhya plateau. I am also grateful to the directors and staff of the Archeological Survey of India and various museums who provided fa-

8 Preface vii cilities and information for my research. Concerning iconographical studies, I am greatly indebted to the American Institute of Indian Studies, which kindly reproduced a number of useful photos. It is difficult to express my gratitude to all my colleagues in Japan who have supported my study in some way or another. I can only list a few here: Dr Mizue Sugita, who kindly provided me with a photocopy of manuscripts of the Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa she had available; Prof. Shingo Einoo and Prof. Muneo Tokunaga, who always gave me useful information whenever I asked them questions; Prof. Takanobu Takahashi, who is my constant advisor on Tamil literature; Mrs Maho S. Lewis, who allowed me to make use of a microfilm of a manuscript of the Haracaritacintāmaṇi; Dr Kazuyo Sakaki, Dr Ruriko Sakuma, and Prof. Musashi Tachikawa, who took the trouble to obtain some manuscripts from India and Nepal. My colleagues at the Kochi University of Technology and the Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, gave me leave to study in Groningen for a few months annually, which I really appreciate. I remain indebted to all the libraries that have allowed me to use the originals or copies of the manuscripts in their collections: the National Archaives, Kathmandu; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the India Office Library; the Asiatic Society, Calcutta; the Vaṅgīyasāhitya Pariṣad; the Sanskrit College, Varanasi. The Nepal German Manuscript Preservation Project (NGMPP) sent microfilms of not only the Skandapurāṇa but also the Devīmāhātmya to the Institute of Indian Studies in Groningen, from which my study benefited immensely. In addition, I was fortunate to be allowed access to a number of electronic texts stored at the Institute of Indian Studies in Groningen, partly typed by Adriaensen, Isaacson and Bisschop and partly collected from various sites on the Internet where a large body of material has generously been made available via free access. I am grateful to all the colleagues who either personally or via the Internet allowed me to take advantage of the electronic texts they had produced. My research over many years was made possible by financial support from both the Dutch and Japanese sides: the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Groningen; the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO); the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; the Kochi University of Technology; the VAADA group organized by Prof. Akihiko Akamatsu as part of the COE project at the Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University. I duly acknowledge all of them. Lastly, I would like to thank my two Sanskrit teachers, Prof. Minoru Hara and the late Prof. Katsuhiko Kamimura. Hara first recommended me to study the Devīmāhātmya and then to continue my research into the goddess worship in Groningen; without him, therefore, this thesis would never have happened. I greatly regret that I cannot show this thesis to Kamimura, whose warm encouragement and personal support made it possible for me

9 viii Preface to continue my studies in Sanskrit literature. Kyoto, December 2004 Yuko Yokochi

10 Contents I Study 1 1 Introduction The Aim of the Thesis The Early History of the Goddess Three streams in the early history of the Goddess The evolution of the Warrior Goddess The Skandapurāṇa The Content of the Thesis Presentation of the Text and Critical Apparatus The Myth Cycle of Kauśikī-Vindhyavāsinī in the Skandapurāṇa The Structure of the Kauśikī Cycle The Function of the Kauśikī Cycle in the Skandapurāṇa Pārvatī and the Hierarchy of Goddesses Vindhyavāsinī in the Harivaṃśa The Three Female Divinities in the Harivaṃśa: Nidrā, Vindhyavāsinī, and Ekānaṃśā Ekānaṃśā, Kṛṣṇa s Dark-skinned Sister Nidrā and her Relationship with Ekānaṃśā Vindhyavāsinī as an Intruder Vindhyavāsinī in the Skandapurāṇa Vindhyavāsinī in the Śaiva Myths The Reconstruction of the Proto-Myth of Vindhyavāsinī The Evolution of Vindhyavāsinī from the Harivaṃśa to the Skandapurāṇa The Mothers in the Skandapurāṇa Kshatriyaization of Vindhyavāsinī Vindhyavāsinī as the protectress of all the earth ix

11 x Preface 5 The Assimilation of Mahiṣāsuramardinī to Vindhyavāsinī and the Rise of the Warrior Goddess Vindhyavāsinī s Slaying of the Demon Mahiṣa in the Skandapurāṇa The Gupta Iconic Type of Mahiṣāsuramardinī What did the Gupta Iconic Type Signify? The Rise of the Warrior Goddess II Synopsis 157 III Text 197 Symbols and Abbreviations in the Critical Apparatus Sigla of the Manuscripts Used Adhyāya Adhyāya Adhyāya Adhyāya Adhyāya Adhyāya Adhyāya Adhyāya Adhyāya Adhyāya Adhyāya Adhyāya Adhyāya Bibliography 335