Ongoing
The Goddesses
Drawn from the National Museum of Asian Art’s collections, the works in this exhibition—made between the ninth and nineteenth centuries—depict goddesses and divine female practitioners from Hindu and Buddhist traditions in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayas.
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Durga
Hindu Warrior Goddess Who Killed the Demon Mahisha; she is often seen as a form of all-knowing Great Goddess (Mahadevi).
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Forms of Kali
Fierce Hindu goddess who eradicates demonic forces on the battlefield; she is often seen as a form of the all-knowing Great Goddess (Mahadevi).
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Lakshmi
Hindu Goddess of Prosperity and Good Fortune; her wisdom creates abundance.
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Parvati/Uma
Hindu Goddess of the Mountain, also known as Uma; she is often seen as the feminine half of the god Shiva, and the divine feminine power of the universe (shakti).
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Prajnaparamita
Buddhist goddess who personifies the perfect wisdom necessary for the attainment of enlightenment.
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Radha
Hindu Goddess of Divine Love; thoroughly understands the divine nature of the god Krishna. Hindus often view her as the feminine half of Krishna, the all-knowing, divine power of the universe.
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Saraswati
Hindu Goddess of the Arts and Learning.
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Tara
Bodhisattva-goddess of great compassion who aids beings in peril.
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Yoginis and Dakinis
Yogic practitioners, often fearsome, who reveal secret teachings; they gain superhuman powers through tantric yoga.
Durga, Goddess Who Slays the Buffalo Demon
The fifth-century Hindu text Devi Mahatmya relates the well-known narrative of Durga’s triumph over evil. Though each of the gods tried, they could not defeat the earth-threatening demon Mahisha, who disguised himself as a water buffalo. Together the gods created Durga, furnishing the goddess with a bevy of weapons to use against him. Artists typically depict Durga at the moment she handily defeats the demon, seated or standing atop her lion with multiple arms fanned out, brandishing the weapons. Durga’s tale expresses the superiority of the Great Goddess (Mahadevi) over all the male gods. For her devotees, Mahadevi is the cosmic creator and the foremost divine power of the universe (Shakti). While other goddesses, including Kali or Lakshmi, can represent Mahadevi on earth, she often takes the form of victorious Durga, whose wisdom on the cosmic battlefield is absolute.
Forms of Kali, Mother and Destroyer
The goddess Kali destroys all forms of evil, including delusions that obscure the wisdom of moksha, or liberation from our world of samsara, in which the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth is endless. Hindus worship Kali as the Great Goddess (Mahadevi) and mother of the universe. A popular narrative describes Kali—tongue lolling, wearing a garland of skulls and a skirt of human forearms—engaged in a demon-killing spree on a cosmic battlefield (see related image). So intense was her rage that her husband, the god Shiva, laid down in her path to prevent her from unwittingly destroying the universe. This legend likely reflects Kali’s beginnings as a local deity whose appeasement prevented unwanted destruction. Although she is considered primarily benevolent in present-day culture, Kali—also known as Bhadrakali—retains a sense of unpredictability. As devotee-poet Ramprasad writes: “Who knows what she truly Is? . . . If She decides to be kind, this misery will pass.”1
1 Ramprasad Sen, translated by Leonard Nathan and Clinton Seely, Grace and Mercy in Her Wild Hair (Prescott, Hohm Press, 1999), 32.
Lakshmi, Goddess of Prosperity
Lakshmi, also known as Shri, possesses divine wisdom that creates abundance. She offers her devotees great wealth. Since the first century BCE, artists have depicted the goddess holding lotuses, symbols of purity and divine power, together with elephants spraying water from their trunks. At right, a chromolithograph by Raja Ravi Varma takes inspiration from this classical mode. The distribution of such chromolithographs throughout India in the early twentieth century increased the popularity of certain deities and solidified specific ways of representing them. Varma depicts Lakshmi flanked by an elephant representing good fortune. Lakshmi stands on a lotus that floats on refreshing, cleansing water. This collective symbolism indicates that the goddess’s blessings surpass monetary gain alone. Both Hindu and Buddhist texts describe her as creating verdant lands that yield abundant harvests. Lakshmi is commonly known today as the wife of the Hindu god Vishnu.
Parvati/Uma, Goddess of the Mountain
The Puranas, literally the “old stories” of Hindu traditions, relate the narrative of the goddess Parvati, who aspired to marry the god Shiva. Because Shiva could not easily be distracted from his yogic meditation, Parvati subjected herself to extreme acts of physical deprivation—such as meditating in cold water during the winter—to gain supernatural powers and win over the celibate god. Parvati’s yoga was incredibly successful. Describing her as “full of wisdom,” the Vamana Purana states: “When the gods gathered to see the mountain daughter, they were so overcome with her brilliance that they could not approach her” for she was “outshining” the highest among them.2 Some devotees consider the goddess Durga (destroyer of the buffalo demon) to be the warrior form of Parvati/Uma.
2 Cornelia Dimmitt and J. A. B. van Buitenen, Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in Sanskrit Puranas (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978), 158–59.
Prajnaparamita, Goddess of Enlightened Wisdom
The goddess Prajnaparamita embodies the perfection (paramita) of wisdom (prajna) that leads to Buddhist enlightenment. Therefore, devotees refer to her as the “mother of all Buddhas.” She also represents the teachings contained within a genre of texts written in ancient India beginning around 100 BCE that describe the path to becoming a Buddha. Artists depict the goddess holding the earliest of these texts (sutras), the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Verses. While such early Mahayana (“great vehicle”) sutras instruct practitioners to revere the texts, the goddess who personifies them did not appear in art until the sixth or seventh century. Once introduced, the goddess’s figural image became widely popular throughout the Buddhist world, including in Southeast Asia and the Himalayas. The Heart Sutra, commonly recited in Mahayana and Tibetan Buddhism today, contains her dharani, a type of long-form mantra.
Radha, Goddess of Divine Love
Many Hindus celebrate Radha’s love for the god Krishna. A woman from a village of cowherders, Radha is worshiped today as a goddess alongside Krishna, as one of two inseparable halves of a divine being. The Bhagavata Purana (ca. tenth century) tells stories of Krishna’s life on earth in an Indian village. He was so handsome and enchanting that everyone, including one hundred gopis (female cow herders), fell in love with the young god. Sometimes Krishna playfully disappeared when he was with them, reappearing only when the gopis could love him without needing to possess him as their own, thereby relinquishing their egos. In later poetic narratives, such as the twelfth-century Gita Govinda, Radha becomes Krishna’s beloved over all others. Her love for the fleeting god is selfless, so secure is she in the knowledge that Krishna’s divine presence is transcendent and absolute.
Saraswati, Goddess of Learning and the Arts
Saraswati bestows wisdom, particularly for devotees engaged in learning and artistic creation. Clad in a white sari, the goddess plays a vina, a large stringed instrument. She holds a string of prayer beads (mala) in her upper left hand and a sacred text in her lower right. Saraswati’s name translates to “the flowing one” in Sanskrit because in the ancient Hindu texts known as the Vedas, she embodies a sacred river that once flowed through the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. This sense of flow is evident in the benefits she imparts: speech that is pure and eloquent, and creativity in all forms of artistic expression. Together with the goddess Lakshmi, Saraswati is often described as co-wife of the Hindu god Vishnu. In that context, she represents spiritual and transcendent goals, while Lakshmi represents worldly benefits and good fortune.
Tara, Goddess of Great Compassion
In northwestern India and the Himalayan region, Tara is the foremost goddess of Buddhist practice. She embodies the Buddha’s great compassion. Her name means both “star” and “savior,” and scholars believe she was an important goddess for ancient seafarers. Gaining renown in the Mahayana (“great vehicle”) Buddhism of India by the sixth century, she was initially closely connected to the bodhisattva of compassion, Avalokiteshvara. A bodhisattva aspires to become a future buddha and vows to attain wisdom, generosity, and other qualities called perfections (paramitas). The highest-ranking bodhisattvas are believed to dwell in celestial realms, yet they appear endlessly on earth to help devotees. Tara has multiple important forms that rescue beings from peril. As White Tara, she heals, and as Green Tara, she removes obstacles along the path toward awakening.
Yoginis and Dakinis, Divine Tantric Practitioners
Yoga was not a form of exercise in India until the modern era but rather a practice of spiritual discipline involving intensive meditation and asceticism, methods for restraining the body and senses. Through these efforts, yogic practitioners aimed to realize union with the Absolute (or Brahman) in Hindu traditions and awakening in Buddhism. By the ninth century, some yogic practitioners adopted the techniques of tantra to gain immortality and supernatural powers. Stories convey the abilities of female and male practitioners (yoginis and yogins) to change shape, fly, or vanish at will. Hindu and Buddhist texts alike describe yoginis and their Buddhist counterpart, dakinis, as human women whose tantric asceticism, ritual prowess, and great wisdom propelled them to the status of goddesses.
Instructional Essay
Related Exhibitions
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The Art of Knowing in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayas
March 25, 2023–ongoing
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