The Iconography of Goddess Kaumārī or Kanyā Kumārī
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| Kaumārī, the ever-youthful deity, represents the ever-present force of aspiration of the evolving soul. She is Guru Guhā (Guru Guha being one of the names of Kumāra or Skanda whose energy she is) the guru (guide, teacher) in the 'guhā' (the cave of the heart, the intellect)." |
According to the Matsya Purāna1 the Kaumārī image should have
peacock as the vahana; she should be clad in the red cloth and must have
śakti and śūla as her weapons.
Kumārarūpā
Kaumarī mayūravaravāhanā |
raktavastradharā
tad vacchūlaśaktidharā mata2 ||
The Devi Purāna3
describes Kaumārī thus:
Kumārarūpadhāri ca Kumāra-jananī tathā |
Kumāraripuhantri
ca Kaumārī tena sā smrtā ||
In the well-known Taittirīya Aranyaka (10th Book) passage Durgā
is addressed as Kanyā Kumārī.4 She was regarded as a member of
the family of ‘seven Mothers' all of whom were looked upon as the different
aspects of the goddess Śakti or Durgā, the spouse of Mahādeva.
In course of time this goddess (Kaumārī) was made Kārttikeya's
wife and came also to be known as Kumārī or Kārttikeyāni.5
The name Kumārī instinctively reminds us of the term ‘Kanyā Kumārī'
applied to Durgā in the well-known Taittiriya Aranyaka passage,
referred to above. There is reason to believe that Kumārī is a
shorter form of the term ‘Kanyākumāri' which is both the name of a
place (the southernmost point of the Indian peninsula) and that of a goddess.
The Matsya Purāna6 describes her as the daughter of Lalitā
and mentions Māyipuri as a place sacred to her, Māyāpuryām
Kumāri tu santāne Lalitā tathā; she is also mentioned
in the Brahmānda, IV.26-73-117 where her military skill has been eulogised.
According to this account the goddess Kumārī killed all the sons of
the demon Bhanda.
Reference to the worship of the goddess Kaumārī or Kumārī at Cape Comorin
is found in the famous Periplus7, written by an unknown Greek
sailor in the second half of the 1st century A.D.
The earliest Kaumārī sculpture goes back to the Gupta period. Her image along with those of other
‘Mothers' is found near Eran.8 Her icon is also to be noticed in the
Elephanta Cave (as has been noted above), where she is distinctly called Kārttikeyānī.
The goddess here has two arms and she is seen seated upon the peacock. A
four-armed Kāumāri image (Fig. 29) was found at Bheraghat (Jabalpur,
M.P.). It was assigned to the Kusāna period by R.D. Banerji9 ; the
writer in J.A.S.B. (Letters), Vol. XXII. pp. 237 ff., however, places
this image in the second half of the 7th century A.D.10 The image is
headless with all the hands broken. Another 7th-century Kaumārī
sculpture is found in the Gwalior museum; the image is two-armed and has śakti
and lotus as the attributes.11 A number of 8th-century sculptures of the
‘seven Mothers' including that of Kaumārī were recovered from the
river Vaitarani "where they were tossed by the Mughuls on their shrines being
destroyed"12. Plate 1, fig. 4 of the M.A S.L, No. 44 is a
huge four-armed image of the goddess Kaumārī (Fig. 30) with a
pot-bellied child seated on the left knee. The deity has an unaffected smile on
her lips. The goddess is very boldly executed with peacock, carved on the base;
much prominence has been given to the two breasts. Plate IX, fig. 1 (ibid) is
another Kaumārī image found from Puri (Fig. 31); this image is more
sophisticated than the Jajpur icon and is perhaps of somewhat later date.
Notes
- 261.27.
- Cf. Devimāhātmya,VIII. 17.
- 307.85.
- Kātyāyanyā vidmahe Kanyākumārī dhīmahi, tan no
Durgā pracodayāt.
- The latter name is found on the pedestal of the image of the goddess in the Elephanta Cave
No. I (See R.D. Bannerji's Eastern Indian School of Mediaeval Sculpture. Plate
LXIIIa, where the name is spelt as ‘Kārttikāinī').
- 13.34.
- Page 46, para 58 of Schoff's edition ; see also Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol.
X, p. 36; we reproduce below the original passage from the Periplus, "Beyond
this there is another place called Comari at which are the cape of Comari and a
harbour; hither come those men who wish to Consecrate themselves for the rest
of their lives, and bathe and dwell in celibacy; and women also do the same ;
for it is told that a goddess once dwelt here and bathed."
- See E.L, Vol. XXVI, p. 117 (fn. 2).
- M.A.S.I., No. XXIII, p. 78.
- For the fig. see J.A.S.B. (Letters) Vol. XXII, Plate IB.
- Sec ibid., Plate IIC.
- See M.A.S.I., No. 44 Exploration in Orissa, p. 3; also Chandraśekhar Banerjee's
article ‘An account of the antiquity of Jajpur in Orissa' in J.A.S.B., XL, part I, p. 153.
Sources
- Banerji, R.D. Eastern Indian School of Mediaeval Sculpture. Delhi, 1933.
- Schoff, W.H. Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. London, 1912.
- Exploration in Orissa (M.A.S.I., No. 3).
From Chatterjee, Asim Kumar. The Cult of Skanda-Karttikeya in Ancient India (Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 1970) pp. 139-141.
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