Manifestations of the Divine Mother: Goddess worship at Divya Dham Temple, Woodside Queens

Written by Daniella Ross: May 4, 2005

There has been a considerable amount of fieldwork study done on the temple by Columbia students in the last three years. Various aspects of the temple, including the vision and history of its establishment and issues of authority and sanctity, have already been explored in detail in other postings on this Web site. In light of this previous research, I will here explore specifically the realities of goddess worship in a temple that presents the pantheon of Hindu gods yet gives primacy to the archetypal figure of the Great Mother.

Initially designed as the sister temple to the Geeta Mandir in Queens, the Divya Dham temple emerged in 1993 as distinct from the traditional Hindu temple. The large and diverse collection of murtis (forms of the deities) serves to accommodate the varied interests of the Hindu diaspora community in New York City and to function as a place of pilgrimage, a collection of temples, murtis and holy sites all under one roof.[1]  “Divya Dham,” according to Prof. Ram Chandra Pandey’s preface in the official Divya Dham information booklet, “is established for the well-beings (sic) of all the people irrespective of their caste and creed and therefore, they may have a glimpse of all the deities at one sight and may offer their respective worship according to their traditions and faiths.”[2].

Divya Dham is translated alternately as “heavenly abode” and “divine place of pilgrimage.”  The Divya Dham Temple is not devoted to any one particular god or goddess such as the Durga Mandir in New Brunswick, New Jersey, yet there is an overwhelming presence of the feminine divine in its various representations of the Goddess. One finds there Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Kali, Gayatrimata, Santoshi Mata (a relatively “modern” goddess), and the nine goddesses: Skandmata, Katyayani, Kalratri, Mahagauri, Sidhidatri, Shailputri, Brahmacharini, Chanderghanta, and Kushmanda.

Classical Hindu religious mythology, art, and poetry portray the many aspects of the female divine as a nearly infinite number of female deities. The same could be said of the male side of the Hindu pantheon.  Yet in the hierarchy of Hindu divinities, there is a clear discrepancy between gods and goddesses. When goddesses act independently, they may well  figure as supreme entities (Durga, for example), but when they are paired with males, they are relegated to secondary roles (e.g., Sita, Lakshmi, Radha).

            According to Kathleen Erndl, the rise of the Mother Goddess cult in India took place over several centuries, most notably from the fifth to the ninth centuries C.E.[3] The concept of an all-inclusive Goddess, a theme absent in Vedic literature, becomes fully elucidated in the Devi Mahatmya (sixth century C.E.) which represents one of the oldest and most popular texts in the Shakta tradition, where the worship of the female principle is supreme.[4] In the central myth of the Devi Mahatmya, although the formidable goddess is created from the rage of the male gods, she personifies a power and an energy independent from the gods. She is thus associated with ultimate reality and the protection of cosmic balance.[5] There lies an inherent duality between male and female divinities, a unity of masculine and feminine, as Swami Shiveshwarananda, one of the senior monks at Divya Dham, explained to me: “God (in male form) is the sun.  In female form, God is the rays of the sun, which convey its power or shakti.”[6]

Upon entering the Divya Dham Temple, one immediately notices the emphasis placed on goddess figures. The first image of the divine that catches the worshipper’s eye is a display of a mendicant Lord Shiva humbly begging for alms from the goddess Annapurna. Recently, the temple has added a new Durga murti in the entry hallway to its vast collection of deities. The main altar of the temple features the traditional pairs of gods and goddesses and in the center highlights the image of the Divine Mother in the form of Durga, riding victoriously on her lion. Above her reads a Hindi inscription that translates as “Victory to the Divine Mother” and the syllable “Om.”

In addition to the central Durga murti, the temple displays several other forms of the Divine Mother as Durga. Behind the stage, there is another murti of Maha Durga flanked by two other goddesses: Gayatrimata to her left, and Santoshi Mata to her right. The “trinity” of goddesses appears in a different form in the altar of the Vaisho Devi Cave—twice, in fact.  There are three small pithas representing Maha Kali, Maha Lakshmi, and Maha Saraswati. and in a set of large, vivid idols that do the same.  The cave of Vaishno Devi, which is replicated here, is a major site of pilgrimage in India.  It renders the Divya Dham temple distinct from all other diaspora temples. Here devotees can take on the sacred journey to worship and pay homage to the Divine Mother as manifested in the Himalayas.

The importance of pilgrimage and sacred space in relation to the goddess is likewise demonstrated in the fifty-one Shakti pithas found on the second floor of the temple. According to Hindu legend, the mother Goddess took the form of Sati, Shiva’s wife. When her father’s insulting treatment of her husband resulted in her death, Shiva took her dead body across the earth in a mad dance. So as to release Shiva from his mourning, Brahma, Vishnu, and Sani broke apart Sati’s body and scattered her remains in fifty-one pieces. Wherever each piece fel, the earth was transformed into a sacred place, as a tribute to the goddess.

The goddess murtis at Divya Dham are handcrafted marble statues.  All are made in India and all are carefully dressed in brilliant golds and silks,[7] evoking a colorful and resplendent divinity. This visual portrayal of the goddess figure echoes the comments of Swami-ji on the notion of (divine) love:  as opposed to fraternal or paternal love, maternal love reigns supreme.[8]   I believe Swami-ji means to say that supreme love is the Divine Mother’s love.

[8] Interview, March 26, 2005 .