Lajja Gauri is Bolon's Forms of the Goddess Lajja Gauri in Indian Art,
This sculpture is a lso from the Sangameshwara Temple complex, Kudavelli, Kurnool District, Andhra Pradesh, India, c. 650 CE.
This is a stone sculpture of Lajja Gauri from the Sangameshwara Temple, Kudavelli, Kurnool District,Andhra Pradesh, India, c. 650 CE, now in the Alampur Museum.
This is a stone sculpture from Naganatha Temple, Bijapur District, Karnataka, India, c. 650 CE, now in the Badami Museum.
This is a graphite and chalk drawing I made of Lajja Gauri, in 2002, based on a seventh-century sculpture.
http://shaktisadhana.50megs.com/Newhomepage/shakti/lajjahGauri.html Shakti Sadhana In the first age of the gods, existence was born from non-existence. The quarters of the sky were born from Her who crouched with legs spread. The earth was born from Her who crouched with legs spread, And from the earth the quarters of the sky were born. Rig Veda, 10.72.3-4
Aditi
INTRODUCTION
Devi in Her form as Aditi is also known as Lajja Gauri, Adya Shakti, Matangi, Renuka, and many other names. She is the most ancient Goddess form in t he religious complex that is today referred to as Hinduism. This mysterious, lotus-headed Goddess, who is always portrayed with legs opened and raised in a manner suggesting either birthing (her posture is the traditional Indian village posture for giving birth) or sexual receptivity, is most frequently referred to today a s Lajja Gauri. But She is undoubtedly rooted in India's prehistory -- probably orginating in the Neolithic Indus Valley (Harappan or Saraswati) Civilization. For example, the religious historian N. N. Bhattacharyya refers to "a seal unearthed at Harappa, show[ing] a nude female figure, head downwards and legs stretched upwards, with a plant issuing out of her womb," which may be a proto-Aditi/Lajja Gauri figure. Similar images, sculpted as recently as the 19th century, can still be found in Rajasthan (part of the region whe re the ancient Harappan Civilization flourished). In discussing the seal (and the wealth of other apparent Goddess figurines associated with Harappan Civilization), Bhattacharyya posits that "in the pre-Vedic religion of I ndia, a great Mother Goddess, the personification of all the reproductive energies of nature, was worshiped. . .. The Harappan Magna Mater [Great Mother] was probably reflected in the [late r Vedic] conception of Aditi, the mother of the g ods, thought to be a goddess of yore even in the Rig Vedaitself." And indeed, the Vedic description of Aditi does suggest a rather comprehensive deity: Aditi is the sky Aditi is the air Aditi is all gods ... Aditi is the Mother, the Father, and Son Aditi is whatever shall be born. Rig Veda, I.89.10 "Aditi," Bhattacharyya concludes, "was the most ancient mother of the gods, whose original features [had become] obscure even in the Vedic age." And despite Her extreme antiquity, Lajja Gauri is still active ly worshiped even today as a "fertility goddess" in some remote, rural locales. But we must not forget that the totality of Her original (and eternal) significance is much g reater than this. During the 6th to 12th centuries CE, in fact, the cult of Aditi/Lajja Gauri grew prodigiously; Her images proliferated in central India -- both in small terra cotta figures for use in home shrines, and in large (even life-size) stone sculptures for richly endowed temples. By the 13th century, however, She began a long slide into obscurity. Scholars partially attribute the decline to India's Muslim and later British Christian rulers and their intolerant attitude toward portrayals of human (and particularly female) nudity and sexuality. Another possible factor was the rise of the Tantric Goddess cults, which developed subtler, more abstract ways of depicting the primal, creative force of the Divine Femi nine.
HER STORY The first scriptural references to Aditi appear in no less exalted a source than the Rig Veda itself. Here, She is also referred to as Uttanapad (a term literally de scribing Her posture; see the passage quoted at the top of this page). The eminent Sanskrit scholar, Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty, identifies this Vedic Goddess as "the female principle of creation or infinity": "[This] creation myth centers upon the image of t he Goddess who crouches with legs spread (Uttanapad). This term, often taken as a proper name, designates a position associated both with yoga and with a woman giving birth, as the Mother Goddess is often depicted in early sculpture: literally, with feet stretched forward, more particularly with knees drawn up and legs s pread wide." O'Flaherty's colleague, Carol Radcliffe Bolon, agrees that the "form of the Go ddess most widely known today as Lajja Gauri fits the Vedic descriptions of the Mother of the Gods, Aditi," but notes that the
unlettered artisans who carved Her images and the devotees who worshipped Her were p robably unaware of this formidable pedigree. In this case, however, ignorance of priestly interpretations was probably not much of a handicap: Lajja's visual message seems abundantly clear. Her frequent juxtaposition with the Shiva linga (an a niconic, phallic form of the Divine Masculine Principle), and He r association with lions and the god Ganesh, sugg est beyond a doubt that She was considered a manifestation of the Supreme Devi, specifically Parvati (who is also called Gauri). Her size (always equal to Sh iva's), and the prominent display of Her full breasts (suggesting life-giving nurture and sustenance) and yoni (vulva, womb; suggesting generative, creative power) indicate that She probably served as a Fe minine counterpart to the Masculine linga. Several myths exist concerning Lajja Gauri, but scholars consider them to be inauthentic, late attempts to replace the Goddess's original, forgotten lore. Many of these tales involve a dominant Lord Shiva testing his wife's modesty by publicly disrobing Her, wher eupon Her head either falls off or sinks into Her body from shame, thereby proving Her purity -- and pro viding a Shiva-centered explanation of how such a boldly self-displaying Goddess got a name like "Lajja Gauri" -- literally, "Modest Parvati" or "Ashamed Parvati." More useful clues to Her actual meaning may be found in the oral folktales that still circulate about Her in rural India. For example, as noted above, She is often referred to as Matangi, the "outcaste goddess" form of Parvati, who is known for ignoring and flaunting society's rules, hierarchies and conventions. Elsewhere, She is called Renuka, an outcaste woman beheaded by a high-caste man. Rather than dying, Renuka grew a lotus in place of her head and became a Goddess. These stories -- both involving the deification of an outcaste woman -- seem to suggest the irrepressibility of the Fem inine Principle, its transcendence of and ultimate superiority over any manmade social systems that would attempt to contain or control the pure force of feminine creative power. And lest we underestimate the primal persistence and importance of this archetype to the human psyche, recall that the oldest known sculpture made by a human being -- the socalled Willendorf Goddess or "Venus," c. 30,000-40,000 BCE -- also depicts a n ude female deity with a flower for a head.
HER ICONOGRAPHY Whatever Lajja Gauri's ultimate origins, She is clearly a ve ry auspicious Goddess. Everything about Her suggests life, creativity, and abundance. Her images are almost always associated with springs, waterfalls and other sources of running water -- vivid s ymbols of life-giving sustenance. Her belly usually protrudes, suggesting fullness and/or pregnancy; in earlier sculptures, Her torso was often portrayed as an actual pot, another ancient symbol of wealth and abundance. Lajja Gauri's head is usually a lotus flower, an extremely powerful, elemental symbol of both material and spiritual well-being. (Interestingly, today's images of the popular Goddess Lakshmi -- patroness of wealth and material fulfillment -- are also rife with water, pots and lotuses.) The often vine-like portrayal of Lajja Gauri's limbs sugges ts a further creative association -the life-giving sap of the plant world; She is vegetative as well as human abundance. Her images are virtually always prone, laying at or below floor level in her characteristic uttanapad posture, as though rising from the Earth itself, a manifestation of the primordial Yoni from which all life springs. Indeed, Her birth/sexual posture unambiguously denotes fertility and reproductive power. This is Devi as the Creatress, as Mother of the Universe, as the Life-Giving Force of Nature, in a bold, uncompromising display of the Divine Feminine Principle. The late scholar David K insley, who wrote several popular studies of the Goddess in India, noted that Lajja Gauri's headlessness is meant to focus He r devotee's attention away from Her individual personalities, and upon Her cosmogonic function as the Source of Everything That Is. He wrote in 1986: "Some very ancient ... examples have been discovered in India of nude goddesses squatting or with their thighs spread ... The arresting iconographic feature of these images is their sexual organs, which are openly displayed. These figures often have their arms raised above their bodies and are headless or faceless. Most
likely, the headlessness of the figures [is intended to] focus attention on their physiology, [placing the] emphasis on sexual vigor, life, and nourishment." Without a doubt, the most comprehensive monograph to date on Lajja Gauri is Bolon's Forms of the Goddess Lajja Gauri in Indian Art , published in 1992 by Penn State University Press. Bolon judges that the final image shown on this page (the large sculpted image at right) is probably the finest Lajja Gauri sculpture still in existence. Here is her lyrical description of the idol: "The modeling of the female figure is supple and sensitive. The suggestion of soft, sagging stomach flesh, like the slackening of a woman's abdomen after c hildbirth, is masterly. The breasts are firm with folds of flesh beneath them. The arms and shoulders are d elicate and feminine. The legs, in uttanapad , are spread more naturally than in other [Lajja Gauri] images with the knees up, the feet are flexed with soles up, and the toes are tensed. The nude body is ornamented with necklace, channavira [body-encompassing jewelry that hangs from the neck, crosses between the breasts, passes around the waist and up the back], girdle, bracelets, and armlets that are like a vine tendril wrapping around the arms and actually ending in a leaf. Tassels of the anklets also seem plantlike. There is a cloth woven through the thighs. "... The half-open lotus flower, sitting like a ruff on the shoulders, is turned three-quarters toward the viewer. The goddess holds, to either side of her lotus head, a half-open, smaller lotus flower, the stalk of which winds around her hand. The fingers themse lves have a tentril-like quality. The fingers of the right hand seem to form a svastika, symbol of fortune and well-being. No doubt, the suggestion of her relation to vegetation is intended. ... This image is a masterpiece of fluid modeling and conscious symbol-making." Aum Maatangyai Namahe
Lajja Gauri[1] is a goddess associated with abundance and fertility, and she has bee n euphemistically described as Lajja (that is, modesty). Her posture resemembles that of many Sheela na Gigs.
History Early depictions of Lajja Gauri in Shaktism cults were found in the Indus Va lley deals, though her later depiction dates to the 1-3rd century, and her wo rship is prevalent in the Deccan, a region of the Indian subcontinent.
Iconography Her fertility aspect is emphasized by symbolic repres entation of the genitals, Yoni or the Womb, as blooming Lotus flower denoting blooming youth in some cases and in others through a simple yet detailed depiction of an exposed vulva. Added to the fact t hat she is sitting in a squatting position (uttanpada) with legs open, as in during childbirth, in some cases, t he right foot is placed on a platform to facilitate full opening. She is invoked for abundant crops (vege tative fertility) and good progeny. A blossoming lotus replaces her head and neck, an icon often used in Tantra. The seven Chakras of human energy anatomy are often depicted as blossoming lotuses, and the Goddess is often dep icted in her Sri Yantra as a Yoni, shown as a simplified triangle at the centre. Further, most fertility goddesses of the Ancient world are similarly shown headless, while giving prominent focus to the genitals. The arms of the goddess are bent upwards, each holding a lotus stem, held at the level of the head again depicted by the matured lotus flower. Owing to an absence of verifiable text in Vedic traditions on the iconography, she doesn’t seem to hold any exalted position in Hindu pantheon, despite her strong presence throughout India, especially in the tribal region of Bastar in Central India and downwards to the South, sugges ting that the goddess had a cult of her own, later embraced into the mainstream religion through the myths of Sati and Parvati. The goddess is sometimes called Lajja Gauri , interpreted by some as the Inncocent Creatrix, the Creator deity or at times simply "Headless Goddess", or Aditi Uttanapada by modern archeologist, academicians and Indologi sts.
Terracotta figurines and statues of this goddess have been found throughout India, dating back to 1st century AD, especially from Southern India The majority were ca rved in the Gupta and post-Gupta periods.
Various forms Devi, the Great Mother Goddess of Hinduism, in Her form as Lajja Gauri, is also known as Aditi, Adya Shakti; Renuka wife of sage Jamadagni, who is worshipped for fe rtility as Matangi and Yallamma (everybody's mother), Kotari, Kotavi (a nude folk g oddess), KottaMahika, Kotmai, and many other names. She is the most ancient Goddess form in the religious complex that is today referred to as Hinduism, whose worship is prevalent in villages of Gujarat, Maharashtra where a notable sculpture dating 150 - 3 00 CE was found at Amravati (now kept at State Museum, Chennai), Tribal areas of Central India, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, where the town of Badami, known for the Badami Cave Temples, has a sculpture of the deity preserved at the local Archeological Museum, originally found in Naganatha Temple, Naganathakolla, Bijapur District, and has an extant temple dedicated to the goddess in Badami Chalukya Architecture, within the town precincts dating to Chalukya Empire which flourished around 6th century AD. Another interpretation as suggested by Dr. Ramachandra C. Dhere in his b ook entitled, Lajja Gauri is that Lanja/Lanjika means 'naked', reminds us of the geographical area in Konkan (Maharashtra), called Lanja.
Symbol of fortune and well-being HE MYSTERIOUS ADITI or LAJJA GAURI There is an iconographically striking form of the Devi whose images can be found distributed almost evenly throughout India. This mysterious, lotus-headed Goddess - who is almost always portrayed with Her legs open and raised in a manner suggesting either birthing, self-display, or sexual receptivity - is most frequently referred to today as Lajja Gauri, though She is also known as Adya Shakti, Matangi, Renuka, and many other names. - The abundance of names may be due to regional replacements of a lost original name,” suggests Carol Radcliffe Bolon, assistant curator of South and Southeast Asian Art at the Sackler and Freer Galleries in Washington, D.C. I have asked a few experienced upasakas whether they knew of any mantric or yantric representations of Lajja Gauri - they did not - You see ! one of them told me - Lajja is Aditi, the primordial mother. She is unimaginably ancient. Monier-Williams’ Sanskrit- English Dictionary assigns to the name Aditi the concepts of “boundlessness, immensity, inexhaustible abundance, unimpaired condition, perfection, creative power”; as a proper noun, it defines Her as “one of the most ancient of the Indian goddesses ( her name implying] ‘Infinity’ or the ‘Eternal and Infinite Expanse’ ) This same Aditi is referenced in the Rig Veda in terms that perfectly express Lajja Gauri’s iconography: devAnAm yuge prathame.asataH sadajAyata tadAśA anvajAyanta taduttAnapadas pari bhUrjajNa uttAnapado bhuva AśA ajAyanta aditerdakSHoajAyata dakSHAd vaditiH pari In the first age of the gods, existence was born from n onexistence. The quarters of the sky were born from Her who crouched with legs spread. The Earth was born from Her who crouched with legs spread, And from the Earth the quarters of the sky were born. (Rg Veda, X.72.3-4)
The scholar Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty identifies Aditi as “the female principle of creation or infinity,” whose designation uttAnapad refers to “a position associated both with yoga and with a woman givi ng birth, as the Mother Goddess is often depicted in early sculpture: literally, with feet stretched forward, more particularly with knees drawn up and legs spread wide. Bhattacharyya, in his “History of the Sakta Religi on”, refers to “a seal unearthed at Harappa [a Saraswati Culture site], showing a nude female figure, head downwards and legs stretched upwards, with a plant issuing out of Her womb, which may be a proto-Aditi/Lajja Gauri fig ure. Similar images, some sculpted as recently as the 19th century, can still be found in Rajasthan, part of the region where the Saraswati Civilization once flourished. In discussing the Harappan seal, Bhattacharyya posits that “in the pre-Vedic religion of India, a great Mother Goddess, the personification of all the reproductive energies of nature, was worshiped. The Harappan Magna Mater [ Great Mother ] was probably reflected in the [ later, Vedic ] conception of Adi ti, the mother of the gods, thought to be a goddess of yore even in the Rig Veda itself. And here is where we find the Vedic rishis’ understanding of this Goddess, who was apparently as old as human consciousness itself: aditirdyaur aditirantarikSHam aditirmAtA sa pitA sa putraH . viśve devA aditiH paNca janA aditirjAtam aditirjanitvam . Aditi is the sky - Aditi is the air - Aditi is all the gods - Aditi is the Mother, the Father, and Son - Aditi is whatever shall be born. (Rg Veda, I.89.10) Aditi, Bhattacharyya concludes - was the most ancient Mother of the Gods, whose original features [had become] obscure even in the Vedic age.” Despite Her extreme antiquity, Lajja Gauri is still actively worshiped even today as a “fertility goddess” in some remote, rural locales. But we mustn’t let that obscure the totality of Her origi nal (and eternal) significance. During the 6th to 12th centuries CE - a period in which “ Tantric kingdoms ” flourished across India (as detailed by David Gordon White in his 2003 study - The Kiss of the Yogini ) the cult of Aditi/Lajja Gauri grew prodigiously. Her images proliferated, especially in central India - both in small terra cotta figures for use in home shrines, and in large ( even lifesize ) stone sculptures for richly endowed temples. By the 13th century, however, She had begun a long slide into obscurity. Scholars partially attribute the decline to India’s Muslim and later British Christian rulers and their intolerance toward portrayals of human (and particularly female) nudity and sexuality. Another possible factor was the continued evolution of the Tantric systems, which developed ever more subtle and abstract ways of depicting the primal, creative force of the Divine Feminine. LAJJA GAURI AND HER SYMBOLISM Several myths exist concerning Lajja Gauri, but most scholars consider them to be inauthentic, late attempts to replace the Goddess’s original, forgotten lore. Many of these tales involve a dominant Lord Shiva testing his wife’s modesty by publicly disrobing Her, whereupon Her head either falls off or sinks into Her body from shame, thereby proving Her purity – and providing a more Shiva-centric explanation of how such a boldly self-displaying Goddess got a name like Lajja Gauri; literally, “Modest Parvati” or “ Ashamed Parvati ” ( or more interestingly - Innocent Parvati ) More useful clues to Lajja’s actual meaning may be found in the oral folktales that still circulate about Her in rural India. For example, as noted above, She is sometimes referred to as Matangi, the “ outcaste ” form of Parvati, who is known for ignoring and flaunting society’s rules, hierarchies and conventions. Elsewhere, She is called Renuka – another outcaste woman, beheaded by a high-caste man. Rather than dying, Renuka grew a lotus in place of Her head and became a Goddess. These stories -both involving the deification of an outcaste woman - seem, among many other implications of course, to suggest the irrepressibility of the Feminine Principle. And lest we underestimate the primal persistence and importance of this archetype to the human psyche, recal l that the oldest known sculpture made by a human being - the so-called Willendorf Goddess or “ Venus ” created some 30,000 to 40,000 years ago - also depicts a nude female with sexual organs emphasized, and a flower for a head. Whatever Lajja Gauri’s ultimate origins, She is clearly a very auspicious Goddess. Everything about Her suggests life, creativity, and abundance. Her imag es are almost always associated with springs, waterfal ls and other sources of running water - vivid symbols of life-giving sustenance. Her belly usually protrudes, suggesting fullness and/or pregnancy; in earlier renderings, Her torso was often portrayed as an actual pUrna kumbha (brimming pot), another ancient symbol of wealth and abundance. Lajja Gauri’s head is usually a lotus flower, an extremely powerful, elemental symbol of both material and spiritual well-being. ( Interestingly, today’s images of Lakshmi - patroness of wealth and material fulfillment - are also rife with water, pots and lotuses. ) The often vine-like portrayal of Lajja Gauri’s limbs suggests a further creative association - the life-giving sap of the plant world; She is vegetative as well as human abundance. Her images are virtually always prone, laying at or below floor level in Her characteristic uttAnapad posture, as though risi ng from the Earth itself, a manifestation of the primordial Yoni from which all life springs. Indeed, Her birthing/sexual posture unambiguously denotes fertility and
reproductive power. This is Devi as the Creator, as Mother of the Universe, as the Life-Giving Force of Nature. The late scholar David Kinsley, author of several respected studies of the Goddess in India, noted: “Some very ancient examples have been discovered in India of nude goddesses squatting or with their thighs spread . The arresting iconographic feature of these images is their sexual organs, which are openly displayed. These figures often have their arms raised above their bodies and are headless or faceless. Most likely, the headlessness of the figures [ is intended to ] focus attention on their physiology, [ placing the ] emphasis on sexual vigor, life, and nourishment [ rather than an individual persona ]. Joshi has even drawn some tentative lines of association with the later Tantric Mahavidya ( Wisdom Goddess ) known as Chinnamasta, the self-decapitating Goddess. Bolon, for her part, judges that the artistically finest Lajja Gauri sculpture still in existence is a life-sized c. 650-700 CE murthi, originally worshiped at the Naganatha Temple in Naganathakolla, Bijapur District, Karnataka. That sculpture ( upon which this painting was based ) is now housed at the Badami Museum. Of Her image, Bolon writes - The modeling of the female figure is supple and sensitive. The suggestion of soft, sagging stomach flesh, like the slackening of a woman’s abdomen after childbirth, is masterly. The breasts are firm with folds of fl esh beneath them. The arms and shoulders are delicate and feminine. The legs, in uttanapad, are spread more naturally than in other [ Lajja Gauri ] images; with the knees up, the feet are flexed with soles up, and the toes are tensed. The nude body is ornamented with necklace, channavira [ body-encompassing jewelry that hangs from the neck, crosses between the breasts, passes around the waist and up the back], girdle, bracelets, and armlets that are like a vine tendril wrapping around the arms and actually ending in a leaf. Tassels of the anklets also seem plantlike. There is a cloth woven through the thighs.” In place of a head, a “half-open lotus flower, sits like a ruff on [ Her ] shoulders, turned three-quarters toward the viewer. The goddess holds, to either side of Her lotus head, a half-open, smaller lotus flower, the stalk of which winds around Her hand. The fingers themselves have a tentril-like quality. The fingers of the right hand seem to form a svastika, symbol of fortune and well-being. No doubt, the suggestion of Her relation to vegetation is intended. ... This image is a masterpiece of fluid modeling and conscious symbol-making. As with the first artistic expressions of human consciousness in the Upper Paleolithic era, the primordial antiquity of the image does nothing to diminish the subtle elegance and refinement of Her beauty - both in the conception and in the physical representation. For those of us on the path of Srividya, She is a reminder of both the ultimate simplicity and the overwhelming antiquity of the teachings that we follow.
