Dhumavati is barely known outside the Mahavidyas. If she had an independent cult prior to her inclusion in the group, we know nothing about it. However, Dhumavati bears striking similarities to
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certain goddesses who appeared very early in the Hindu tradition and who had cults or myths prior to and separate from the Mahavidyas; some contemporary authors identify Dhumavati with them. In particular, Dhumavati is said to be the same as Nirrti, Jyestha, and Alaksml.4 All three of these goddesses, as we shall see, are inauspicious, dangerous, and avoided by people.
Nirrti is known in the earliest Vedic text, the Rg-veda, as a dangerous and inauspicious goddess. Just one hymn mentions her (10.59), and its concern is to seek protection from her or to ask that she be driven away.
She is equated with death, bad luck, and destruction. The hymn sums up Nirrti's nature very well. After four verses asking the gods for renewed life, wealth, food, glorious deeds, youth, and continued long life, the fol-lowing refrain is invoked: "Let Nirrti depart to distant places." That is, Nirrti is identified with the opposites of the blessings sought: she is de-cay, need, anger, cowardice, decrepitude, and death.
Later Vedic literature describes Nirrti in more detail and mentions her more frequendy than does the Rg-veda. She is said to be dark, to dress in dark clothes, and to receive dark husks as her share of the sacrifice,5 although one passage says that she has golden locks.6 She lives in the south, the direction of the kingdom of the dead,7 is associated with pain,8 and is repeatedly given offerings with the specific intention of keeping her away from the sacrificial rituals and from the affairs of people in gen-eral. Nirrti continues to be known in the later Hindu tradition. Her na-ture has not changed; she is still associated with negative qualities and bad luck.
The goddess Jyestha also appears very early in the Hindu tradition.9 She seems to have enjoyed a quite widespread cult during some periods.
Many images of her have been found, and during the seventh and eighth centuries she seems to have been widely known in South India.1 0 In phys-ical appearance she bears some similarities to Dhumavati. She is described as having "large pendulous breasts descending as far as her navel, with a flabby belly, thick thighs, raised nose, hanging lower lip, and is in colour as ink."1 1 She is black, or sometimes red, holds a lotus and a waterpot, and sometimes makes the sign of protection. She wears many kinds of ornaments, as well as a tilaka (an ornamental mark on her forehead), which identifies her as a married woman. Her hair is usually braided and piled on top of her head or wound around her head. She has a banner depict-ing a crow. Sometimes a crow stands next to her. She rides a donkey or is drawn in a chariot by lions or tigers. She carries a broom.1 2
According to the Liriga-purana, she was born when the gods and
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demons churned the ocean to obtain the nectar of immortality. She was given in marriage to the sage Dussaha, who soon discovered that his un-attractive wife could not bear the sound or sight of any kind of pious ac-tivity. When he complained to Visnu, Visnu told Dussaha to go with his wife only to places where inauspicious things occur—hence Jyestha's pop-ular epithet Alaksml, "she who is inauspicious." Among the places specif-ically mentioned as appropriate residences for her are homes where fam-ily members quarrel and elders eat food while disregarding the hunger of their children. Eventually Dussaha abandoned Jyestha. She complained to Visnu that she could not sustain herself without a husband, and he dic-tated that she would be sustained by offerings from women.1 3 Although the text does not say so, it is probably understood that Jyestha will not enter the homes of those who propitiate her. It is also significant, as a link between Jyestha and Dhumavati, that her name means "elder" or
"eldest." Dhumavati, as we shall see, is usually shown as an old woman.
Alaksml, the third goddess with whom Dhumavati is identified by con-temporary authors, is mentioned as early as the Sri-sukta, a very early hymn in praise of the goddess Sri. In that hymn, Sri is asked to banish her sister, Alaksml (w. 5, 6, and 8).1 4 Alaksml is said to appear in such in-auspicious forms as need, poverty, hunger, and thirst. Laksmi, or Sri, is her exact opposite, and the two do not dwell in the same place at the same time; by their natures they are incompatible and are unable to exist where the other is present. Alaksml is described as "an old hag riding an ass.
She has a broom in her hand. A crow adorns her banner."15 The crow and the broom, as we shall see, are associated with Dhumavati.
The contrast between Alaksml and Laksmi is dramatically evident in the festival of Divali (also known as Dfpavall) and the rituals and prac-tices leading up to it. The ghosts of the dead are said to return during the three days before Divali, which takes place in the autumn on the night of a new moon.1 6 The demon Bali emerges from the underworld to rule for three days, and goblins and malicious spirits are abroad, including Alaksml.1 7 People invoke Laksmi to drive these spirits away and light lamps to frighten the demons. In general, evil spirits are exorcised, es-pecially Alaksml, who is believed to have reigned on earth during the past four months, when the gods were sleeping. In addition to the lighted lamps, which Alaksml dislikes, people bang pots and pans or play on in-struments to frighten her off.18 On another occasion in Bengal, an im-age of Alaksml is made and ceremoniously disfigured by cutting off her nose and ears, after which an image of Laksmi is installed to signify the triumph of good luck over bad in the future.19
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In reading descriptions of Dhumavati, it is clear that she shares many characteristics with Nirrti, Jyestha, and Alaksml. Like Nirrti and Alaksml, she is associated with poverty and need, or is said to be poor herself; with hunger and thirst, or is said to be constantly hungry and thirsty; and with inauspicious things and bad luck. Like Nirrti and Jyestha, she is some-times said to have a dark complexion. Like Jyestha and Alaksml, she is said to have a banner with a crow on it and, sometimes, to carry a broom.
Like Jyestha, she causes quarrels and has a bad temper. And finally, like Alaksmi, she is described as an old hag and is said to rule during the four months prior to s'ukla ekddas'i (the eleventh day of the waxing moon) of the month of Kartik, the date when Visnu wakes up after a four-month sleep. During the four months when Visnu is asleep, the soul lacks its usual luster, and auspicious events, such as weddings, are not performed.20
While the similarities between Dhumavati and these three goddesses are unmistakable, and sometimes striking, and while it is likely that some modern writers are consciously patterning Dhumavati on them, especially Alaksml, there are some important differences between Dhumavati and her prototypes. One of the most distinguishing and consistent features of Dhumavati is that she is a widow. Jyestha is married and has a tilaka and braided hair, signs of a married woman. I have found no mention of Nirrti or Alaksmi as widows.
Dhumavati is also described as ugly more often and more consistently than the other three goddesses. Her breasts are dried and withered, her face is nasty and wrinkled, her teeth are crooked or missing, her hair is gray and disheveled, and her clothes are dirty and worn.2 1 Although the other goddesses are certainly not said to be attractive, there is a stronger insistence on Dhumavati's unattractive appearance in most written de-scriptions of her.
Dhumavati is also described as fierce, frightening, and fond of blood, characteristics that are not emphasized in descriptions of the other three goddesses. Dhumavati, for example, crushes bones in her mouth, and the sound is awful. She is also said to make the noises of drums and bells, which are frightening and warlike. She wears a garland of skulls, chews the corpses of the demons Canda and Munda, and drinks a mixture of blood and wine.2 2 Her eyes are glaring red, stern, and without tender-ness. She carries Yama's buffalo horn in her hand, symbolizing death. She dwells with widows, in ruined houses, and in wild, uncivilized, danger-ous places such as deserts.23 Also, unlike the other three goddesses, Dhumavati is related to Siva, albeit indirectly in some cases, and to his spouse Sati.
DHUMAVATI 181 Finally, Dhumavati is not identified with these three goddesses in con-texts where one might expect it. For example, in her nama stotras (hymns invoking her many names), where she is identified with numerous other goddesses, the names of Nirrti, Jyestha, and Alaksmi are not included, a remarkable omission. Dhumavati, as we shall see, also has certain im-portant positive characteristics and is interpreted by some as an effective symbol or power for achieving spiritual knowledge and liberation. None of the other three goddesses has such positive aspects.
Dhumavati, then, probably stands in a tradition of inauspicious god-desses, like Nirrti, Jyestha, and Alaksml, who symbolize the more diffi-cult and painful aspects of life and reality generally. It is also possible, even likely, that Dhumavati has been consciously modeled on these three god-desses. That she is "the same," however, seems to me to be an exaggera-tion, particularly in light of some of her characteristics that they do not share and in light of her positive aspects in the context of the Mahavidyas.
Origin Myths
There are two myths that tell of Dhumavati's origin, and they suggest significant aspects of her character. The first says that she was born when Sari burned herself to death on her father's sacrificial fire or was burned on that fire after she committed suicide by willing her own death. Dhumavati was created from the smoke of Sati's burning body.
"She emerged from that fire with blackened face; she appeared from that smoke."24 Born in such circumstances, embodying both the mood of the insulted, outraged goddess Sati at the time of her death and her funeral smoke, Dhumavati has, in the words of the priest at the Dhumavati temple in Varanasi, "a sad frame of mind." In this version, then, Dhumavati is a form of Sati, indeed the physical continuation of her in the form of smoke.
She is "all that is left of Sati": sad smoke.
The second myth that tells of Dhumavati's origin says that once, when Siva's spouse Sati was dwelling with him in the Himalayas, she became ex-tremely hungry and asked him for something to eat. When he refused to give her food, she said, "Well, then I will just have to eat you." Thereupon she swallowed Siva. He persuaded her to disgorge him, and when she did he cursed her, condemning her to assume the form of the widow Dhu-mavati.25 In this myth, Dhumavati is associated with Siva. She represents an aggressive, assertive aspect of Sati. When Siva does not acquiesce to
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her wish, she turns on him and consumes him. This echoes the theme in the origin myth of the Mahavidyas as a group, in which the goddesses are formed when Sati is thwarted by Siva and she grows angry. The myth underlines Dhumavati's destructive bent. Her hunger is only satisfied when she consumes Siva, who himself contains or creates the world. One author, commenting on her perpetual hunger and thirst, which is men-tioned in many places, says that she is the embodiment of "unsatisfied desires."26 The myth also emphasizes that Dhumavati as a widow is in-auspicious. This is compounded by the fact that she has also been cursed and rejected by her husband. Her status as a widow in the myth is curi-ous. She makes herself one by swallowing Siva, an act of self-assertion, and perhaps independence. On the other hand, she does not assume the form of a widow until Siva curses her.