Mother of Compassion, Mother of Wrath: Reflections of the Hindu Goddess in Mirrored Māhātmyas: Mother of Compassion, Mother of Wrath: Reflections of the Hindu Goddess: Raj Balkaran, Noor van Brussel

Abstract

This article examines the goddess we find in the Devī Māhātmya (the debut of the Hindu great goddess within the Brāhmaṇic fold around fifth century CE) and that of the Bhadrakāḷī Māhātmya (a regional Kerala Purāṇa composed some thousand years later) to show that both texts present us with a vision of the Hindu goddess which transcends the breast-tooth binary characteristic of Western scholarship. Our analysis—resulting from a careful synchronic reading of the text of the BhadrakāḷīMāhātmya—demonstrates the extent to which the Bhadrakāḷī Māhātmya, like its pan-Hindu forerunner the Devī Māhātmya, integrates the episodic wrathful aspect of the goddess within an ultimately compassionate stance. Moreover, we draw on fieldwork on the worship of Bhadrakāḷī in Kerala to demonstrate that this ethos well transcends the realm of text to inhabit the heart of the Devī’s devotees.