Parvati: the Mountain Goddess
Who Parvati is, her story as Sati reborn, her devotion to Shiva, her family, her many forms from Durga to Annapurna, and festivals in her honour.
Parvati is the wife of Shiva and the mother of Ganesha and Murugan. She is the goddess of love, devotion, marriage, fertility and spiritual power, and is often seen as the gentle, benevolent form of the Great Goddess, Devi. In her fierce forms she becomes Durga and Kali.
Her name means “daughter of the mountain” (parvata): she is the daughter of Himavat, the king of the Himalaya, and his wife Mena. She is also known as Uma, Gauri (“the fair one”), Shailaputri, Ambika and by many other names.
Sati: Parvati's earlier life
Parvati's story begins in a previous life as Sati, daughter of the god-king Daksha. Sati married Shiva against her father's wishes. Daksha later held a great sacrifice and invited every god except Shiva. Sati went anyway, and when her father insulted her husband in front of the assembled gods, she gave up her life in the sacrificial fire.
Grief-stricken and furious, Shiva destroyed Daksha's sacrifice and wandered the universe carrying Sati's body. To end his grief, Vishnu cut the body into pieces with his discus. The places where the pieces fell became the Shakti Peethas, sacred sites of the Goddess across South Asia.
Winning Shiva
Sati was reborn as Parvati, determined to marry Shiva again. But Shiva, mourning Sati, had withdrawn into deep meditation. The gods sent Kama, the god of love, to shoot him with an arrow of desire; Shiva opened his third eye and burned Kama to ashes.
Parvati then turned to austerity (tapas), meditating and fasting in the mountains for years, until her spiritual power equalled Shiva's own. Shiva came to her in disguise, mocked himself to test her devotion, and finally revealed himself and agreed to marry her. The story is told in the Puranas and in Kalidasa's Sanskrit poem Kumarasambhava (“The Birth of Kumara”).
Family
Shiva and Parvati are often shown together on Mount Kailash with their sons Ganesha and Kartikeya (Murugan), and Shiva's bull Nandi: an image of the ideal family. Their marriage represents the union of consciousness (Shiva) and power or energy (Shakti). A famous image, Ardhanarishvara, shows Shiva and Parvati as a single figure, half male and half female, expressing that the two are inseparable.
Parvati's many forms
- Durga: the warrior goddess who destroys the buffalo demon.
- Kali: the fierce dark goddess of time and transformation.
- Annapurna: the goddess of food and nourishment, worshipped especially in Varanasi.
- Meenakshi: the fish-eyed goddess of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, whose great temple is one of the largest in India.
- Kamakshi: the goddess of Kanchipuram.
- The Navadurga: the nine forms of Durga worshipped during Navaratri, beginning with Shailaputri, “daughter of the mountain”.
Worship and festivals
Parvati is honoured as the ideal wife and a protector of marriage. Married women pray to her for their husbands' well-being, and unmarried women for a good husband. Festivals in her honour include:
- Teej: celebrated by women in north India and Nepal during the monsoon, with fasting, swings, songs and green clothes and bangles, commemorating Parvati's union with Shiva.
- Gangaur: an important spring festival in Rajasthan, in which women worship Gauri (Parvati) for marital happiness.
- Navaratri, in which she is worshipped in her many forms.
Sources and further reading
- David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses (University of California Press, 1986), chapters 3 and 7.
- Hank Heifetz (trans.), The Origin of the Young God: Kalidasa's Kumarasambhava (University of California Press, 1985).