The Goddess Belonging to No Male

All ways of knowledge are your aspects, O Devi; so are all women in the world, endowed with various attributes. By you alone, O Mother, this world is filled – Chandi, II, 6

According to the Mahapuranas or ancient Hindu scriptures dating back to c. 250 CE, Durga (meaning "the inaccessible" or "the invincible") is the most popular incarnation of Devi, or the divine feminine, and is one of the main forms of Adi Parashakti in the Hindu pantheon. Durga's story appears primarily in the Skanda Purana and in the Devi Mahatmya, itself a part of the Markandeya Purana, but very similar stories are told in the Brahmanda Purana and also in the famous epic, the Mahabharata. She also appears elsewhere in tantrik texts, such as the Kulachudamani Tantra.

Durga Mahishasuramardini,  Orissa, 13th century CE.

(Courtesy: British Museum)

Durga Mahishasuramardini, 

Orissa, 13^th century CE.

Durga is a multi-faceted goddess, with many names and personas. According to the Skanda Purana, Goddess Parvati, who is the complete incarnation of Adi Parashakti, accounted the name "Durga" after she killed the demon Durgamasura, son of Ruru. In the most widely-accepted form of Mahishasuramardini, Durga is the destroyer of evil – with her ten mighty arms carrying lethal weapons, she triumphantly slays the demon Mahisha. Durga, through all her forms, encompasses the essence of salvation and sacrifice. She is the embodiment of purity, knowledge, truth and self-realization. ‘Aatman’ or supreme consciousness existing in any being or ‘jiva’ manifests itself through the dynamic energy that is Goddess Durga. She represents the power of the Supreme Being that preserves moral order and righteousness in the universe. Durga, also called Divine Mother, protects mankind from malevolence and misery by destroying evil forces such as selfishness, jealousy, prejudice, hatred, anger, and ego.

The projection of the stronger and fiercer side of womanhood is but obvious in the tales surrounding Goddess Durga. In her epic battle with Mahisha and his cohorts, she assumes the powers of the male gods to save the universe without any male assistance. As the warrior goddess, Durga is virgin and does not lend her power, or ‘shakti’, to any male. She is not seen as a submissive god, but one who can hold her own against any male on the battlefield. Her battles signify the universal war between knowledge and ignorance, truth and falsehood, the oppressor and the oppressed. Mary Esther Harding, the American Jungian analyst, observed of “The Virgin Goddess” in Woman's Mysteries: Ancient & Modern: “Her divine power does not depend on her relation to a husband-god, and thus her actions are not dependent on the need to conciliate such a one or to accord with his qualities and attitudes. For she bears her identity through her own right.”

The myth encompassing Goddess Durga is saturated with the potential for violence inherent in the male-female oppositions. In the Puranas, and in North Indian traditions, there is an implied sexual tension between Durga and Mahisha; in the South, particularly in Tamil myths, this sexual tension is heightened. In fact, most Southern myths identify Mahisha as Durga’s suitor. As the story of Mahishasuramardini unfolds, the relationship between Mahisha and the goddess is manifested at many levels: psychologically both demon and goddess become what the other is, both behave like ferocious animals and one never knows what will happen in the next instant as the constant alternations, which range from the bestial to the divine, are the only reality. Thus, each of the antagonists can be symbolically interpreted with feminine or masculine attributes. Each can represent justice and power or evil and danger; each contributes to the orgiastic disorder necessary for recreation. The myth thus transcends the male-female alternative, signifying psychic totality.

Virgin Goddesses encompassing many different fields of enterprise have featured in other civilizations too, such as Greek and Roman. What they have in common is the fact that they are self-contained, pure, independent, un-corrupted and un-partnered. "Virgin" is not to be construed in the sense of a patriarchal society. Virgin in this context has more to do with state of mind and attitude rather than physical attributes or sexual status.

Goddess Ishtar on an
Akkadian Empire seal, 2350-2150 BC, 

Often the virgin goddesses are unmarried, but this does not mean that they are necessarily asexual. In fact, some of the virgin goddesses express their sexuality openly, owning their sexuality proudly and without shame. It is not given away or bartered or owned by their partners, it is wholly and solely within their dominion. Goddess Ishtar, worshiped in Mesopotamia since about 2000 BCE and depicted as riding a lion and had multiple arms holding many weapons in a striking resemblance to Goddess Durga, was thought to have had many lovers from all sorts of backgrounds. As a virgin goddess, Durga belongs to no one fully.  She is one of the consorts (a patriarchal position) of Shiva, the Destroyer, and shares a job with him – slayer of the demons.  However, unlike the relationship of Shiva and Parvati, their relationship is non-sexual; instead, we find them as battlefield comrades.

Another interesting trend shared by the virgin goddesses is that originally there was one goddess within each dominion, but over time she was divided up into differing personalities. For example, Markandeya Purana identifies ten forms of Durga: Durga, Dashabhooja, Singha-Vahini, Mahisha-Mardini, Jagadhatri, Kali, Muktakeshi, Tara, Chinnamastika, and Jagadguree.

The concept of virgin goddess is grounded in the assumption that prehistoric societies in various parts of the world worshiped a goddess who could appear in three forms or Trinity: maiden (often used synonymous with virgin), mother, and aged wise woman. Devi, being an equal counterpart to divine masculinity, herself manifests as the Trinity: Creator (Durga or the Divine Mother), Preserver (Lakshmi, Parvati and Saraswati) and Destroyer (Mahishasuramardini, Kali and Smashanakali). Susan Seddon Boulet, a well-known Bay Area artist, made the following observation about Trinity in The Goddess Paintings:

“The Triple Goddess, the original trinity symbolizes the three faces of the Great Goddess and is the earliest representation of her division into multiplicity. The Goddess with three faces is a universal motif, found worldwide. The Triple Goddess is intimately associated with the changing phases of the moon; just as the moon transforms from one phase to another, the Great Goddess moves among her many roles. Her three faces are usually virgin, mother and crone: virgin representing the strong, self-defined goddess; mother representing the nurturing goddess as source of all nourishment; and crone representing the goddess of death and transformation. This symbolism embraces the role of goddess in all phases of existence, from birth through death to rebirth. The Triple Goddess reminds us of our sacredness regardless of our age or function in life. She reminds us that despite her many forms there is one goddess, always present and always sacred.”

Based on their interpretations of Stone Age artifacts, some archaeologists, most notably Marija Gimbutas, promoted the idea of a parthenogenetic (Greek: parthenos, “virgin,” and gignesthai, “to be born”) primal goddess that might have emerged in the Paleolithic era. According to Gimbutas’ hypothesis, the primal goddess, who was a virgin, was equated with nature as a whole and therefore did not have a particular shape. The earliest goddess images, the so-called Paleolithic Venuses (dated before 10,000 BCE), are images of the awesome creative power associated with woman and nature. The goddess could be represented by triangular stones or by stone or bone carvings emphasizing her vulva, buttocks, and breasts. In the Neolithic or early agricultural era (which began c. 9000 BCE in the Near East), goddess images symbolized the cosmic energy of birth, growth, death, and regeneration, on which farming, and indeed all life, depends. She was often depicted in zoomorphic shape or with animals as her companions.

The anthropomorphic goddess images, according to Gimbutas, gradually became differentiated into two functions, one as "the giver and taker of all," and the other as “rebirth and regeneration.” Eventually these two images were characterized as the Mother and the Maiden. The Mother was the sustaining power, represented especially by the enduring earth, the bedrock that underpins all life. The Maiden, related to the forces of renewal and regeneration, was represented especially by new life, plant and animal, that emerges in spring. The Mother, the eternal, and the Maiden, the ephemeral power of nature, were understood to be two aspects of the same whole. It is interesting to note that the actual worship of Durga as stipulated by the Hindu scriptures falls in the month of Chaitra, which roughly overlaps with the spring season in Bengal, and is called Basanti (Vernal) Durga Puja.

A parthenogenetic goddess stands as a primordial creatrix who requires no male partner to produce the cosmos, earth, life, matter, and even other gods out of her own essence. Plentiful evidence exists that in their earliest cults, before they were subsumed under patriarchal pantheons as the wives, sisters, and daughters of male gods, various female deities of the ancient world were indeed considered self-generating, virgin creatrixes. Virginity, perhaps on account of its rarity in those days among women of a marriageable age, always had a halo of sanctity cast over it. The curious veneration for virginity, particularly the belief that some occult power was attached to the state of virginity, survived even up to the Middle Ages.

As the busy summer season gives away to a more predictable pattern of work-life balance, the nip in the air returns with the falling leaves in this part of the world. It is against this backdrop of ‘Aashwin’ that the Bengalis of New Jersey celebrate Sharodiya (Autumnal) Durga Puja. According to The Ramayana, this ‘Akal Bodhan’ or uncustomary time invocation of Durga was initiated by Rama at the onset of his battle with Ravana. The Sharodiya Puja also involves the worship of Shiva, Durga's consort, their (Goddess Parvati’s) children Ganesh and Kartikeya as well as those of Lakshmi and Saraswati, who are part of the Trinity that includes Parvati. The North Indian tradition of Durga Puja, which stresses Durga’s character as a gentle young wife and daughter in need of family tenderness, contrasts sharply with the South Indian tradition of depicting Durga as a dangerous, indeed, murderous, bride who poses a fatal threat to those approaching her sexually. Both traditions reflect strong influences of patriarchal societies that dominated most of the history of the Indian subcontinent.

The Virgin goddess appears whenever a woman is pursuing her own desires and ideas for herself. The Virgin or Maiden has been given a bad rap as a selfish wanton being for centuries in a culture that has taught women to only please and look after others to the exclusion of all else. She is now making a comeback as women everywhere are beginning to follow their own hearts and dreams to manifest a reality other than that of partnerships, motherhood and child rearing.

Note: Originally published in Kallol Shaitya Patrika, New Jersey, October 2014. 

How We Got Here: Our History in DNA

Source: National Geographic Genographic Project

Human species is an African one: Africa is where our species first evolved, and it is where we spent most of our time on Earth.

The earliest fossils of recognizably modern Homo sapiens appear in the paleontological record at Omo Kibish in Ethiopia, around 200,000 years ago. Our evolution at that time ran parallel to Neanderthals in Europe and in the Levant and to Homo erectus in Asia. Then major climatic shifts began to happen — a sudden cooling in the Earth’s climate triggered by the onset of one of the worst periods of the last Ice Age — that would have made life difficult for our African ancestors. The genetic evidence points to a sharp decline in population around this time. In fact, the human population likely dropped to fewer than 10,000. We were holding on by a thread.

Once the climate started to improve, about 70,000 years ago, we came back from this near-extinction event. The population expanded, and some intrepid explorers started to leave Africa between 60,000 and 70,000 years ago. As they ventured out of Africa, these explorers left genetic footprints still visible today. By mapping the appearance and frequency of genetic markers in modern people, scientists have created a picture of when and where ancient humans moved around the world (see above).

The earliest people to colonize the Eurasian landmass likely did so across the Bab-al-Mandab Strait separating present-day Yemen from Djibouti. Once these people were out of Africa, a brief period of interbreeding with Neanderthals occurred, helping to explain why individuals of European and Asian heritage today retain traces of Neanderthal DNA. These early beachcombers expanded rapidly along the coast to India and reached Southeast Asia and Australia some 50,000 years ago. The first great foray of our species beyond Africa had led us all the way across the globe.

Somewhat later, a little after 50,000 years ago, a second group appears to have set out on an inland trek, leaving behind the certainties of life in the tropics to head out into the Middle East and Southern Central Asia. From these base camps, they were poised to colonize the northern latitudes of Asia, Europe, and beyond.

Meadowcroft Rockshelter, near Pittsburgh, 

is the oldest known site of human habitation

in North America dating back 16,000 years ago.

                          Source: National Geographic

Around 20,000 years ago, a small group of these Asian hunters headed into the face of the storm, entering the East Asian Arctic during the Last Glacial Maximum. This era witnessed great ice sheets covering the far north that had literally sucked up much of the Earth’s moisture in their vast expanses of white wasteland, dropping sea levels by more than 300 feet. This exposed a land bridge that connected the Old World to the New, joining Asia to the Americas. In crossing it, the hunters had made the final great leap of the human journey. By 15,000 years ago, they had penetrated the land south of the ice, and within 1,000 years they had made it all the way to the tip of South America. Some might have even made the journey by sea.

These great migrations over a 50,000-year period eventually led the descendants of a small group of Africans to occupy even the farthest reaches of the Earth.

The story doesn’t end there, of course. The rise of agriculture around 10,000 years ago — and the population explosion it created — has left a dramatic impact on the human gene pool. The rise of empires, the astounding oceangoing voyages of the Polynesians, even the extraordinary increase in global migration over the past 500 years could all leave traces in our DNA. There are many human journey questions waiting to be asked and answered.

Have you ever wondered if you would want to test your DNA, perhaps after watching TV commercials like 23andMe or Ancestry? What would a DNA test tell you about your ancestors? What would it mean to you and how would it help your genealogy? Human genomics has made significant progress in the recent years to address our ancestral migration and in a way our own genealogical questions.

Population geneticists tend to focus on human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup — mitochondria, which is located outside the nucleus, is the powerhouse of a cell — to seek answers to these questions. Mitochondrial DNA not only tells us about people we match who are currently living, who share ancestors with us at some point in time, but it also reaches back beyond the range of what genealogy in the traditional sense can tell us — past the time when surnames were adopted, peering into the misty veil of the past!

A haplogroup is a combination of alleles (a variant form of a given gene) at different chromosome regions that are closely linked and that tend to be inherited together. Think of a haplogroup as your genetic clan. Haplogroups have a history and a pedigree chart, just like people do. Those are commonly depicted as the mitochondrial phylogenetic tree. Haplogroups and their branches can identify certain groups of people, such as people of African descent, European, Asian, Jewish and Native American.

Haplogroups are labelled A through Z in the order of their discovery. Mitochondrial DNA haplogroup is a haplogroup defined by differences in human mtDNA. Haplogroups pertain to a single line of descent and are used to represent the major branch points on the mitochondrial phylogenetic tree. Every single one of your ancestors has their own individual story to tell – and if you really want to know who you are and where each ancestral line came from, mtDNA is the insider story on your mother’s matrilineal line. Only females pass mtDNA on to their children, so all children carry their mother’s mtDNA.

While the matrilineal DNA is passed intact with no admixture from the father, occasionally mutations do happen — the rate at which mtDNA mutates is known as the mitochondrial molecular clock, which is an area of ongoing research with one study reporting one mutation per 8000 years — and it’s those historical mutations that form clans and branches of clans as generation after generation is born and continues to migrate to new areas. Understanding the evolutionary path of the female lineage has helped population geneticists trace the matrilineal inheritance of modern humans back to human origins in Africa and the subsequent spread around the globe.

The hypothetical woman at the root of all the mtDNA haplogroups on the mitochondrial phylogenetic tree is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for all currently living humans. This is the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend in an unbroken line purely through their mothers, and through the mothers of those mothers, back until all lines converge on one woman. She is commonly called Mitochondrial Eve (mtEve).

In terms of mitochondrial haplogroups, mtEve is situated at the divergence of macro-haplogroup L into L0 and L1–6. As of 2013, estimates on the age of this split ranged at around 150,000 years ago in East Africa. This analysis is consistent with a date later than the speciation of Homo sapiens but earlier than the recent Out-of-Africa dispersal.

One common misconception surrounding mtEve is that since all women alive today descended in a direct unbroken female line from her, she must have been the only woman alive at the time. However, nuclear DNA studies indicate that the size of the ancient human population never dropped below tens of thousands. Other women living during Eve's time may have descendants alive today but not in a direct female line.

The definition of mtEve is fixed, but the woman in prehistory who fits this definition can change. Because mtDNA mapping of humans is very incomplete, the discovery of living mtDNA lines which predate our current concept of "Mitochondrial Eve" could result in the title moving to an earlier woman.

Of the lineages of macro-haplogroup L originating in mtEve, haplogroup L3 represents the most common parent maternal lineage of all people outside Africa, and for many individuals within the continent as well. The time to MRCA for the L3 lineage has recently been estimated to date to between 58,900 and 70,200 years ago. This is around the time of and associated with the Out-of-Africa expansion of the ancestors of non-African modern humans from Eastern Africa into Eurasia and with a similar expansion within Africa also from the East of the continent.

The descendants of haplogroup L3 outside Africa largely coalesce into macro-haplogroup M and its sibling macro-haplogroup N. The latter is found in Eurasia and parts of Africa due to back-migration. Haplogroup M, an enormous haplogroup spanning all the continents, represents more than 60% of South Asian mtDNA. The origin of macro-haplogroup M is estimated to be around 60,000 years ago. A sub-haplogroup M2, which is prevalent among the Bengalis of India and Bangladesh (also in Andhra Pradesh, coastal Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka), is reported to be the oldest lineage of macro-haplogroup M on the Indian sub-continent. Its age is between 30,200 and 42,400 years.

If you test your mtDNA using ancestry DNA kit like National Geographic’s Geno 2.0, Family Tree DNA or AncestaryDNA, you’ll receive a haplogroup assignment. If you opt for the entry level mtPlus test, which only tests about 6% of the available mitochondrial markers, those most likely to mutate, you will receive a macro-haplogroup like M, because that’s all that can be determined by those markers. If you take the mtFull Sequence test, which tests all the 16,569 mitochondrial locations, you will receive a full haplogroup designation like M2a'b, plus a lot more.

What stories are waiting to be told in your own DNA?