Dhumavati - Symbolism and Associations

Symbolism and Associations

Vedic scholar Ganapati Muni described the goddess:

Dhumavati is always considered a widow, and thus, is the only Mahavidya without a consort. Though associated with Shiva, having eaten him, he has since left her. Having destroyed the male element (Purusha) in the universe, she is left with nothing, but she is still Shakti, the female element with latent energy. Dhumavati's insatiable hunger and thirst is highlighted in many texts, and has been interpreted as the manifestation of her unsatisfied desires.

As a widow in a horseless chariot, Dhumavati is portrayed as a woman going nowhere in life and society. She is "all that is unlucky, unattractive and inauspicious". She appears in the form of the poor, the beggars, the lepers, and the diseased. She dwells in the "wounds of the world", deserts, ruined houses, poverty, tatters, hunger, thirst, quarrels, mourning of children, in wild and other uncivilized, dangerous places. Widows in general are considered inauspicious, dangerous, and susceptible to possession by evil spirits. As a divine widow, Dhumavati is to be feared. Dhumavati is described as a hag or witch, crafty and quarrelsome; she represents all the dreaded miseries of life.

Alternative paintings show her as young and adorned, as a sexually tempting, eroticised, young, attractive yet inauspicious widow. Her thousand-name hymn says that she gives enjoyment, is completely beautiful and adorned with garlands, clothes, and jewellery. She is also associated with sex in the hymn, which calls her "She Whose Form Is Rati". Rati literally means "sexual intercourse" and also the name of the Hindu love goddess. She is said to enjoy sexual intercourse, to be present where sexual activity is, and to be occupied with sex. She is said to like liquor (a forbidden drink), to be intoxicated, and to be worshiped by intoxicated people. She also indulges in the Tantric ritual of breaking the five taboos—the Panchamakara, which include consuming wine, meat, fish, parched grain and ritual sex.

Dhumavati is a manifestation of the anti-social and inauspicious elements in women and is an antithesis to the goddess Lakshmi. Like Alakshmi, Dhumavati rules over the four months of the rainy season, when even solar light is obscured by the evil water spirit. This coincides with Chaturmas, a period during the year when the god Vishnu sleeps. At that time, darkness rules and the soul loses its usual luster. This period is considered inauspicious, and as such as no auspicious ceremonies like marriage can take place.

The presence of the crow, a carrier of death, in her iconography as well as her textual description of having crow-like features associate her with death and inauspiciousness. Another motif in her iconography linking her with death is the presence of a cremation ground and cremation pyres in the background. Her thousand name hymn says that she lives in the cremation ground, sits on a corpse, wears ashes, and blesses those who haunt the grounds. The Prapancasarasara-samgraha relates that she wears a dress taken from a corpse. Dhumavati is the embodiment of tamas guna, associated with ignorance and darkness. She likes meat and wine, both tamasic in nature.

Beyond name and form, beyond human categories, alone and indivisible, as the great dissolution, she (Dhumavati) reveals the nature of ultimate knowledge, which is formless and knows no divisions into good or bad, pure and impure, auspicious and inauspicious.

Dhumavati is often said to appear at the time of Maha-pralaya, the great dissolution of the cosmos and is equated with the dark clouds that rise during Pralaya. Her thousand name hymn also calls her by names meaning "She Whose Form is Pralaya", "Who Is Occupied with Pralaya", "Who Creates and Causes Pralaya" and "Who Walks About in Pralaya". An author says that she stays even after Shiva (who is Maha-kala) ("Great Time" or "Great Death") disappears, thus she is "the Power of Time", and considered to be beyond time and space. Dhumavati represents ultimate destruction, the smoke that rises after the universe is destroyed.

The goddess' name "Dhumavati" means the "smoky one". She is said not to like offerings burnt in a fire that is not smoky. She likes smoke from incense, offerings, and cremation pyres, as these symbolize destruction. Dhumavati also exists in the form of smoke and roams everywhere at her will.

While Dhumavati generally is associated with only inauspicious qualities, her thousand-name hymn tells about her positive aspects, too. She is often called as bestower of boons and tender-hearted. Her hymn says that she lives in the midst of women and is worshipped by them. Her hymn sings of her as the giver of children.

As an ancestor or Grandmother spirit, she embodies a great teacher and guide, granting knowledge of the ultimate truth of life and death. Her smoke hides that which is obvious, revealing hidden secrets and truths of "the unknown and the unmanifest". Frawley says her outer appearance as poverty is deceptive and a mere illusion that hides the inner reality. She is "the good fortune that comes to us in the form of misfortune". Dhumavati embodies the "power of suffering". Through the negative aspects that Dhumavati represents rise the virtues of patience, persistence, forgiveness, and detachment. Without the revealing of this negativity of life, it cannot be transcended and the secret truths would remain hidden under the smoky veil of illusion.

Dhumavati's outer inauspicious, fearful form reveals the dangers of considering sensory pleasures as fulfilment-giving. The winnowing basket, used to separate the husk from the grain, symbolizes the need to separate the outer illusory form from the inner reality. Her ugly form teaches the devotee to go beyond the outer deceptive appearances and seek the inner truths of life.

Dhumavati is the primordial darkness and ignorance, from which rises the world of illusion. She represents the darkness/ignorance before creation and after decay. This ignorance, which obscures the ultimate reality, is necessary because without the realization of this ignorance, true knowledge can not be achieved. Dhumavati also represents yogic sleep (Yoganidra), the pre-creation state of consciousness, as well as the primal sleep (the Void) in which all creation would dissolve and reach ultimate reality of Brahman. This void is pure consciousness, the cessation of movements of the mind, and silence. Even Dhumavati's ability to spread disease is also considered positive, as disease punishes the wicked and restores cosmic order. Dhumavati is also associated with the heart or middle region of the body.

Dhumavati is sometimes regarded as an older form of Kali, in which she represents timelessness and unmanifest life-force. Another tradition identifies Dhumavati with Smashana-kali, "Kali who lives in the cremation ground." She is considered a terrible aspect of the Goddess and included among the Kalikula ("family of Kali") goddesses. Dhumavati's nama stotras (hymn with names of the deities) identify her with Parvati, Sati, and glorify her as a slayer of demons.