Legends
One important myth concerns a king who prayed before Bahuchara Mata to bring him a son. Bahuchara complied but the prince Jetho, who was born to the king, was impotent. One night Bahuchara appeared to Jetho in a dream and ordered him to cut off his genitals, wear women's clothes and become her servant. Bahuchara Mata identified impotent men and commanded them to do the same. If they refused, she punished them by arranging that during their next seven incarnations they would be born impotent. This is how the cult of Bahuchara Mata, whose devotees are required to self-castrate and remain celibate, developed. In one of the many folk stories associated with Bahuchara Mata, the goddess was once a princess who castrated her husband because he preferred going to the forest and "behaving as a woman" instead of coming to her bridal bed. In another story, a man who attempted to molest Bahuchara Mata was cursed with impotence. He was forgiven only after he gave up his masculinity, dressed as a woman, and worshipped the goddess. Another theory says that she is one of the goddesses in Sri Chakra. The real symbol of her vehicle is kurkut which means the serpent which has two mouths. Bahucharaji is seated on low end and other end goes to sahastrar, which means that Bahucharaji is the goddess of starting the awakening of kundlini which eventually leads the liberation or moksha.
Read more about this topic: Bahuchara Mata
Famous quotes containing the word legends:
“Farm boys wild to couple
With anything with soft-wooded trees
With mounds of earthmounds
Of pine straw will keep themselves off
Animals by legends of their own:”
—James Dickey (b. 1923)
“Therefore our legends always come around to seeming legendary,
A path decorated with our comings and goings. Or so I’ve been told.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“a child’s
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sunlight
And the legends of the green chapels
And the twice-told fields of infancy”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)