Parvati
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Symbol of feminine power
From the archives of "The Times of India" : 2008
Himani Dalmia
Teej festival celebrates the spirit of Parvati
Once upon a monsoon, in a land called Bimala Nagari, King Chandraprabha set out for a hunt in a nearby forest. While he was roaming the woods, he chanced upon a group of apsaras engaged in an intense ritual of prayer and fasting for the goddess Parvati. They tied a sacred thread around the king’s wrist, after which he returned home. On seeing the thread, the king’s favourite wife Vishalakshi seethed with anger and jealousy. She snatched off a bit of the thread and threw it on a dead tree. Instantly, the tree bloomed to life. The king’s second wife, Sri Mahadevi, took some of the thread from her husband’s wrist and placed it on herself and thenceforth she became the centre of the king’s attentions. Vishalakshi, banished to the forest, prayed to Swarna Gauri or Parvati and in so doing she won back the goodwill of the king and she returned to the palace, her life and love restored.
According to the Skandapurana and the Bhavishyapurana, this incident is the origin of Teej, the festival that falls on the third day of the new moon in the month of Shravan. Women pray to Parvati to seek blessings of marital bliss. In the Bhavishyapurana, Krishna tells his sister Subhadra not to consider herself exempt from the Swarna Gauri Vrata just because her brother is a god and her husband, the mighty Arjun.
With her perfect marriage, Parvati is seen as a symbol of feminine power. Parvati takes charge of finding a husband for herself. She embarks on a severe tapasya to counter the one Shiva has undertaken. Her perseverance is rewarded when the normally unyielding and stoic Shiva proposes marriage to Parvati.
Kalidasa’s epic poem, the Kumarasambhava, recounts the union of Shiva and Parvati in which it is Parvati who is the hero. Interrupting Shiva’s tapasya and convincing him to marry her becomes the goal of the plot. Shiva remains aloof and unfathomable throughout, placing the burden of the plot entirely in Parvati’s hands.
Tulsidas describes the union of Shiva and Parvati in several works, including the Ramcharitmanas and the Vinaypatrika, but also exclusively in a shorter composition called the Parvati Mangal. True to his form, Tulsidas follows the dictates of maryada or propriety in his depiction of the Shiva-Parvati union. Instead of attributing sexual ambition to the goddess, he assigns her a cosmic purpose. Together, Shiva and Shakti are two aspects of the same godhead. It is thus essential for Parvati to seek out her lord and unite with him.
The original tale conceived of Parvati as a woman who charts her own destiny, who does everything in her power to claim her sexual and cosmic partner. It is this reputation of single-mindedness, resolve and ultimate success that makes Parvati the object of worship for women seeking happy matrimony. Women who pray to Parvati on Teej hope that similar good fortune will befall them.
On Teej, ‘bua, behen and beti’ — aunt, sister and daughter — pamper themselves with delicious food, new clothes, fine jewellery, mehendi and bangles. Traditionally, jhoolas or swings are hung from trees. Women dressed in green swing amidst the lush foliage, for Teej also heralds the advent of the monsoons. Saawan the rainy season is associated with shringara rasa, with beauty, love, pleasure and fertility. Women celebrate these aspects of their lives and of nature by dancing, swinging, eating, singing songs, adorning themselves and indulging in every possible pleasure. The spirit of Parvati imbues Teej with a feminine power and flavour that makes the festival a time of joy and hope for all women.
