‘Daughter of the Mountain,’ Parvati Devi is the primary personification of Shakti Herself. Her consort is Shiva; Her children are Ganesh and Skanda, but in fact she is the mother of all gods and goddesses, of all humanity and of creation itself. Being Shakti’s ‘base form,’ Parvati manifests her wrath as Durga and Kali; and her benevolence as Lakshmi and Saraswati. She is every other goddess as well; when we worship any goddess, or for that matter even any god, we ultimately worship her.

A Balancing Principle

Parvati is Shakti’s (i.e. the Divine Feminine’s) second incarnation as the wife of Shiva. After Shiva’s first wife Sati died, her divine body parts were strewn all over India (all the places where these parts landed became Shakti peeths, or ’seats of the goddess,’ and are now sites of Devi temples) and Shiva turned his back completely on the world, resuming the life of an ascetic in a remote Himalayan cave, while the demon Taraka overran the heavens above and the earth below.With no ‘living’ Shakti (manifest Divinity) to balance Shiva (transcendent Divinity), the Cosmic order was thrown into disarray. Shiva had no interest in the world, and in any event he was ‘powerless’ (Shakti = Power, Energy) without Shakti. And so the gods prayed to Shakti to reincarnate and bring Shiva back into the world, thereby restoring the cosmic balance and saving the world. Shakti agreed and thereupon took birth as Parvati, the daughter of Himavan, the Lord of the Mountains.

Of course she grew up to be a stunningly beautiful, charming and alluring woman – her ‘mission’ after all, was to lure Shiva out of his ascetic life and make him take her as his consort. And so every day, she would visit Shiva’s cave, sweep the floor, decorate it with flowers and offer him fruits and other gifts of the earth, hoping to win his love.

Personification of Shakti

However, Shiva never even opened his eyes to notice her. So Parvati enlisted the help of Priti and Rati, the goddesses of Love and Longing. They transformed Shiva’s cave into a sensuous pleasure garden filled with fragrant flowers, exotic songbirds and buzzing honeybees. With the stage thus set,

Kama, the beautiful God of Love appeared and shot Shiva with the arrow of desire. But Shiva, unamused, simply opened his third eye and blasted

Kama with an energy beam that incinerated him on the spot. And so Love was lost to the world.“Do not despair,” Parvati told the gods when this happened. “Shiva will be my consort. And when he does,

Kama will be reborn.”

Whereupon Parvati disappeared into the forest, and became an ascetic herself. She performed the most rigorous self-mortifications – sitting amidst bonfires on the hottest summer days, going without clothing in the winter snow, standing motionless on one foot for interminable periods, eating next to nothing, and engaging in the most astonishingly intense sadhana. In fact, Parvati fully matched Shiva’s own asceticism, detaching herself totally from the world; completely mastering her body and mind. So perfect an ascetic was she that the other forest renunciates named her Aparna.

“The story of Parvati’s efforts to win unity with shiva, is in itself a most powerful allegory of the sadhak’s quest to merge with the Divine”

Finally the heat (tapas) generated by Parvati’s amazing austerities shook Shiva out of his meditation. He stepped out of his cave and learning of her accomplishments, agreed to be her consort. They married amidst the most divine celebrations and then together left for the

peak of

Mount Kailasa, where the two became one, and

Kama was reborn into the world.

Parvati and Shiva’s marriage is a happy and full of blissful companionship Under her benevolent influence, Shiva the ‘great ascetic’ became Shiva the ‘householder’. However, in addition to their games and pleasures, they also had serious conversations in which they questioned one another on the most profound philosophical issues. Those conversations formed the basis of the Vedas, the Yoga Sutras and the Tantras – the three principle foundations of the Hindu faith. Inspired by Parvati’s intelligence and beauty, Shiva also became a fountainhead of the arts, dance and drama.

Parvati – More Than A Consort

Shaivite approaches to Hinduism tend to look upon Parvati primarily as the god’s submissive and obedient wife and helpmate. However, Shaktas focus on Parvati’s equality or even superiority to her consort. Take, for example, the story of the birth of the ‘Ten Mahavidyas’ or ‘Wisdom Goddesses’ of Shakta Tantra. This event occurs while Shiva is living with Parvati in her father’s house. Following an argument, he attempts to walk out on her. Her rage manifests in the form of ten terrifying goddesses who block Shiva’s every exit.

As the scholar David Kinsley explains, “The fact that Parvati is able to physically restrain Shiva, dramatically demonstrates the fact that she is superior in power. The theme of the superiority of the goddess over male deities is common in Shakta texts, and so the story stresses a central Shakta theological principle. The fact that Shiva and Parvati are living in her father’s house in itself makes this point, as it is a tradition in most parts of India for the wife to leave her father’s home upon marriage and become a part of her husband’s lineage and live in his home among his relatives.That Shiva dwells in Parvati’s house implies her superiority in their relationship, which is also demonstrated in her ability – through the Mahavidyas – to thwart Shiva’s will and assert her own.”

The Great Disciple

It is not necessary to insist upon Parvati’s ’superiority’ in order to realize the power and value of her teachings. As the scholar Ellen Goldberg notes: The story of Parvati’s efforts to win unity with Shiva, is in itself a most powerful allegory of the sadhak’s quest to merge with the Divine. As a yogini (female yoga adept) and tapasvini (female accomplisher of great austerities), Parvati offers all of her devotees an inspiring model by which to master the intricacies of their sadhana. Goldberg writes: “Parvati (Shakti) is the yogini/ tapasvini par excellence. As a rule, the only necessary requirements for the [yoga] path are: access to teachings; a guru; one-pointed dedication to the practices. Parvati fulfills all three requisites. The hatha yoga tradition clearly affirms that the transmission of oral teachings proceeds directly from Shiva to Parvati. This primeval discourse in turn reflects the prototypical relationship between guru and disciple. As a yogini, Parvati performs her austerities (tapas) dutifully – subjecting herself to strict penance like eating tree bark, standing on one foot and so onto win or unite with her beloved Shiva.” “Her ascetic disciplines prepare her for a progressive ascent through body, speech and mind and lead her via preparatory and purificatory practices, to the higher attainments of yoga realization. Once her karma is dissolved, Parvati, as a model disciple, is drawn into deeper and more subtle forms of meditation, leading to the merging of herself and Shiva in the form and figure of Ardhanariswara.”

Parvati and shiva’s marriage is a happy and full of blissful companionship. Inspired by Parvati’s intelligence and beauty, Shiva became a fountainhead of the arts, dance and drama

“In this model, active engagement through asceticism or tapas is advocated as the prerequisite for unionwith Shiva: Parvati takes form as a human disciple (nari), dresses in the clothes of an ascetic, and with matted hair (jata) and modest diet (mitahara), remains in one-pointed tapas. She knows that to effect a union with Shiva and to actively save the world she must perform these tapas.” “Shiva is informed by the devas of Parvati’s effort, and he appears before her as a brahmachari (celibatemonk) who speaks of Shiva’s wrathful nature to test her resolve and commitment. Parvati is steadfast,and Shiva is duly convinced of her one-pointed determination and devotion. He then appears to her as

himself and agrees to marry her. Her tapas won-over her self-chosen husband, Shiva. Parvati thereby actively subverts the normative mode of behavior for women (stridharma). In this narrative, Parvati is not an object of sexual desire, rather she is a spiritual heroine who earns her rightful status by the side of Shiva.”