Random Meditations Through Her 1,000 Names (XXI): The Flowers Adorning Her Ears

Read the previous part here.

The form of the goddess emerges from the fire pit — the inner fire pit. The Sahasranama now sings the beauty of her face, describing each of her divine organs.She is the resplendent one with capitate globose heads of kadamba flowers placed over her earlobes: Kadambamanjariklipta karnapuramanohara.

Kadamba (Neolamarckia cadamba) has a special significance for the goddess. In Sri Lalita Sahasranama, her 60th name describes her as residing in the kadamba forest. Then her 323rd name alludes to her love for the kadamba flowers. In the 330th name, she is said to love kadambari — the wine made of the flowers of kadamba tree.

In tantric rituals and in the devotion to the goddess, the kadamba tree occupies a very important place. In the hymn to Adya Kali in Mahanirvana Tantra, the goddess is hailed as one who wanders in the kadamba forest, one who is pleased with the flowers of the forest, one who has her abode in the kadamba forest, one who wears a garland of kadamba flowers and one who drinks the wine made of these flowers.The association of kadamba tree and the goddess tradition may go back well into the most ancient times in India.

In the Harappan or Sindhu-Saraswati civilisation seals, there is a very interesting one showing a vegetation emanating from the vulva of the goddess.

The plant thus emerging may well be the kadamba tree. That this Harappan symbol is an integral part of vedic and tantric streams of Hindu Dharma, is brought out by 'Manthanabhairavatantram' in its Kumarikakhandah: ‘samketam vrksamulam tu yonimadhye kadambakam’: “The tradition says the tree that is called Kadambaka has its roots at the centre of the Vulva of the Goddess.”

This text also calls her form as “(spherical like) that of a bud of the Kadamba tree” (kadambagolakakaram). This seemingly paradoxical aspect of the goddess — the kadamba tree is born out of her and she is the bud that sprouts off the tree — embodies in it a vision so integrated with Sanatana Dharma.

All the above would show clearly why the kadamba tree is important as a sacred ritual component and an inner imagery that has come with us in the goddess tradition from time immemorial.

Now let us relate back to the present name: Her ears are decorated with the manjari of kadamba flowers. Manjari means a bunch of flowers and it is also the natural arrangement of flowers in the way they blossom. It is called inflorescence. The kadamba flowers are arranged in groups in the form of a globe like structure with individual flowers having no pedicel.

There is more to it than definitely aesthetically pleasing poetic imagery. In Hindu tradition, this capitate inflorescence of kadamba has a specific implication. As of now we know that it was Aryabhata who employed this imagery first.

When establishing the shape of the earth, refuting those who considered, the famous astronomer-mathematician of the fifth century CE, states: Like as a ball formed by the blossoms of the kadamba is on every side beset with flowerets, so is earth-globe with all creatures terrestrial and aquatic.

This imagery is followed by other Hindu astronomers also. Bhaskaracharya the famous astronomer-mathematical poet of the twelfth century uses the same imagery and states:

Sanskritologist Dr Pierre-Sylvain Filliozat explains:

One can say that this floral imagery about the shape of the planet is then infused with what Einstein would have called the cosmic religious feeling. It is this imagery of the floral inflorescence along with the rich and sacred tradition kadamba tree has in the goddess tradition of Hindu Dharma that gets evoked by the name: Kadambamanjariklipta karnapuramanohara.