Random Meditations Through Her 1000 Names (15 and 16): Crescent And The Full Moon

Read part fourteen here.

The Goddess emerges from the sacrificial fire-pit, chit-agni-kunda. First, her hair, adorned with a variety of flowers, appear.

Then, her forehead appears. Her forehead is shaped like the inverted crescent moon. Not any crescent moon, but the crescent moon on its eighth phase of the cycle - whether waxing or waning.

So, she is the one with her forehead shaped as the eighth-day crescent: Ashtami-chandra-vibhraja-dalika-sthala-shobhita.

Then, the face emerges.

If her forehead is shaped like the perfect crescent, then her face itself is like the full moon. However, the moon has a little blemish.

The dark, smooth area which can be seen by unaided eyes on the bright surface of the moon had many cultures imaginatively think of it as an old man, rabbit etc., on the moon. Indian culture also saw in these dark shapes a rabbit and a deer.

However, in the Sri Lalita Sahasranama, it is the musk attained from the deer that is applied on the Goddess' face that parallels the lunar maria: Mukha-chandra-kalankabha-mriganabhi-visheshaka.

If we combine the comparison of the crescent moon of the eighth day(s) of (the waxing and waning of) the lunar cycle to the forehead of the Goddess and her face itself to the moon (implicitly suggestive of the full moon) then what we have here is a continuity of a very primordial connection - once present throughout the world but now found in its full bloom and all diversity only in Hindu Dharma.

In 1963, with the race to the moon and all, an archeologist, Alexander Marshack, was researching about the technological evolution of humanity - from tool-making to ultimately moon landing.

Pondering about the seemingly sudden big-bang in the cognitive skills and subsequent development in writing, mathematical skills, astronomical observations etc., he thought that there was a serious gap in the archaeological record.

Painstaking work and microscopic studies of old stone age artefacts (paleolithic age) made him put forth a thesis that palaeolithic people used a system of lunar notation at least as early as 30,000 BCE.

Feminist scholars of religion, Anne Baring and Jules Cashford, based on the work of Marshack, point out how the waxing and waning of the moon became important for the stone age people.

The passage is worth producing in some detail:

In the Sahasranama, we have both the crescent and the full moon imagery.

The interesting aspect here is the specific mention of the ashtami or the eighth day crescent in name 15. The reason is not far to seek.

As the Vedic Mother Goddess Aditi, she has connections with ashtami.

Historian of ancient India, Dr Prithvi Kumar Agrawala of Banaras Hindu University, explains:

Sri Aurobindo considers Aditi as the undivided wholesome Consciousness. To him Aditi is:

The association of Aditi with cow and dawn has another amusing parallel with the Egyptian Goddess Hathor, who was venerated by ancient Egyptians as the sun goddess, moon goddess and as the divine cow.

S.B.Roy, who pioneered work on chronology in India and who was considered by archaeologist B.K.Thapar as the ‘authority’ on ‘ ethno-astronomy’, also associated the discovery of cycles—seasonal as well as feminine and even the discovery of Rta—to Aditi, whom he considered as a matriarch Vedic seer:

Most probably, the historicity of Aditi may be a far-fetched speculation. Yet, it is also possible that Aditi was a historical Vedic seer who discovered cycles, in celestial spheres, terrestrial phenomena and also the feminine body, ultimately discovering Rta.

That way Aditi comes far anterior in a tradition that later produced the great woman mathematician Hypatia. If true, then we see the way human culture had decisively made a U-turn towards dark ages in the West when St. Cyril brutally killed the scientist-philosopher Hypatia.

But here, Aditi became what she discovered - the Goddess who contained in her all diversity and who permeates all existence as Rta. And in the cycle of moon, her symbolism shines.

Irrespective of Aditi’s historicity, she represents pure undivided Consciousness as Sri Aurobindo put it, and that is what Sri Lalita is . And through her names, we are able to reconnect with the ancient Vedic Divine Feminine, which shines through all our traditions, uninterrupted.

As we shall see, the moon symbolism, symbiotic with the Goddess tradition, found its fulfilment and full blossom in all its diversity in Hindu Dharma. In Sri Lalita Sahasranama, we will find again and again proof for that unique spiritual heritage of all humanity.

Today, Hathor is remembered in past-tense. Hypatia is seldom remembered so that Christian sensibilities will not be hurt. Most of the names of great goddesses are only of academic interests and their forms in museums—often mutilated—seldom venerated.

But when we utter the names 15 and 16 in the Sri Lalita Sahasranama, let us also remember that we carry the responsibility of being the last living guardians of the Goddess tradition.