The Antiquities of Orissa v1.c11.77

Language: English

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**Uma, the mother of the universe :** It is not, however, as the mountain-born goddess, the exemplary wife, the Satī *par excellence*, most ardent in her devotion to a terrific husband, that I wish to notice Umā in this place. Her name carries us back to a remote period in the history of man when it was synonymous with maternity, and was used to indicate the mother of the universe. *Ummāh, am, amone*, are terms of great antiquity. 'Am Astoreth' or '*Astoreth is her mother*' is a name of a Carthaginian woman who is commemorated in Davis' *Carthaginian Inscriptions* (No. VII), as offering a vow to Tanith, or Anaita. A similar name is found on the Sidonian inscription as that of the mother of Asman Azer, the king of Sidon.”³¹ It occurs in the most ancient Hebrew writings, and is equally old in Sanskrit, and, curiously enough, it has everywhere been used in some form or other to indicate the being who first conceived the universe within her, and who is variously designated the “celestial mother,” “the mother of the universe,” “the mother of the gods”. “the spouse of God,” “the queen of heaven” and so forth. If Umā herself does not find a place in the *Ṛgveda Saṃhitā* in this character, her type is not wanting in it. Although the theory of creation through the fiat of the Deity is what obtains most favour with the *Ṛṣis*, still the idea of a feminine counterpart was not altogether foreign to them. The earliest germ of this idea occurs in a hymn in the last book of t'at work.

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There it is said, “that the divine spirit breathed without afflation, single with (Svadhā) her who is sustained within him; other than him nothing existed. First desire was formed in his mind, and that became the original productive seed, (which) since (has been). Darkness there was; (for) this universe was enveloped with darkness, and was undistinguishable (like fluids mixed in) waters: but that mass, which was covered by the husk, was (at length) produced by the power of contemplation. First desire was formed in his mind: and that became the original productive seed; which the wife, recognising by the intellect in their hearts distinguish, in non-entity, as the bond of entity.”³² Purely mataphorical or allegorical as the idea here conveyed is, it soon assumed by literal interpretation a more substantive form; thus in the *Sāmaveda*: “He felt not delight, being alone. He wished another, and instantly became such. He caused his own self to fall in twain, and thus became husband and wife. He approached her, and thus were human beings produced.”³³ The later @H [ 147 ] Vedas, namely, the Brāhmaṇas and the Upaniṣads, worked out the figurative language of the Saṃhitās, and developed various myths to establish the rank of this primary mother of creation, and Svadhā gradually passed into Umā, Lakṣmī, and Sarasvatī as consorts of the principal gods who took a share in the act of creation. Elsewhere we recognise her in Isis, Juno and Venus;

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and “the mother of God” of the Mariolaters, is no other than she. The eight divine mothers (*Aṣṭamātṛkās*) of the Tantras are invariably represented, each with a child on her lap, and are the exact counterparts of the “Virgin and Child” of European art. Umā, the wife of Śiva, appears under various forms, as a virgin or a mother, as fair or dark, as lovely or fierce, according to the exigencies of the myths in which she acts the part of heroine. One of her manifestations was Kālī, a nude female of a black complexion, and for her counterparts we have Diana of the Ephesians, Isis, Hecate, Juno, Metes, Ceres, Cybele and Venus Melainis, all of whom were represented black. Nor did the mystical idea which led to the blackness of these divinities cease with them. “In the Cathedral at Moulins; at the chapel at Loretto; at the churches of the Annunciation, St. Lazars and St. Stephens, at Genoa; of St. Francisco at Pisa; at Brisen in the Tyrol, and in one in Padua; in St. Theodore, at Munich; in the Cathedral and the church at Augsburg; in the Borghese chapel of Maria Maggiore; in the Pantheon, and in a small chapel of St.

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Peter's, are to be seen (in Augsburg, as large as life) a black virgin and a black child".³⁴ In all this and in many other respects, there is a close analogy between the conception of Umā, the mother of the universe, and that of the Egyptian and of Grecian goddesses, as also that of the Gnostics, the Rosicrucians, Mariolaters and other mystics, whose influence on Christianity is still manifest in the traces they have left on the Roman Church; and they lead to the inference that there has been an interchange of ideas on the subject at an early period.