The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.s2.66.3

v2.c16.s2.66.3

Beames says : "Her rude woodland temples are found still in the mountains and sub-mountain jungles of Western Bengal, and all down the hill ranges of Oaissa, and I have even met with them on the Subarnarekhā, and along the coast of the Bay of Bengal. A fine Sanskrit name has been fitted to this wild forest divinity, and she is called by the Brāhmaṇas, Viśālākshī or the large-eyed. Her statues represent her holding in her uplifted arms two elephants, from whose trunks water pours on to her head."³⁴ Viśālākshī as portrayed in the *Tantras* is a very different personage. According to the *Ādi-yāmala Tantra*, quoted in the *Tantra-sāra*, "she is a large-eyed matron of the complexion of molten gold, two-handed, fierce, armed with a sword and a skull, adorned with a profusion of ornaments, draped in blood-red garments, perennially youthful, smiling faced, three-eyed, wearing a garland of skulls, high and large busted, seated on the person of Śiva, crowned with matted locks and a tiara, the goddes destroyeress of enemies and giver of every blessing to her adorers." This cannot possibly be the type of the lotus lady Kamalātmikā, or of the gentle Bāsulī of the woods, the titular goddess of Sāgar Island. In the Bengali *Chaṇḍī* of Kavikaṅkana, the goddess is represented as seated on a lotus on the open sea, holding an elephant in each hand, and engaged in the very unfeminine occupation of alternately swallowing and throwing up the elephants.