Gaudavaho

Author(s): Vakpatiraj, Narhari Govind Suru, P L Vaidya, A N Upadhye, H C Bhayani
Publisher: Prakrit Text Society Ahmedabad

Page 475

178
Gaüļavaho
314. When siva observed the goddess, gracefully moving about in dalliance before Him, He was affected by libidinous feelings of love and started repenting (3rpara) for his rash action of burning the god of love. The breaths, He exhaled at the time, were very tormentingly hot, perhaps because they drew (#1663T) in them, the fire of His third eye.
315. The perfected (fr) devotees hold constant, uninterrupted sessions in their assemblies (#5), when oil-lamps are kept burning all the time. Cf. facergastraat : frui: fa&HUED 7 fafhat: yatar: ... Com.
317. Heaps of hair offered by people to the goddess in devotion were strewn and scattered about in the courtyard (3115T). The gusts of whirlwind (9756u5) lifted them along with the dust. Their appearance looked like evil goblins and kept the courtyard fully awake (9f83f71t37).
319. Women devotees, going on top of one another in their curiosity to see the animal being slain, form a pyramid or an edifice of perfumes (गंधउडि) as it were. कउलणारीओ - Women adherents of the cult of the worship of Sakti. “They are called Sāktas, of whom there are two classes, Kaula or Kaulika and Samayin. The Kaulas or the Left-handed (ATHATT) Sāktas, as they are called, worship their goddess Śakti represented either by a Sricakra i. e. a picture of the female organ drawn in the centre of nine such organs on a piece of silken cloth or the organ of a living beautiful woman. They offer to her and themselves indulge in taking wine, flesh, honey, fish and such other things, including sexual intercourse. It is interesting to note how the conception of Sakti i.e.
energy', representing originally the powers of willing, acting, creating etc. came to be first deified as a goddess, chiefly because of the word's feminine gender, being looked upon as the Consort of Siva. Later various forms of the goddess, blissful and fierce, were developed, the latter ones being named as a </T, FOTOST, THIET etc. This is due to the influence of the original forms of worship and also on account of its association or even identification with the Saivite schools of Kāpālikas, who indulged in the offerings of animals and even human beings. (' Saivism and Vaisnavism' by Bhandarkar ).