Posted on: Sunday, October 10, 2004
Infusing the goddess — temporarily
| • | A glimpse into Hinduism |
By Mary Kaye Ritz
Advertiser Religion and Ethics Writer
Some interesting quandaries are unfolding at the Honolulu Academy of Arts' Durga Puja, celebrating one of India's greatest festivals commemorating the victory of the goddess Durga over the evil buffalo demon Mahishasura, or the victory of good over evil. Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser Palchoudhuri fields questions from passers-by, including from Pat Crosby of Makiki, who'd just finished lunch with a friend at the museum cafe.
Palchoudhuri is explaining how the clay has been prepared with dirt from a prostitute's house.
This, she says, is to symbolize the universality of the festival.
"Because everyone comes together at festivals, people from all castes," she explains.
When the eye-opening ceremony takes place today, the artists will call upon Durga to infuse the statue with her essence. In India, once the Durga is finished being worshiped, the statue is immersed in the river.
There are traditionalists like Rama Nath Sharma, a Sanskrit professor at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, who says a museum is not an appropriate place to call upon the gods to come to stay, since worship won't be performed there.
Never fear, responds Sengupta: The ceremony will only ask the goddess to infuse the statue during the festival, but then be asked to leave when the sculpture is given to the museum.
"The ritual part of it will be very brief," he said. "Because we are doing it in a museum, it's not the same thing as a community, where it would be puja (prayer). Ritualistic 'worship' is not going on. At the conclusion of puja (they will say), 'Now, turn back into what you are.' So the image is an idol until you do install that life in it. Once the puja is over, it jumps back into a museum piece.
"The Durga here is an art form."
Other Hindus celebrate this time of year, near the autumnal equinox, as Navaratri.
According to museum literature, Durga was born out of the combined energy of the three principal Hindu gods, and is considered one of the most powerful in the Hindu pantheon. She is a friendly deity who takes care of all life, but in her role as protectress also has enormous destructive strength, thus the eight arms signifying her power.
Dipankar Sengupta has stopped by several times to check the progress of the clay-and-straw sculpture that's been going up at the courtyard at the museum. Craftsmen from India's West Bengal state are putting finishing touches on the project, coordinated by Ruby Palchoudhuri, executive director of the Crafts Council of West Bengal. Sengupta speaks Bengali, so it's a chance for the structural engineer at Sato and Associates in Honolulu to speak his mother tongue.
Master sculptor Nemai Chandra Pal prepares for today's Durga festival in the central courtyard of the Honolulu Academy of Arts.
