By Nandini Kapadia
With the advent of Navratri, the festive season has begun in right earnest. This beautiful festival of nine days is celebrated with great pomp and pageantry across the country. It marks a time to come together as a community and celebrate the divine feminine energy, Shakti, that sustains us all. It is a time to connect with and invoke her blessings, protection and guidance. Surely, it is also an auspicious time to commemorate the spiritual women of India who are emanations of the Divine Feminine.
Since millenniums, scores of female seers, sages, mystics and Bhakti saints have been shaping our cultural and spiritual heritage. Their life stories tell us of the tremendous courage they displayed in confronting patriarchal foundations or overcoming disadvantageous situations. They stood undaunted like a rock and never compromised with their choices. They explored, expressed, and contributed philosophical and spiritual concepts of immense value but have remained virtually obscure. Today, as we pour our venerations on the Mother of the Universe, let us also salute these embodiments of Nari Shakti.
In Hinduism, Shakti is responsible for the creation of the universe, the giver of life. And Shakti’s most natural expression is the woman who is the best representation of feminine spirituality. She gives birth, nourishes, and protects her children (creation). She is strong and resilient. She is wise, compassionate, intelligent, intuitive, tolerant, and devoted. She has a natural gift of nurturing and healing. As she is in tune with the deep intuitive voice within her, she carries the seed of the most powerful inner transformation. History has recorded numerous extraordinary women who connected with their “inner guru” and found the spiritual essence within themselves. Or, to put it differently, they attained Self-Realisation. However, the means each one adopted varied based on their predispositions and the era in which they lived.
In the Vedic Age, scriptures tell us, Gargi was an exceptionally brilliant thinker. Shunning stereotypes, she decided against marriage and instead dedicated her life to pursuing scriptural knowledge. She went on to become a highly acclaimed philosopher and was conferred the title of Brahmavadini, one who is an expert on the Vedas. Even today, she is honoured as the first woman scholar of India. Much later, with the rise of the Bhakti movement, emerged the likes of Mirabai in the north, Andal and Akka Mahadevi in the south, Varkari Sants in Maharashtra and many other remarkable women saints from different parts of the country. In modern times, Sarada Devi and Anandamayi Ma have won worldwide recognition as great spiritual leaders. The vast trove of devotional compositions like bhajans, vakhs, vachanas, abhangas and other literature they have left behind is an invaluable source of knowledge and inspiration for us.
Hence, iconic women from the past and present are an intrinsic part of our rich cultural and spiritual heritage. It is of paramount importance that we rediscover and consciously nurture such evolved personifications of feminine spirituality. For the modern woman, they are her best role models to empower herself. From them she can learn to anchor herself in her spiritual center; unleash the potential within, nourish her creativity, fight for equal rights and ultimately steer her family, and thereby her community and society toward progress and development. Therein lies the holistic well-being of the nation and the world.
(The writer is the author of ‘India’s Spiritual Heroines’)
