The legend of Annapurna, Hindu goddess of nourishment - Antara Raychaudhuri & Iseult Gillespie — Transcript

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1. 0:08Lord Shiva— primordial destroyer of evil, slayer of demons,
2. 0:13protector, and omniscient observer of the universe—
3. 0:17was testing his wife’s patience.
4. 0:19Historically, the union between Shiva and Parvati was a glorious one.
5. 0:25They maintained the equilibrium between thought and action
6. 0:29on which the well-being of the world depended.
7. 0:31Without Parvati as the agent of energy, growth, and transformation on Earth,
8. 0:37Shiva would become a detached observer, and the world would remain static.
9. 0:42But together, the two formed a divine union known as Ardhanarishvara––
10. 0:48a sacred combination
11. 0:49which brought fertility and connection to all living things.
12. 0:54For these reasons, Parvati was worshipped far and wide
13. 0:57as the mother of the natural world––
14. 0:59and the essential counterpart to Shiva’s powers of raw creation.
15. 1:04She oversaw humanity’s material comforts;
16. 1:07and ensured that the Earth’s inhabitants were bonded to each other
17. 1:12physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
18. 1:15Yet a rift had grown between these two formidable forces.
19. 1:19While Parvati sustained daily life with care and control,
20. 1:24Shiva had begun to belittle his wife’s essential work—
21. 1:28and insisted on quarreling about their roles in the universe.
22. 1:32He believed that Brahma, the Creator of the world,
23. 1:35had conceived the material plane purely for his own fancy.
24. 1:40And therefore, all material things were merely distractions called māyā—
25. 1:44nothing but a cosmic illusion.
26. 1:47For millennia Parvati had merely smiled knowingly
27. 1:51as Shiva dismissed the things she nurtured.
28. 1:54But upon His latest rebuke,
29. 1:56she knew she had to prove the importance of her work
30. 1:59once and for all.
31. 2:01She took flight from the world,
32. 2:03withdrawing her half of the cosmic energy that kept the Earth turning.
33. 2:07At her disappearance, a sudden, terrifying and all-encompassing scarcity
34. 2:13enveloped the world in eerie silence.
35. 2:16Without Parvati, the land became dry and barren.
36. 2:19Rivers shrank and crops shriveled in the fields.
37. 2:22Hunger descended on humanity.
38. 2:25Parents struggled to console their starving children
39. 2:28while their own stomachs rumbled.
40. 2:30With nothing to eat, people no longer gathered over heaped bowls of rice,
41. 2:34but withdrew and shrank from the darkening world.
42. 2:37To His shock and awe,
43. 2:39Shiva also felt the profound emptiness left by his wife’s absence.
44. 2:44Despite His supreme power,
45. 2:46He too realized that He was not immune to the need for sustenance,
46. 2:51and His yearning felt bottomless and unbearable.
47. 2:54As Shiva despaired over the desolate Earth,
48. 2:57He came to realize that the material world
49. 3:00could not be so easily dismissed.
50. 3:03At her husband’s epiphany,
51. 3:05the compassionate Parvati could no longer stand by
52. 3:08and watch her devotees wasting away.
53. 3:11To walk among them and restore their health,
54. 3:13she took the form of a new avatar,
55. 3:16carrying a golden bowl of porridge and armed with a jewel-encrusted ladle.
56. 3:22As word of this hopeful figure spread,
57. 3:24she was worshipped as Annapurna, the Goddess of food.
58. 3:29With the arrival of Annapurna, the world blossomed anew.
59. 3:33People rejoiced at fertility and food, and communed together to give thanks.
60. 3:39Some believe that Annapurna first appeared in the sacred city of Kashi,
61. 3:43or the Place of Freedom, on the banks of the Ganges—
62. 3:46where she opened a kitchen to fill the bellies of the people
63. 3:50until they could eat no more.
64. 3:52But it was not only mere mortals who were served at her feast.
65. 3:56Humbled at the scenes of earthly pleasure blooming all around him,
66. 4:00Lord Shiva himself approached the goddess with an empty bowl
67. 4:04and begged for food and forgiveness.
68. 4:07For this reason, the supreme deity is sometimes portrayed as a poor beggar
69. 4:12at the mercy of Annapurna;
70. 4:14holding her golden bowl in her left hand, while the right forms the abhaya mudra––
71. 4:19a gesture of safety and assurance.
72. 4:22With these symbols, this powerful avatar makes it clear
73. 4:26that the material world is anything but an illusion.
74. 4:29Rather, it is a cycle of life that must be sustained—
75. 4:33from the feeding of open mouths and rumbling bellies,
76. 4:36to the equilibrium of the Earth.