Annapurna: Why We Need The Divine Feminine, According To Hinduism
(OPINION) After the recent Women’s History Month, I am reminded of the innate power that we hold, something I never really gave attention to as I entered womanhood myself. Being raised in a nondenominational church meant being raised with a male-oriented God, purity culture that emphasized how a girl could get “defiled” and a reinforcement of being “meek and mild,” preparing myself to submit to my future husband. I had no idea who he would be, and yet I was taught that whoever he was, he would be the head over me, a divine position given to him by God the Father. I went along with it for about 18 years. But my ever-inquisitive journalistic mind always wondered “why?” Once I went away to college, I learned about different cultures and faith practices. I felt particularly intrigued by Indigenous and Eastern Spirituality, with their connections to the earth and the spirit realms, as well as the concepts of wholeness and harmony. One of those faith practices is Hinduism.
Of course, over the centuries and in modern society, Hinduism in some aspects is very patriarchal and also classist, keeping certain members of the Indian caste system — the “Untouchables” — out of temples. But that was not the original way of Hinduism. In the original way, everyone is a part of Brahman, the driving cosmic force of the universe itself. The creative feminine energetical counterpart to this divine power is known as Shakti. It is important to note that Hindus essentially worship this one being who manifests in different deity forms. I was always drawn to the fact that with the different deities, there were masculine and feminine counterparts. I learned about their different powers through many stories. One of those stories was about the god Shiva and goddess Parvati and the origin of the goddess Annapurna.
Upon researching Hinduism a bit deeper, Shiva and Parvati immediately fascinated me. Shiva has many titles, including the Master of Poison and Medicine, the Great Yogi, God of Time and the Cosmic Dancer. He is most commonly known as the Destroyer within the Trimurti, the Hindu trinity including Brahma the Creator and Vishnu the Preserver. There are a plethora of statues and images of Shiva doing his cosmic dance of destruction, Rudra Tandava. The dance is said to result in fires erupting, intense thunderstorms and even the obliteration of the sun, moon and stars. It sounds terrifying, but this destructiveness that results in death is necessary for new life to be reborn. His wife, Parvati, is the total opposite, known as the Goddess of Power, Nourishment, Devotion, Motherhood, Fertility and Harmony. She is a benevolent mother who takes care of her children on the Earth; she is the incarnation of Shakti energy. Together, Shiva and Parvati resemble the ancient Chinese Taoist concept of yin and yang, intertwined in sacred embrace until one day, Shiva challenged his wife’s duties.
In the legend of Annapurna, though Shiva loved his wife dearly, one day they got into an argument. He started it, telling Parvati that her job wasn’t even that important. He believed that everything in the world was an illusion anyways, including the food the people ate, so why did it matter? The dismissive attitude of her husband made Parvati bristle. She was the one who created things and took care of the people, and Shiva just didn’t seem to care. Feeling unappreciated and angered, Parvati came to a decision. If nothing she did mattered, then no one would even care if she left. So she hid herself from everyone and vanished, leaving her husband’s side.
The world immediately fell out of balance once Parvati left; both the cosmos’ and the Earth’s natural rhythms were out of sync. Droughts led to barren lands and eventually famine. All people were desperate for food, from the wealthy to the peasants, and everyone scraped by with whatever they could find. Shiva, of course, was distraught by his wife’s disappearance and the disarray of the universe, upset at himself for not appreciating Parvati’s very necessary work. As a motherly energy, Parvati couldn’t stand seeing all the suffering any longer and decided to incarnate as Annapurna, the Goddess of Food and Nourishment. In this form, she opened up a kitchen and distributed food to the starving. Shiva decided to disguise himself as an elderly man and visit the kitchen. Humbled and seeking forgiveness, he got on his knees before his wife and held out his begging bowl.
Shiva realized that without Parvati, not only was he incomplete, the entire world was incomplete. The destruction that he is known for happened against his will because Parvati was no longer beside him with her nourishing, creative, divine feminine energy. In our modern society, the system prioritizes masculine energy, a whole lot of yang. Men’s bodies basically run on the same 24-hour hormonal cycle, with high testosterone levels in the morning that dwindle by the evening. This makes the average workday pretty perfectly aligned with men. Women, on the other hand, have a hormonal cycle that goes through four different phases over the average span of a month: the menstrual phase, the follicular phase, the ovulation phase and the luteal phase. Fluctuating hormones means that our bodies are not as compatible with the societal work structure. We are living in a disproportionate society. There’s too much yang energy, too much go go go and not enough yin, nurturing and nourishing energy. This is not to say that the feminine is to “take over” but rather harmony is needed between the two energies. Feminine energy is needed to create and masculine energy is needed to execute. Both reside in all of us, and unless we have a healthy balance of both, we will be out of touch with ourselves and the world.
Brianna Jacobs is a senior at The King’s College in New York City, majoring in journalism, culture and society. She is also a spring 2023 intern with ReligionUnplugged.com. She’s previously reported and managed social accounts for The Empire State Tribune.