Occasionally, it is suggested that when it comes to the Goddess oriented mythology and theology – there is little which the various Indo-European spheres have to offer one another. Particularly as applies the Hindusphere.

Clearly these claims are incorrect – and often, they rest upon fundamentally, indeed foundationally fallacious notions that somehow Goddesses of our ancestors were ‘incorporated’ or ‘assimilated’ from non-Indo-European sources. The deities, in short, of the far-flung foreigner, rather than anybody we might be related to. So in the Greek sphere, pre-Greek or even Mesopotamian – and therefore having nothing to do with the Indo-Europeans who migrated to Northern India or Northern Europe. And vice versa. 

This would be a rather remarkable thing were it the case – as the persistent and consistent coterminities we can observe with these Goddess expressions are so coherent that it should require truly incredible ‘coincidence’ for these features to so consistently align all the way from India to Iceland. But some people just don’t want to believe … 

Anyway, the reason I set finger to keyboard upon this this evening just gone, is because it was the Eighth Night of NavRatri – Dedicated to Devi as MahaGauri, the Great White One / Most Beautiful. Why does what I have just said connect and pertain to the preceding few sentences? Simple. The mythology around the MahaGauri form of Devi is closely concordant with elements found in the Greek mythology around Demeter. That is to say – in both cases, we find the Goddess adopts a ‘Black, Furious’ form … Kali, Demeter Erinyes – and then, when the time has come for that Furor-form to subside, She goes and bathes herself in a sacred river, washing off the dark patina to once again become the shining and radiant beautiful Mother Goddess so beloved by all. 

Now there are, of course, quite an array of other elements to the relevant Greek and Hindu mythologies which actually do demonstrate that we are dealing with the same Goddess(es), the same original and archaic (Proto-)Indo-European myth(s) which have been carried forth and carried forward by various Indo-European descended peoples. It is not as ‘cursory’ as those relatively short string of elements I have aforementioned might otherwise imply. But I have already written extensively upon these matters – and if they are of interest, my earlier works ‘The Black Avenging Form Of The Earth Mother And The Pursuits Of The Sky Father As Solar Horseman – A Comparative Indo-European Typological Evocation’ (parts I and II), and ‘The Queen of Serpents – The Serpentine Form of the Indo-European Earth Mother‘ look at these in greater detail. There is also an ‘Arka’ post via way of brief synopsis.

Yet the point is a much simpler one: As we have so often said – in order to more properly and completely understand what is going on in the Greek iteration of the myth … we can only do so by considering it in the context of the Hindu understanding to the same figures, the same events, the same narrative and theological underpinnings. And then, of course, with reference to Skadi and other such expressions – by adding additional dimensionality through ‘cross-checking’ the insights thus gleaned via the other Indo-European perspectives as well.

Phrased in these terms, then, we see the situation as it more truly is. Not as a rather isolated and minor ‘one-off’ as some might be tempted to, viz. Demeter becoming Demeter Erinyes – but, instead, as being something important and quite pervasive … the Mother Goddess becoming Black and Furious, an enforcer of Cosmic Order ‘gainst the violations of same by men and even more potent beings than we. Now this is something which does, again, have more broad (if subtle) occurrences elsewhere within the Greek canon – but, of course, what has come down to us from those times is so fragmentary (indeed, it was fragmentary even at the height of the Classical age … an immense patchwork tapestry of local mythoi which did not always easily reconcile with one another), that it is immensely helpful to us to have just such a more macroscopic ‘guide’ to help facilitating us in identifying various expressions of the typology and thence linking them all back together. 

Today’s Night is that of SiddhiDhatri – and in that particular spirit, we might tangibly suggest that our mission is, so to speak, to ‘Put Things Back Together Again’. A rather figurative rendering for Her Name – to ‘Make Whole’, ‘Make Ideal’, ‘Empower’. 

A mission of quite some escalating saliency right across the Indo-European World.

Jai Mata Di !