Kamakshi or Kamakhya - It is the power of the Goddess that matters

In the dark environs of Tantrik supremacy, every step into a physical temple is a leap into once own divine self. Kamakshi, as she is called, gives a deep flavour of the nature of Sati, that of Parvati, that of the consort of the great Lord Rudra. Kamakhya beholds a shrine, Kanchipuram displays her feminine beauty. Great poets like Adi Shankara have sung her praise, outlined her potential physical form, not just as a Goddess, but as that element of power that adorns the features of what we experience as a “woman”.

The Kalika Purana describes the beauty of Sati, the essence of womanhood, the one who all the Gods believe is the right consort to Lord Shiva. Kamakshi, the essence of love, describes her form as the powerful lover, with sweetness that can intoxicate, and potency that can blind the senses of any Bhakta. Saktaism is not for the weak, when it comes to the Goddess, Bhakti alone speaks. This state of heightened emotions leaves us aspiring for more of that divine love. What is that state of love, what is that state of emotion that makes the physical, spiritual and mental states come together. Surrendering oneself to the divine force brings that sacred numbness to our thoughts. All that matters is the Goddess within. 

The din of the surroundings are no longer heard, the jostling crowds no longer bother us, the darkness of the cave brings us closer to what is the potency of the goddess. Love isn’t just about sexuality, love is about intellect, love is about unpredictability, love is about miracles and love is about fearlessness. These emotions rule us and guide us, making us ever aware that a career in spiritualism is not a joke, it demands way more diligence from us … the question is are we ready to give it, are we capable of such love.

The poetry of Adi Shankar in the Soundarya Lahari can be taken as a sensual reproduction of the Goddess’s physical form. But what the Soundarya Lahari actually wants to convey is the power of the mystical beauty of the Goddess. It is not just about how she looks, it is about the nature of her power. The sacred SriChakra is her mystical embodiment, mixed with the essence of sacred syllables and offered to the fire. She is the one who glows in the heat of divine love, the one who raises the potency of sacred juices, the one who rules the mystical sciences of tantra, and the one who extracts the abstraction of divinity in miracles. 

Miracles are not a one of experience, they can be a regularity which means that life is transforming from within and people in the mundane don’t matter anymore. Worshipping her sacred feet delivers the power of the mystical arrows that adorn her toes. She is a throbbing energy that is within me, one that people can feel but cannot describe. The prescribed existence of human behaviour is questioned by the unpredictability of the spiritual universe, yes, these two worlds are not the same and when the rules of the spiritual world start to apply in the Maya  that we live in, the outcome is baffling, even to the Bhakta. Transformation in spiritualism is the maturity one achieves in the mind, in the body and in the soul after complete surrender. The meaning of surrender here is the complete acceptance and consciousness that the divine parent is her, and not our earthly parent, that we are here temporarily and we shall go, that the people we call family are lost souls brought together into a bond with rules that apply only in earthy relationship and in no other realm and finally that we are alone, we came here alone and we will leave alone. A long as this reality is achieved and all attachments broken, the essence of life, and death, and the soaring love between the understanding of these two events brings the much needed enlightenment into our otherwise insipid lives. 

Ritual worship is an outward expression of an inner desire to seek the supreme, the depth of one’s own emotion (if we are ever capable) stitched together with the bringing together of all our senses. 5 senses offer 5 elements to the Gods, fusing what is material with what is spiritual in the presence of sacred white fire. Miracles are the outcome of such worship, events that are unpredictable leaving us asking for more of such sacred occurrences. But to get here, one needs to give up fear, and the familiar. The question is - are we capable?

The Art of Information Architecture in Temple Architecture.

We have been told that Information Architecture tries to map the mental model of the end users. What is this mental model and are they really users? 

First let’s define whether they are “users” or “be-ers”. The idea of information architecture is to dive into the universe of what makes these people “BE” themselves rather than discover what they would “DO”, since they are what they are and they are not expected to do anything except just be themselves. 

Is information architecture about finding one’s way around a temple discovering its various parts or is it about understanding the underlying impact of one’s own psychology during this physical journey? Nothing explains this experience better than a trip down into the darkness of the ancient temple. The purpose of a temple served multiple needs, not only was it a place of social interaction in later years, its primary purpose was to unite the human side of a person with their God side! 

Let’s first probably agree we have a God side to us, the ancient structure re-enforced this inherent thought back to us. 

The basic actionable Information Architecture in temple architecture is the path of circumambulation around the main sanctum of the temple. The emblem of the supreme resides at the center and is visible in lamp light, a sacred fire that illuminates the little chamber, and the path around it is the single dedicated effort a person makes in all sincerity to worship the power of the supreme within. Is this enough to trigger the basic need of unconditional love towards the supreme - Bhakti! The ancients devised a far more complex strategy to ensure such emotion flowed as the user walked through the walls. 

Not only was the path defined as clockwise in all temples, but it was the basic need to demonstrate one’s sacred emotion of love to respect the power within in addition by circumambulating it. The combination of darkness and the rays of sunlight that decorated the inner chamber added to this experience, bringing a certain mysticism towards it. Small gaps in the ceiling of the temples enhanced the inner WOW experience within the mind of the be-er as they took the journey towards the self within these walls. 

Now, Information architecture was not just restricted to the path between the pillars, as the darkness grew and the sunlight reduced, the lamp lights lit up the interior into a make-belief heavenly world where the deities in their various exploits revealed themselves through the niches. These sculptures were not just about anybody, there was a whole science behind who stood within which niche and throughout the temples across the geography of India, these rules applied. 

If a Bhakta walked through the inner passage around the sanctum of a Shiva temple, they would see the forms of Ganesha, Devi, Nataraja, Lingodhbhava Shiva, Dakshinamurthy Shiva, Bhairava along the passage. These avatars are a must, and in addition to this, in the south the Bhakta silently associates with greater devotees like the Nayanars, 63 saintly poets in all who sang the praise of the Lord during their lifetimes. The idea of this experience being, they just didn’t walk through plain walls into darkness, their minds associate with the principle forms, connect with the undercurrent of the cult, understand its principle reasons for existence, its teachings, the core philosophy and relate to it at a far more powerful subtle level than just “doing” a walk around the sanctum. 

My understanding is that the essence of Information Architecture was far more resonant in the early ages of our ancients than what we apply today for the time to think and derive a method was that much more potent, essential and spot on. They didn’t focus on what people did, they focused on what people wanted to be and that is probably why best practices of Information Architecture during their time was far more effective that what we are building today, in the medium of digital. 

Strangely, rock brought home an in-depth feeling of comfort zone compared to digital of the present age and the resulting ROI was far more effective as it crossed centuries withstanding the test of time.

The Art of Wow Factors in Ancient India

While going through sacred texts I can’t but help draw a parallel between the works of Adi Shankaracharya in the Soundarya Lahari and the poetry of Bharavi in the Kiratarjuniya Mahakavya, both poets were contemporaries of each other ranging between the 6th century and 8th century. There was a flurry of activity in the world of literature and poetry at the time. Bharavi was the Pallava court poet with affluence even in the Chalukyan courts of the time. Adi Shankaracharya in comparison was an ascetic and yet both personalities dived into literature and poetry to showcase the depth of their devotion. Adi Shankara sang his poetry in the name of Kamakshi Amman of Kanchipuram while Bharavi cleverly combined the story of Arjuna and the hunter in the forest with Bhagirathi’s penance in the Descent of the Ganges, attributing his deep devotion in both stories to Lord Shiva. 

The panel of Mahabalipuram describes the story of Arjuna as the hunter who fights Lord Shiva and finally gains his confidence and is blessed with the Pasupatrastra to fight the Kauravas in war. In the same breath, Bhagirathi is also potentially inscribed on the same panel worshipping Lord Shiva (shown with the ganas) seeking his intervention to break Ganga's force when she descends to earth from the heavens. While there is a lot of politics sculpted on one side on this panel, there is a narrative that shows a hunter doing chores in the forest in a sculptured comic strip. They main focus though is Shiva, the largest overwhelming being on the sculptural panel.

Kiratarjuniya Panel, Mahabalipuram

So where is the wow factor in this elaborately carved out canvas in rock? The beauty in the panel is on display when it rains. The water collects at the top of the rocky panel (now blocked and filled with rubble!!) and flows down through the “river” carved into the rock right at the centre depicting the beautiful descent of the Ganges, reliving the poetry of the great Bharavi. The water falls into the pool below bring the large elephants back to life as they drink water from the pool. This experience is not just about viewing a panel coming to life but packed with a lot of spiritual and political meanings within the depictions of the panel. One can keep staring at the panel to just relive the moment as seen through the eyes of Bharavi. 

Let's move to the poetry of Adi Shankara in the Soundarya Lahari. He describes the sensuous beauty of the Goddess through his lines and at the same time prescribes the way to higher spiritual progress through the activation of the Kundalini Shakti. In the same breath he elaborates the various swarupas on the Goddess’s face as she blesses her devotees. The experience of shanta swarupa (peace), ghora swarupa (terrific), sounmya swarupa(happy) and most importantly, the movement of her eyes in her side glance has been greatly described in Adi Shankara’s poetry. The poetry itself comes with its rhythm and mystical flavour that brings devotion and power through the sounds embedded in individual verses. Here too there is a hidden wow factor, not in the poetry itself but in the experience of its knowledge while viewing the sacred Abhishekam of the deity at the temple of Kanchi. 

In the early hours of the morning, at the time of sunrise, the Goddess is given the sacred bath - Abhishekam. It is not just a sacred bath, it comes packed with an experience of pure bewilderment for the eyes to behold. And if you are well versed with the work of the great poet Shankara, you have signed up for an amazing experience of reliving the poet’s artistic work. Through a devotional experience of two hours at the temple, as the priests meticulously bathe the Goddess, she expresses her features. Pure water pouring over her form reveals her ghora rupa, the milk abhishekam reveals her shanta swarupam, and the sandalwood paste on her face reveals her Soumya swarupam. And just as we imbibe this magic of discovery, the priest takes the flame up to her face in Arti to reveal the side glance of her eyes, with a slight smile on her face. 

Is it the play of light or the genius of the sculptor to make such a ravishing form and almost brings her to life when light moves over her divine face. Its not just the breath taking beauty of her form and the symbolism of her love, but the very experience that she sits there alive and breathing in front of us, giving us the grace of this wonderful experience of her side glance.  

In both examples, the poets sang in praise producing great literary works and the sculptors brought their works to life in stone. Water was used as an essential ingredient to bring up the wow factor seasonally or daily in each case. And the experience was left in the hands of the viewer to imbibe and relive every time they looked at these phenomenal works of art that drove devotion, touching the emotions of the onlooker. Now this is pure user experience at play, when art, literature, mythology and lifestyle work hand in hand to bring an emotional experience embedded deep within the onlooker’s heart to life. 

Photo courtesy: www.holidify.com, Remote Traveler.