Devi Goddess Watch Online

[Jkobe Peoples]

Availableto watch online for free until the 1st April, the British Council and BFI Flare Festival continue their global, digital LGBTQ+ online film festival #FiveFilms4Freedom with a collection of four dramas and a documentary depicting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer experiences. Bringing together stories from India, Greece, South Korea, Canada and the UK, this diverse collection of short films provides intimate portraits of LGBTQ+ experiences across the world. Sit back and watch the films below.

A documentary following the story of Milan Halikowski, a teenager from the rural city of Prince George, BC. As a recently transitioned transgender boy, Milan deals with discrimination and abuse from his peers and teachers at school, as he seeks to find other kids like himself. Throughout these hardships, he becomes a role model and an advocate for trans people in his small community and beyond.

Exploring the reality of being a closeted lesbian in contemporary India. Tara, a feisty teenager begins to risks family and tradition as she pursues her attraction towards her housemaid, Devi. When they are caught together at a dinner party, Tara must suddenly define who she really is.

Devi: The Great Goddess was on view at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery from March 29, 1999 through September 6, 1999. The web site looks at the six aspects of the Indian goddess Devi and offers additional information on the contemporary and historical worship of Devi, activities for children and families, and a list of resources on South Asian arts and cultures.

This exhibition is made possible by generous grants from Enron/Enron Oil & Gas International, the Rockefeller Foundation, The Starr Foundation, Hughes Network Systems, and the ILA Foundation, Chicago. Related programs are made possible by Victoria P. and Roger W. Sant, the Smithsonian Educational Outreach Fund, and the Hazen Polsky Foundation.

Devi is all-important in Hinduism, but there are also forms of female divinity in Buddhism and Jainism. Today millions of Hindu men and women conduct regular pujas to Devi through one of her many manifestations. For some she is their primary deity while for others she is part of a greater pantheon. All Hindu goddesses may be viewed as different manifestations of Devi. In some forms she is benign and gentle, while in other forms she is dynamic and ferocious, but in all forms she is helpful to her devotees.

Manifestations of Devi are celebrated and worshiped throughout India. While there are gods and goddesses universally worshiped in India, nearly every Hindu community has its own specific deity to whom they specially relate. Usually that deity is a goddess as it is always a female deity who protects a village or town and it inhabitants.

The traditional Western formulation of the Hindu trinity in which Brahma is the creator, Vishnu is the preserver and Shiva is the destroyer, observes the Hindu world on the Judeo-Christian model. Brahma is of lesser significance as he cannot act until Vishnu gives him authority to do so. The three dynamic deities are Vishnu, Shiva, and Devi, each of whom encompasses all three divine functions of creation, preservation, and destruction.

There are many approaches to looking at Devi: chronological, religious, or by function. Here we have chosen to observe Devi through her six main functions, beginning with her most forceful and dynamic form and moving toward less potent forms.

Devi is first seen as cosmic force, where she destroys demonic forces that threaten world equilibrium, and creates, annihilates, and recreates the universe. Next, in her gentle, radiant dayini form, she is the gracious donor of boons, wealth, fortune, and success. As heroine and beloved, Devi comes down to earth and provides inspiring models for earthly women.

Devi is then seen as a local protector of villages, towns, and individual tribal peoples, where she is concerned only with local affairs. In her fifth aspect, Devi appears as semi-divine force, manifesting herself through fertility spirits, and other supernatural forms. Finally, she is also represented in woman saints, who are born on earth but endowed with deep spirituality and other-worldly powers.

As cosmic force Devi creates, annihilates, and recreates the universe. Of awesome appearance, she destroys demonic forces that threaten world equilibrium wielding weapons in multiple arms that testify to her ability to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. This category includes her form as Durga, slayer of the buffalo demon; black Kali; the emaciated Chamunda; and Devi herself.

As dayini, gracious donor of boons, she blesses devotees with wealth, fortune, and success. She is a gentle, radiant figure who attends to the daily needs of those who adore her. The first appearance of female divinities was in the guise of dayini, the gentle and beneficent fulfiller of the desires of devotees, a role which remains one of enduring strength and attraction. Dayinis take many and varied guises within the Hindu religion, and they also penetrate the Buddhist and Jain faiths which arose around the fifth century B.C. Here we see Devi as Lakshmi, Sarasvati, the river goddess Ganga, Vasudhara, the Buddhist goddess Tara, and the Jain goddess Ambika.

Sarasvati, goddess of learning and music, emerged as early as 1300 B.C. as Vach. Vach was considered both speech itself and the goddess of speech. Later, when transformed into the goddess of learning and music, she acquired her name and a swan as her vehicle. Hindus consider her to be the consort of the god Brahma.

Buddhist and Jains, whose faith places emphasis on knowledge as the means to liberation, also worship Sarasvati. She is commonly depicted seated on a lotus holding a stringed instrument, the Vina. Devotees, particularly children starting school, and students of all ages, worship Sarasvati as the source of knowledge. As the goddess of music she is particularly sacred to those who sing or play musical instruments.

Parvati is the consort of the god Shiva. She is constantly beside Shiva, watching him as he dances the dance of bliss, admiring him in his deeds of annihilation, joining him in games of dice or playing with their two sons, the elephant headed Ganesha and the warrior Skanda. Shiva and Parvati, whose love is deep and abiding, represent the paradigmatic divine family. Shiva and Parvati are often united in a single form known as Ardhanari (literally half woman) to represent the concept that the divine is both male and female.

The concept of water as potent energy in liquid form appears in the sacred Vedic texts that date back to 1300 B.C. By the start of the current era, the rivers Ganges and Yamuna were personified and invoked as life-giving waters. The celestial Ganges came to earth (starting in the Himalayas and flowing into the plains below) so that the cremated ashes of ancestors could be immersed in her waters thus enabling them to attain salvation.

Like her Hindu counterpart, Lakshmi, Vasudhara is the Buddhist goddess of wealth, good fortune and abundance and is one of the most popular household deities of Nepal. Devotees appeal to her for earthly riches and for fertility of the field and womb. This six-armed goddess holds four precious, life-sustaining symbols: a book of knowledge, a sheaf of grain, an auspicious water-filled vessel, and a cluster of jewels.

Goddesses were first introduced into the Jain faith as attendant deities of the twenty-four liberators known as Jinas. Of these Ambika (Mother Dear), is associated with the mango tree and its fruit and is always portrayed with one or both of her sons. She is worshiped on behalf of mothers and infants.

As heroine and beloved, Devi comes down to earth and her exemplary life provides an inspiring model for women. Devotees admire and adore these manifestations of Devi because of the greatness of their personal sacrifice and commitment to moral obligation; their portrayal of courage, and outspokenness; or their disregard of social norms in the face of overwhelming love.

Sita, heroine of the Ramayana epic, faithfully followed her husband Prince Rama (an incarnation of the god Vishnu) into exile. She has been lauded through the ages as the ideal wife. Abducted by the demon king Ravana and imprisoned for months in his palace before she is finally freed by Rama, she must prove her purity by entering blazing flames from which Agni, god of fire, delivers her intact to Rama. Sita is upheld as the model of wifely love and adherence to duty.

Draupadi, heroine of the Mahabharata epic, is bold and forthright even in adversity. Her husband Yudhisthira succumbing to his weakness for gambling, stakes and loses all (in a rigged game), including his wife. Draupadi challenges the assembly and demands to know how it is possible for one who has staked and lost his own self to retain the right to wager her.

At other times, a rock smeared with saffron and vermillion speaks of her presence. On occasion, a simply modeled stone image serves to invoke the deity. These goddesses, who are concerned only with local affairs, are all-important in the villages and tribal areas. They give an immediacy to worship that cannot be provided by the great male gods, Vishnu and Shiva, who are usually enshrined in temples in the major towns.

Sculptures often represent different aspects of tribal life. The bronze, on the left, is from the Kondh tribe. The woman bears distinctive tattoo marks on cheeks, chin, and forehead, as well as multiple piercings of the earlobes. As a preparation for marriage, Kondh girls are tattooed at the age of ten, while even earlier, holes are pierced along the outer ear and earlobes to receive the earrings their bridegroom will one day give them.

Sculptors who make images for the traditional temples work according to textual prescriptions following strict guidelines for the physical proportions of deities, their adornment, and other iconographic details. Folk artisans are unfettered by any such regulations. Their work, believed to be inspired directly by the deities who appear in their dream visions, renders each piece unique.

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