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Lakshmi, Saraswati and Durga symbolise the three energies that pervade the cosmos, write D K HARI and D K HEMA HARI
Navaratri is not just an annual event. Even though most people celebrate just one Navaratri festival during September-October every year, there are four Navaratri festivals in a year, each lasting nine nights and days.
The prime ones are celebrated in the months of March-April, the transition from winter to spring, and in the months of September-October, the transition from summer to autumn. These are the windows close to the two equinoxes as well, the period when days and nights are equal and balanced.
Navaratri celebrates the transitory nature between the four major seasons of nature — summer, winter, spring and autumn. The transition from one to the other does not take place in one day. Rather, according to Indic thought, it stretches over a span of nine to 10 days. So the transition period in nature spans roughly nine days and nights.
Such sensitive understanding of the transition from one season to another in nature reveals the refined approach in Indic thought that gave equal importance to periods between seasons and the seasons themselves that had specific calendar dates to herald their arrival.
Ritu Is Rhythm
Indic thought also viewed time from a cyclical perspective. This was inspired by the periodic, cyclical motion of celestial objects in outer space. The word ritu denotes the periodicity in nature. It shares the same root as the English word ‘rhythm’ for a periodic pattern.
Indic knowledge systems also held that something cyclical can only be perceived through an alignment. In the case of large celestial bodies, alignments can influence gravitational forces, magnetic fields and other such cosmic forces. It was also realised, recorded and revealed that alignments take place within a time window, a transitional period during which the interplay of forces occur.
Between Two Places
A sandhi is the joining of two places, two periods or two activities. A yuga sandhi is an overlapping time window that spans across two periods — a cusp period. This is one of the contributions of Oriental thought that alignments, yugas occur with an overlap period and do not have a particular cut-off date when one season will change to another. In the case of a transition from one season to another, the period of nine nights is the overlap period.
There is a saying in Sanskrit, Yatha pinde thatha Brahmande — as in the microcosm, so in the macrocosm. This reveals the relationship between our body, the body of the earth and the body of the cosmos.
The gross world, the macrocosm, is full of different kinds of alignments among the gross heavenly bodies, namely the earth, sun, planets and the galaxy. These alignments are what create an interplay among the forces of Nature. All these alignments, sandhi, have an impact on everybody, including on you and me.
Our mind, the microcosm, is constantly under the influence of the interplay and alignment of three subtle forces or energies — Ichcha Shakti, the desire or will to manifest, Kriya Shakti, the potential to act and manifest, and Jnana Shakti, knowledge power. Alignment of these energies denotes the culmination of their interplay, leading to a balanced state of mind.
Trinity Of Shakti
This knowledge, jnana shakti, should lead us to use our potential and faculties — kriya shakti — to align our subconscious desire and will — ichcha shakti — to be in sync with the cosmos. Since time immemorial, it is these three energies that we have been invoking and aligning with, in the form of the three goddesses, Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati, especially during Navaratri, the festival of seasonal transition.
SOURCE: Speaking tree
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