The “beauty of all three worlds” - Tripura Sundari is our goddess of desire. For when she shoots with her arrow made of five flowers and her sugarcane bow, love, lust, passion and devotion are all encompassing. She is Parvati, Kamakshi and the Devi - the primary goddess from which all life arises.
Her weapons of desire are not unique. Kama the god of desire had used them too. But in his hands, they were limiting. His attempt to trap Shiva’s desire for Parvati had failed. By then, the ascetic god had shut himself out of all that was alive. Isolated, with eyes closed, Shiva existed only for the inner world of tapas. Having lost his first wife violently, he had lost hope in the living world and everything that it had to offer.
So, when struck by Kama’s arrow of flowers, Shiva had opened his eyes, enraged by the disturbance - had instantly reduced the mischievous god of desire to ashes. But when Parvati changed herself into Tripura Sundari (to demonstrate not only her beauty but also her omnipresence in the three worlds), using the five flowered arrow and the sugarcane bow to bring Shiva out of his meditation to view her, life itself changed. Opening his eyes, he did not fall into, but had arrived at love. It was not a trap but a revelation, creating in him a desire for the world, and the pleasure of being part of it. She had brought the world to him. For she is nature herself - Prakriti, and was uniting with Purusha - the mind. The world… no, all three worlds were now complete.
About the Series:
This artwork is part of the “Sister Misfortune” series, through which the artist, Smruthi Gargi Eswar, narrates lesser-known stories from Indian mythology, while reflecting on the narrative surrounding women in our culture. Various Indian goddesses (devis) are depicted with a refreshing artistic lens.
In India, there is a constant burden on women to be “Devi-like”. Through this series, the artist attempts a reverse deification of the goddesses, making them appear like real women, in a real world. The series is an exploration not just of duality, but of multiplicity. It compels us to question our attitudes - women towards themselves, men towards women. How does the idea of a goddess coexist within every woman? How do we, as a society, so casually dismiss, disrespect, disregard, and defile in our everyday existence, those who we have bedecked with gold and enshrined in a temple?