Goddess

Acrylic on canvas, 30” X 24”

Comments from Viewers, in response to the VTS question "what is going on the image"

Abeer Mathur out of d world!mindblowing!...aura of women power..!! May 18 at 8:40pm · Like · 1

Sujata Tibrewala >>thanks anand, padmaja, Mini, and meenakshi :) May 19 at 7:58pm · Like · 1

Sujata Tibrewala>> Abeer I see you see the aura of women power !!!Any other thoughts? May 19 at 7:59pm · Like · 1

Abeer Mathur>> i can see here different avatars of woman.. May 19 at 8:42pm · Like · 1

Sujata Tibrewala >>thanks abeer You see women with different attributes and personlaities.. May 21 at 4:08pm · Like · 2

Suresh Kumar >>good work sujata ji June 3 at 11:57pm · Like · 1

What Sujata had in mind when she painted

“ The Great mother bursts on the world of men in overwhelming wholeness and perfection.”

Ever since human struggle for survival eased, the goddess the mother was the first one for their symbolic thought. Goddess statues have been found all over the world, the first one found from 2500-1500 BC from Egypt, Nile, and then found all over the world, Mohenjo-Daro /Harappa, Africa, Celtic belt, Greece, Rome Turkey, Iraq, and many more. All these early goddesses were just the mother encompassing all other qualities both negative and positive, and attributes have been added and subtracted to the goddesses who survive today.

The watery abyss, the primeval waters, of which the world came out was Maat (also the goddess of Truth) is Egypt, whereas it was Nammu in Sumerian mythology that gave birth to An (heaven) and Ki (earth) and the first gods, representing the Apsu, the fresh water ocean that the Sumerians believed lay beneath the earth, the source of life-giving water and fertility in a country with almost no rainfall. In China it was Goddess Nu Gua who made the humans out of clay, and gave them life, after seeing her own reflection in the mirror. In Tibet it was sGrol-ma (Tara) who fell in love with saintly Bodhisatva in the form of a monkey sPyan-ras-gzigs (Avalokiteshwara), persuaded him and later on gave birth to six children who were ancestors of all Tibetans.

In Hindu Mythology it was the Goddess Vaak/Saraswati who gave birth to all living creatures. Similarly Gaia was the Greek goddess and Magna Mater was the roman goddesses of creation. Isis represented motherhood and fertility in Greek mythology, depicted in this painting. Demeter is the grain mother, goddess of earth in Greece.

Goddesses in Indian iconography when appear as a consort to a god are “tamed” and benign, Parvati, Saraswati, lakshmi. But when the goddess is independent she is wild, is to be feared on one hand because she can destroy, or be your protector, because her power surpasses all the male deities put together. For example Durga is the angry version of Parvati and Kaali the angry version of Durga. Neith was the goddess of Wisdom , War and Hunting in Greece. Sekhmet was the mistress of dread, Lady of slaughter, and goddess of healing in Sumerian Mythology. Ishtaar was the Babylonian goddess of love, sex, war and fertility in a counter part of Inana in Sumerian Mythology. In Greece Athena is the Virgin, war goddess and bringer of peace, cunning intelligence, skilled craft, female domestic activities like spinning and weaving, inventor of vase and flute. Vaak, Saraswati is the Mother of life forms, Knowledge, Wisdom, Word, Arts, Music, Moksha. In China Guanyin is the bodhisattva or enlightened being associated with compassion, purity and regeneration, and power over the seas and role as protector of fishermen.

In Greek Mythology Aphrodite is the goddess of War, Love, marriage and physical attraction. Her name means “born of foam”, she was believed to be born of the sea. Sitala (the goddess of smallpox and other skin diseases), Manasa: goddess of snakes, hariti and Shashti (goddess of Childbirth), Kanyakumari (the virgin goddess), Minakshi (fish eyed) who successed her father to rule the world. She goes to challenge Shiva to fight with him, but when she actually meets him, falls in love with him, and acquires feminine modesty. This image of warrior queen pacified or domesticated by Shiva mirrors the myth of Parvati domesticating Shiva’s wildness.

These stories myths and stories teach us that there are no absolute truths. Men and women were supposed to live together peacefully and make love, not war. We had enough battle on the sexes, and prejudices on what women can do, or what men can do. Examples abound of evil and good, weak and the courageous, strong and the weak, simple and intellectual, leaders and followers, famous and inconspicuous, both men and women. Now time has come to drop the prejudices in the name of “two sides of the same coin”, for the role of men and women, their emotional needs, responsibilities and duties. If one side loses and the other wins, both loose because none can live without the other…