Tales for the Dying: The Death Narrative of the Bhagavata-Purana

5. Strī Naraka Dvāra— Woman as the Gateway to Hell

Many Western “students of the East” from Denis de Rougemont to Alan Watts seem to have cherished a naive hope that there would be no spirit/flesh dichotomy in an idealized “East,” which included India.1 The Bha\gavata-Pura\n≥a more often than not, however, upholds the “normative ideology,” be it dvaita or advaita, that considers the sensate world to be an inferior realm; with physical nature, emotional attachment, and the “feminine” in general viewed as impediments to liberation.2 The Bha\gavata, buttressed by the rhetoric of renunciation, takes up this issue, not from a frame of good versus evil, but from one of reality versus illusion; and death and dying are clearly part of the realm of illusion .3 Nevertheless, even when Kapila points out that illusions of attachment can work through men as well as women, “woman” is ultimately to blame:4 One who has attained the Self through my service and who aspires to the supreme stage of yoga should never associate with women. They say that, for him, she is the gateway to hell. Woman is ma\ya\ fashioned by god. She approaches gently. Yet, one should regard her as the death of the self, like a deep pit covered by grass. One who, due to attachment to women, attains the female gender, in delusion considers my ma\ya\ in the form of a man, as her husband, the bestower of wealth, home, and children. He should recognize the illusion of the self as having the nature of husband, home, and 77 5 STRI| NARAKA DVA|RA— WOMAN AS THE GATEWAY TO HELL children, one that is death brought about by fate, just as the singing of the hunter is death for the deer.5 (BhP. III. 31. 39–42) A derivative of pra + mad (pramattah) was previously used by S:uka to describe deluded householders. Here, another derivative (pramada\) is used for “woman,” and can be construed as either “young-woman” or “wanton-woman.”6 The use of pramada\ suggests a link between woman and the word’s deeper sense of “madness,” and we will frequently see how “woman” serves as a metonym for the “madness” of material desire.7 The most frequently used root in the type of description found above, however, is √muh which produces the derivative moha, “delusion or bewilderment.” Whereas the process of attachment, leading to bewilderment and ultimate ruin, is clinically delineated in the second chapter of the Bhagavadgêta\,8 it is portrayed in the Bha\gavata-Pura\n≥a through a series of conventional and mythic images, along with hyperbolically descriptive narratives. The paradigmatic illustration of this process is found in the Pura\n≥a’s version of the churning of the milky ocean legend (mentioned above) and the subsequent incarnation of Mohinê—Vis≥n≥u appearing in the form of an enchanting woman to bewilder the enemies of the gods. When the asuras snatch the nectar of immortality in their cosmic tug of war with the gods, Vis≥n≥u assumes the form of Mohinê (literally, the bewildering woman) who is said to be “beyond definition,” anirdes;yam. She is ornamentation personified, and succeeds in instantly awakening desire (ka\ma) in the minds of the demonic Daitya generals.9 Mohinê enchants the minds of the asuras while admonishing them: How is it that the descendants of the sage Kas;yapa are attached to a wanton woman like me? For the wise never place their trust in a lovely woman.10 (BhP. VIII.9.9) Mohinê compares the friendship of women to that of jackals and states that such relationships are temporary. She then dispenses the nectar, serving the gods first and leaving none for the asuras. This leads to another marathon war between the gods and demons in which Vis≥n≥u intervenes to tip the scales. The implications here are significant. First, there is the obvious opposition between the devas (divine beings who are attached to the god, Vis≥n≥u) and the asuras whose attachment is to the female form generated by Vis≥n≥u’s ma\ya\. The conventional moral is that the gods will 78 TALES FOR THE DYING attain immortality and defeat the demons, whose attachment to the enchantress is their downfall. Thus, “good,” “godly” people will control their impulses and prosper. The characteristic depiction of the asura as one who is attached to the feminine can...