One of the main aims of this Chapel is to make available the Holy Scriptures of God the Mother.
These are texts of Scriptural standing, mostly translated out of Sanskrit. Our aim has been to be faithful to the words of Scripture, and also to present Scriptural texts of devotional value to those who wish to worship in a purely matristic context.
Let us take the example of the Angelic Hymn to Dea, our first presented Scripture. This hymn comes from the mediaeval Indian Devi Gita which may be taken as the feminine equivalent of the Bhagavad Gita. In this work, God the Mother reveals Herself as the One Supreme Deity. It is nevertheless, being so late a text, presented in the context of a patriarchal world, though it is redolent with images and echoes of a much earlier era.
The Hymn itself is spoken by the devas, the Hindu gods, led by Vishnu. The context is that the devas, finding themselves in grave peril, consult with Vishnu who advises them to go to the Ruler of the Universe, God the Mother. When first they present themselves before Her, she appears in all the terrible glory and majesty of Her full Godhead. The devas are completely overawed and Dea then shows Herself in her beautiful, Motherly form. Weeping with awe and devotion, the devas then speak this great hymn of praise to Her.
In rendering this for a Western congregation, and for those who wish to worship God the Mother in a non-patriarchal context, certain considerations arise. We have, in our rendering, used the term angels for devas. This is because the word god in Western usage has long been used to mean the One Supreme Deity, so its use for a multiplicity of beings is confusing. Clearly in this Scripture, we are speaking of beings who, while much higher than human, are still creatures of the One Supreme Deity, who is Dea Herself. The term angel renders this idea more clearly to the Western mind.
It also serves another purpose. It allows the devotee who wishes to approach God the Mother in a purely matristic context to understand this hymn, when taken alone, as being addressed to Dea by Her angels or Janyati, who would originally have been depicted as feminine in form. We know this from the fact that before the patriarchal era, nearly all sacred images are in feminine form, and in the earliest times to which archaeological records are available to us, they are exclusively so.
Now, it is not our purpose to “reconstruct” these early forms as a religious system. There have been such attempts (under such names as “Wicca”, “neo-paganism” and “Goddess religion”) and they have inevitably been mere re-workings of the late-patriarchal (and especially post-1960s) ideologies of New-Ageism, feminism etc., underpinned by the general misunderstandings of Tradition inherent in modern psychology, anthropology, political assumptions and so forth.
In all humility, we feel that, basing ourselves as we do in Traditional philosophy and metaphysics, we could do a considerably better job of “reconstructing” ancient matristic religion, should we consider such an undertaking to be legitimate. Nevertheless, we should still be attempting to understand things that belong to an Age far higher and more pure than this Kali Yuga. We should still be bringing our human minds to bear on matters that are in nature Divine.
Therefore, our aim is to render the Scriptures of our Mother as faithfully as possible. Where, as in the Angelic Hymn, it is possible to allow the spirit, the unbroken thread, of the more ancient religion to breathe through, we hold this to be a valuable devotional undertaking, for sometimes the spirit, the unbroken thread, of the more ancient religion may be seen through the veil of words by souls who thirst for devotion to God the Mother in Her purest form.
But we do not hold ourselves authorised to change any word of Scripture. Where we have interpretations or things to add, these belong in the commentary, and we shall provide extensive commentaries on the Scriptural verses helping the devotee to understand them in the context of traditional spiritual thought, and also, where this is helpful, in a pure-matristic light.
With the great Devi Gita, two approaches are possible. One is to present the whole of it in its full patriarchal context, in which it shows the (literally) infinite supremacy of God the Mother over the later male gods*. The other is to present those portions which devotees can read in the light of their spiritual continuity with the original, purely matristic, tradition. This we have done in the case of the Angelic Hymn.
In translating a sacred and far more complex and expressive language into one of the late languages of the Kali Yuga such as English, other questions will also arise. Sanskrit is full of terms that do not translate directly into English, so that some translations are so full of compounds and strange coinages as to be almost unreadable, while others achieve idiomatic English at the expense of a strict adherence to the text. Our aim has been to use, as far as possible, real English words in the translation, glossing them (and providing the Sanskrit originals) where necessary in the commentary.
We have also adopted a style that is somewhat archaic and Biblical. There is good precedent for this. The King James Bible itself used a style that was deliberately archaic even in the 17th century, on the grounds that Scripture in the vernacular should speak to devotees in tones that indicate its dignity and its profoundly traditional nature.
We respectfully recommend that the devotee now proceed to the Angelic Hymn to God the Mother.
* This raises the question of where a devotee of God the Mother stands on the question of male gods. Essentially, we would regard all gods in authentic traditions as being emanations of the One True Deity, but for us Dea is the Source of all such emanations. This is essentially a question of perspective, for the One Supreme Deity can be seen through any manifestation of the Divine, and She has graciously manifested Herself in forms suitable to different temperaments and different societies.