Parvati

The Seba library treats Parvati in 9 passages, across 7 authors (including Edinger, Edward F., Jung, Carl Gustav, Bly, Robert).

In the library

Parvati is the 'daughter of the axial mountain [the axis of the world], from which the earth energy springs forth.' He says that in Hindu symbolism 'the peaks of the mountains are regarded as places from which the earth energy flows into the ether.'

Edinger reads Parvati's name and myth as a symbol of chthonic earth energy ascending from the axis mundi, and links this to the inflationary danger of anima possession.

Edinger, Edward F., The Mysterium Lectures: A Journey Through C.G. Jung's Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1995thesis

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

The god Shiva, as Mahadeva and Parvati, is both male and female: he has even given one half of his body to his wife Parvati as a dwelling-place. The motif of continuous cohabitation is expressed in the well-known lingam symbol found everywhere in Indian temples.

Jung presents Shiva-Parvati as the Hindu archetype of the coniunctio, wherein the androgynous union of male and female is encoded in both myth and the lingam-yoni symbol.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Symbols of Transformation, 1952thesis

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

The Dravidian culture of southern India, which was prior to the Hindu culture, gave the name Pashupati to the Master of Animals and gave the name Parvati to his companion, the Lady of the Mountains.

Bly traces Parvati's origins to pre-Hindu Dravidian religion as the Lady of the Mountains paired with Pashupati, anchoring the figure in an archaic Neolithic dyad that prefigures Shivaism.

Bly, Robert, Iron John: A Book About Men, 1990thesis

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

Dancing Shiva is often depicted as an hermaphrodite, one half of the body of Shiva, the other Parvati his female side. The esoteric tradition describes the World dancer as hermaphroditic, the dual sexual organs concealed by the banner.

Pollack identifies Parvati as the feminine half of the hermaphroditic World Dancer, using the Shiva-Parvati union to express the Tarot's symbol of integrated wholeness and spiritual freedom.

Pollack, Rachel, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

The symbol on the front of the Tarot Chariot, like a nut and bolt, or a wheel and axle, is called the lingam and yoni, standing for Shiva, the masculine principle, and Parvati, the feminine principle, united in a single figure.

Pollack decodes the Tarot Chariot's central emblem as the lingam-yoni of Shiva and Parvati, reading their union as the focusing of unconscious energy through conscious will toward spiritual victory.

Pollack, Rachel, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

In Hindu mythology, there is the undying love between Shiva and Parvati.

Moore invokes the Shiva-Parvati bond as the mythic exemplar of the Lover archetype's highest expression—eternal, committed devotion between divine masculine and feminine.

Moore, Robert, King Warrior Magician Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, 1990supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

O dear, O dear Pārvatī (priye, O dear Pārvatī), You have asked Me that [which] was worth to be asked for, because this is the essence of all Tantras (tantra sāram idaṃ priye).

Singh's commentary situates Parvati as the inquiring interlocutor of Bhairava in the Vijnana Bhairava, her question prompting the revelation of the essence of Tantra and establishing the dialogic structure of that text.

Singh, Jaideva, Vijnana Bhairava: The Manual for Self-Realization, 1979supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

This is a misunderstanding of Pārvatī. But, in fact, sakala can be niṣkala and niṣkala can be sakala because of our theory of that pathway of traveling when we reach that ahaṃ and ma-ha-a.

Singh uses Parvati's expressed confusion between sakala and nishkala states as a dramatic device to introduce the Kashmiri Shaiva resolution of the apparent paradox between differentiated and undifferentiated consciousness.

Singh, Jaideva, Vijnana Bhairava: The Manual for Self-Realization, 1979aside

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

Goddess. See Earth, Mother; Earth Goddess; Gaṅgā; Goddess, The (Devī); Lotus Goddess; Māyā; Māyā-Shakti-Devī; Pārvatī; Prajñā-Pāramitā; Sarasvatī; Sāvitrī; Śachī (Indrāṇī)

Zimmer's index groups Parvati within a constellation of Hindu goddess figures, situating her as one manifestation of the broader Devi archetype alongside Shakti, Maya, and Sarasvati.

Zimmer, Heinrich, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, 1946aside

Dig deeper with Sebastian →