Devi and the “Borderlinking” of the Human and the Divine in Hindu Shakta Traditions

In Hindu Shakta traditions, the Goddess Devi mediates between material and spiritual realms, conjoining human, divine, and animal domains. Drawing on Bracha Ettinger's 'matrixial' theories, this chapter argues that Devi's play (lila) involves 'borderlinking' across these realms without excluding the animal or insentient. Devi serves as an ontological matrix where divine, nondivine, and yet-to-be-divine coexist. The human subject blessed by Devi achieves transhuman capabilities (siddhis) aligned with humility, honoring the divine feminine's agency. This proposes a paradigm of transhumanity devoid of androcentric and anthropocentric arrogance, challenging the androcentric definition of the human critiqued by Adriana Cavarero.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In the Hindu Shakta traditions, Devi is figured as a great mediatrix between the material and the spiritual, the conscious and the yet-to-be-conscious, the divine-becoming-human and the human-becoming-divine. However, the Indic Goddess does not operate only within the “human” and “divine” domains; rather, she can ontologically conjoin the human, divine and animal realms. Hence, the sentient and the insentient, the animal and the human, the divine-to-be-human and the human-to-be-divine are all involved in the maternal-feminine space that Devi stands for. Drawing on but also cross-culturally improvising on Bracha Ettinger’s “matrixial” theories, this chapter explores whether, in the lila (play) of Devi, we can see a play of “borderlinking” (a la Ettinger) the human and the divine in peculiar ways, without excluding the animal or even the insentient. Being, simultaneously, an ontological matrix to the human, the divine and the animal, she is one in whom we witness the integrative coexistence of the divine, the nondivine and the yet-to-be-divine. In this unique epistemology of the divine human, the human is potentially transhuman without being ontologically distanced from the animal or plant world, or even from the world of matter. The human subject blessed by Devi achieves transhuman capabilities ( siddhis ) but this achievement is supposed to be aligned with humility – honouring the agency of the divine feminine in making possible all forms of self-transcendence in her devotee, whether physical, mental or spiritual. Does this not foster a unique paradigm of transhumanity that is devoid of both androcentric and anthropocentric arrogance and is oriented towards a non-hubristic framework of human self-transcendence, which defies the androcentric definition of the human that has been so vigorously challenged by Adriana Cavarero?