350 The Birth of Uma— [Juzy, 
Had giv’n her whole body a prey to the fire, 
In wrath at affronts from old Daxa her sire,— 
A new mother found for her birth to fresh life 
In this beauteous Me’NA, the mountain-king’s wife. 
The freedom with which the self-disembodied Sati chooses parents for a new 
birth to fresh life, (inferior indeed in station to the former one, inasmuch as Pitris, 
gods, and Munis, yield in dignity to the ten Brahmddicas, of whom Daxa was one, 
i. e. the next after Brahma, and his sacred Triad, )—is all in accordance with the doc- 
trine of the Indian metempsychosis, which compares this change to the shifting of 
garments. So the Bhagavad-Gita, II. 22. 
arsifa steifa war fara aur wate faery sity 
aaifa weufa atr sqcfT | sata data aatfa Set i 
To which may be compared a statement of similar liberty in Plato’s Phzdrus 
(vol. x. p. 326. ed. Bipont.) 
Though Sati daughter of Daxa, is the first birth of the goddess Siva, (or wife of 
Siva) a name which therefore equally designates Sati and Parvati or Uma,—we are 
not to consider this as the first emanation of the all-powerful energy so personified. 
As Maha-Maya, or Prakriti, or Ambica, the Great Mother, the principle of all 
nature, and variable or transitory existence,—she is Dévi or the Goddess by way of 
eminence, and holds a place in Hindt theology coeval with, and in some sort superior 
to, the Triad itself, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva,—the triple form which the before quies- 
cent and inactive deity (the neuter brahma or numen) assumed respectively for the 
Production, Support, and Destruction of the world. This characteristic feature of 
Gentile theology is detailed by Marcandéya, in that singular episode called the Dévi 
Mahatmyam, or exploits of this wondrous goddess—where, in the first chapter, she 
is described by the Rishi Médhas as lulling Vishnu the preserver into a deep sleep, 
by which the world’s creator, Brahm4, is threatened with destruction: who accord~ 
ingly invokes the goddess as fas3yayzt, or lady of the universe, and superior to 
himself, Vishnu and Siva,—beseeching her, that she would leave his preserver to 
awake and destroy the invading demons. In the next chapter we have the same 
goddess springing into more visible existence from the united splendours and 
energies of all the celestial deities, when expelled from heaven by the demon 
Mahisha,—on which occasion Himalaya among the rest presented her with jewels 
and with her attendant lion: thus armed as the terrible Durg4, she destroys Ma- 
hisha, and receives the homage of all the immortals. Her incarnation in the 
beautiful form of Gauri, Siva, or Parvati the nymph of Him4laya (from which she 
emerges in another form, to encounter the demons Sumbha and Nisumbha), is said 
in the 4th and Sth chapters, to be subsequent to this, as well as several other 
more terrible incarnations, which she specifies herself, (after her exploits as Cali 
and concentrator of the energies of all the gods,) in the 11th chapter. But it 
is remarkable that in neither place where the birth of Parvati is mentioned in 
that book, (IV. 33—35, and V. 40—43) is any allusion made to her preceding 
birth from Daxa as Sati : and the same omission is equally observable in the 
chapters respecting Uma in the lst Book of the Ramayana. 
