Bagalamukhi: The Eighth Mahavidya, the Yellow Goddess Who Stills Speech

Bagalamukhi, also spelled Baglamukhi or Bagla, is the eighth of the ten Mahavidyas. She is called Pitambara, “the one clad in yellow”, and yellow is her colour in her dress, her flowers and her temples. The meaning of the name is debated: some read bagala as a form of valga, a bridle, and take the name to mean “the one who holds the mouth in check”, and a popular tradition connects it with the crane (baka), an image of stillness. This page sets out the image, the story, her temples and her day, as tradition tells them.

Form and iconography

The classic image shows a woman of golden-yellow complexion, dressed in yellow, seated on a golden throne in the midst of an ocean of nectar, with a crescent moon on her crown and three eyes. She has two arms. In her left hand she pulls out the tongue of a demon, and in her right she raises a club over his head. Some images give her four arms, with a noose and a mace and a book in addition. A yellow flower, a yellow cloth and a rosary of turmeric are among the objects associated with her.

The tradition reads the picture in a particular way. The demon is any force of hostile speech and confusion, and the club is the power that holds it still. The pulled tongue is not a wish to harm but the stopping of speech at its root. Her stillness, in the reading of devotees, is the power of silence: to stop an argument, a rumour or a storm in the mind before it moves.

The story as tradition tells it

The best-known story is of a storm that threatened the world. A terrible cyclone arose and began to destroy creation, and the gods turned to Vishnu in alarm. Vishnu did penance beside a great lake, the Haridra Sarovar (the turmeric lake), and the Goddess appeared out of the waters in a yellow form, and stilled the storm. The story is told in some of the Tantras and in popular devotion, and the place of the lake is sometimes given as Saurashtra in Gujarat, though other places claim it.

A second telling makes her appear in the tale of Madana, a demon who gained the power that whatever he said came true, and who began to use it to harm the world. The Goddess seized his tongue and stilled it, and at his request she placed him beside her, so that his name is joined with hers in worship. We give this as one version only, since versions differ.

What the form means

The tradition calls her power stambhana, a Sanskrit word for stopping, paralysing or making rigid, and it is the name of one of the traditional aims of Tantric practice. In plain words, the tradition says that she stops the harmful word, the false argument and the force of a hostile mind. Many devotees find the image consoling when they face a dispute, a legal case or a conflict, and the temples of Bagalamukhi are known as places that litigants visit.

We say plainly that no outcome is promised. A court case is decided by its facts and the law, and a sensible person who is in one should rely on a qualified lawyer. A gentler reading of the form is available too: Bagalamukhi as the power of stillness before speech, which many people find a good thing to have when they are angry.

The tradition also holds that this power should not be used to harm. The texts caution in many places that practices that aim at controlling others bring consequences, and we do not describe them here.

Where she is worshipped

The Pitambara Peeth at Datia, in Madhya Pradesh, is one of the most visited shrines of Bagalamukhi, and has a Dhumavati temple within the same complex; see the Dhumavati page. The Baglamukhi temple at Nalkheda, in the Agar Malwa district of Madhya Pradesh, is another large centre. In Himachal Pradesh, the temple at Bankhandi near Kangra is widely known. Bagalamukhi also has a shrine at the Kamakhya complex in Assam. Temples keep their own rules about offerings, dress and who may enter, and we do not give timings, fees or rules; check each temple’s own site.

Festivals

Her jayanti is commonly given on the eighth day of the bright half of Vaishakha, though calendars differ and we give no date. She is honoured in the Navratri festivals; see the Sharad Navratri page and the Chaitra Navratri page. In the temples of Bagalamukhi, yellow is the colour of the day: devotees wear yellow, and yellow flowers and sweets are given. The nine days of Navratri are laid out on the day by day page.

A hymn that suits the Goddess in her protective side is the Devi Suktam. The Tantric worship of Bagalamukhi is taught within a lineage by a teacher and is not described here.

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