Dhumavati is the seventh of the ten Mahavidyas. Her name comes from dhuma, smoke, and means “the smoky one”. She is the one Mahavidya who is not beautiful, young or splendid: she is an old, thin widow, and the tradition treats her as a goddess of what is left when everything else has gone. It is among the least visited of the ten, and among the most thoughtful. This page sets out her image, the stories, the places and the day, as tradition tells them.
Form and iconography
The usual description is of a tall, thin old woman with a pale or smoky complexion, an unkempt look, dishevelled hair and teeth that are missing or crooked. Her clothes are worn and dirty, often white, the dress of a widow. Her eyes are restless and her face is stern. She rides in a chariot with no horse, with a crow on the banner or on the chariot, and she is shown with a winnowing basket (shurpa) in one hand. The other hand makes a gesture of giving, or trembles as if with age. She is hungry and thirsty, in the tradition’s description, and she stands or sits in the cremation ground.
The details of the image are the whole teaching. The winnowing basket is the tool that separates grain from husk, and her place in the cremation ground is where everything is stripped. The crow is a bird of the old world and of the ancestors, and is fed in the rites for the dead. The image offers no comfort, and that is what the tradition says about her: she is the Goddess who does not decorate the truth.
The stories as tradition tells them
There are two main stories. In the first, Sati grew hungry and asked Shiva for food. When he delayed, she swallowed him whole. Shiva, from inside her, begged her to let him out, and she did, but she had become a widow in doing so. He told her that she would be known in this form as Dhumavati, the smoky one, and that she would have a place of her own among the ten forms. This is one reason she is called the widow among the Mahavidyas.
In the second, Dhumavati is the smoke that rose from the sacrificial fire of Daksha, into which Sati had given up her body. The smoke, which carried the anger and grief of the event, became a form of the Goddess. Both stories use the same ideas: hunger that cannot be satisfied, a loss that cannot be undone, and a goddess who has none of the usual protections. Both are Tantric in their sources and differ in detail between texts.
What the form means
In the readings given by devotees and teachers, Dhumavati is emptiness, in the sense that all things are in the end taken away. The gap between what a person wants and what the world gives is made into a goddess. She is the Goddess in the form that meets grief, loneliness, old age and poverty, and does not ask them to be anything else. For the tradition this is a form of knowledge: seeing without illusion is also a kind of wisdom (vidya), and the name Mahavidya suits her as it does the others.
A gentler reading, often given, is that the crow and the basket stand for discernment: the one separates what is useful from what is not. We cannot say that this is the only way to read her. We say plainly that she is not a goddess who brings anything to the one who worships her, and no text we know describes her gifts in terms of wealth. Devotees who go to her usually do so in times of loss, to sit with a goddess who has also known it.
Because she is a widow, some people find her image painful, and some find it a comfort. The tradition does not tell any woman that she is meant to be like her. A widow in the family does not have to stand for anything but herself, and respect for widows is the proper response to the image.
Where she is worshipped
Dhumavati has a small number of temples compared with the other Mahavidyas. The Pitambara Peeth at Datia in Madhya Pradesh is a well-known shrine where a Dhumavati temple stands within the same complex as the temple of Bagalamukhi, and the complex is the place most associated with her in central India; see the Bagalamukhi page. She has a shrine at the Kamakhya complex in Assam, and there are Dhumavati shrines in Varanasi and in a few other towns. Her worship is tied to the Tantric traditions, and in a number of places the temple keeps closed days or limits who may enter, so a visitor should check each temple’s own site and notice.
Festivals
Her jayanti is commonly given on the eighth day of the bright half of Jyeshtha, though calendars differ and we give no date. She is also remembered in the Navratri festivals that keep the Mahavidyas; see the Sharad Navratri page and the Chaitra Navratri page. In some traditions, she is worshipped on the new moon nights and on the days when the dead are remembered, and the Pitru Paksha page describes that fortnight, when crows are fed in many households.
Tantric worship of Dhumavati belongs to a teacher’s lineage and is not described here. A quiet hymn of the Goddess, such as the Devi Aparadha Kshamapana Stotram, suits all of her forms.
Frequently asked questions
↳ Who is Dhumavati?
Dhumavati is the seventh Mahavidya, the smoky goddess, shown as an old widow with a crow and a winnowing basket. She is the only one of the ten without a husband.
↳ Why is Dhumavati a widow?
One story tells that Sati, in hunger, swallowed Shiva and then became a widow when he came out. Another says she was the smoke that rose from the fire in which Sati gave up her body.
↳ What does the crow mean?
The crow is a bird of the old world and of the ancestors, and it is fed in rites for the dead. On her banner it marks her link with endings and with remembrance.
↳ Is Dhumavati a harmful goddess?
Her image is stark, but tradition describes her as a goddess of emptiness and discernment and not of harm. Anyone drawn to her worship should approach it respectfully and through a teacher.
↳ When is Dhumavati Jayanti?
It is commonly given on the eighth day of the bright half of Jyeshtha, but calendars differ. Check your calendar or temple.