Matangi: The Ninth Mahavidya, the Tantric Saraswati of Speech, Music and the Arts

Matangi is the ninth of the ten Mahavidyas. She is the goddess of speech, music, learning and the arts, and because of this she is called the Tantric Saraswati, the form of the Goddess of knowledge that is turned towards the world outside the formal rules. Her colour is green, her sound is the veena, and her bird is the parrot. She is among the gentler Mahavidyas in appearance, and among the least expected in what she stands for. This page covers her image, her place in the traditions, her names, her temples and her day, as tradition tells them.

Names and forms

Matangi has several named forms in the Tantras. Raja Matangi, “the royal Matangi”, is the form of courtly speech and the arts. Ucchishta Matangi is a form linked with food that has been touched by the mouth, and with the setting aside of rules of purity. Mantrini and Shyamala are the names by which she is known in the Sri Vidya tradition of Tripura Sundari, where she is the minister and chief counsellor of the Goddess Lalita, and the name Shyamala, “the dark-green one”, refers to her colour. The lists of her forms differ between texts.

The name Matangi is connected with the sage Matanga, and with the word matanga, which means an elephant and is also an old word for a person of a community outside the four classes. It is this second sense that gives the form some of its meaning, as the next section sets out.

Form and iconography

She is shown with emerald-green skin, three eyes and a crescent moon on her crown, seated on a throne or a lotus. She plays the veena, or holds one, and a parrot perches by her. Some images give her four arms with a noose, a goad, a sword and a skull cup, and others a flower and a rosary. She is dressed in red or green, with a garland of flowers and many ornaments. In some descriptions, her face is flushed, as in intoxication.

The green is the colour of the leaf and of the parrot, and in the Sri Vidya description it is the colour of the speech that grows and bears fruit. The veena links her with Saraswati, whose image also carries it. The difference that the tradition draws is that Saraswati is worshipped within the rules and Matangi outside them: she is the goddess of speech and art as they actually live in the world, and not only as they appear in the schoolroom.

The traditions around her

In Sri Vidya, as Mantrini, she is one of the two chief attendants of the Goddess in the story of Lalita and the demon Bhandasura, and she is the one who counsels. The Lalita Sahasranama, given on the Lalita Sahasranama page, is the hymn of the story, and her place in it is as the minister of the Goddess. The Shyamala tradition has its own hymns and a festival, Shyamala Navaratri, kept in some regions in the bright half of Magha.

In the Mahavidya tradition, she is the one who turns the idea of purity on its head. The form called Ucchishta Matangi is linked with the offering of leftover food, which is normally considered impure, and with the idea that the Goddess is not kept outside by the rules of caste or custom. The tradition describes her as a goddess of the lowest and the outcast, and some texts place her origin among a community the high-born would not touch. Scholars read this as a deliberate teaching: the divine is found where convention says it is not. Some Tantric lineages hold that the knowledge she gives is not bound by rank, and the form has been important to musicians, poets and others at the edge of society.

There is a popular story that the sage Matanga, who had no children, did penance to have a daughter, and that the Goddess herself was born to him as Matangi. Versions of it are told in the south and east of India and in Nepal, and the details differ between tellings.

What the form means

In the readings of devotees and teachers, Matangi is the Word, in all its living forms: song, speech, poetry, a craftsman’s skill. The reading that appeals to many people is that she is the goddess of the creative power that does not wait for permission. The tradition says that she is also the goddess of the inner voice, and she is closely allied to the Sanskrit idea of vak, speech itself, the oldest name of the Goddess in the Vedic hymns.

A modern note: the form has become popular with musicians and teachers, and a calm reading is that she honours the arts. No text promises talent as a result of worship, and practice and teachers are what produce skill.

Where she is worshipped

Matangi has a shrine at the Kamakhya complex in Assam, which is the place most associated with her among the Mahavidyas. She is worshipped at several Shakta temples, often together with other Mahavidyas, and in Sri Vidya circles as Shyamala and Raja Matangi. Her worship is mostly within a lineage, and temples keep their own rules; we do not give timings, fees or visiting rules. Check each temple’s own site.

Festivals

Her jayanti is commonly given on the third day of the bright half of Vaishakha, the same tithi as Akshaya Tritiya, though calendars differ and we give no date. The days of learning and music are also hers: Vasant Panchami, the festival of Saraswati, and the days of Navratri; see the Vasant Panchami page and the Navratri day by day page. The Saraswati Vandana is on this site for readers who wish to honour the Goddess of speech and learning.

Tantric worship of Matangi is taught only within a lineage and is not described here.

Frequently asked questions