JOGULAMBA: THE MOTHER WHO SITS ON THE PRETA
At Alampur, on the bank of the Tungabhadra, the Mother does not smile at you. Maa is seated on a preta, her tongue lolling out, her hair piled high and wild. In that hair crawl a lizard, a frog, a scorpion, a owl, and a human skull. Look at it straight, because she is looking at you.
The household in her hair
The old householders read it like a diagnosis. First comes the lizard, when a home forgets purity and upkeep. Then the frog and the scorpion, as damp and neglect let venom walk into the rooms. Then the owl, when the house goes dark and abandoned and the night birds roost in the rafters. At the end is the skull, which is death itself. Ruin has four steps, and Maa wears all four, bound in her own hair. Maa is Gruha Chandi, the fierce guardian of the home. She is the hand that holds the rot back from your door, and she does it by wearing the rot like jewellery.
The Preta beneath her
The Lalita Sahasranama names her Panchapretasanasina, the one seated on the five Pretas. Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra, Maheshwara and Sadashiva are the five great powers, and without Shakti they lie dead. They cannot create, preserve or dissolve. Only when she sits on them do they move. Creation, sustenance, dissolution, concealment and grace are all her work.
The mercury in her mouth
Alampur is also the land of Rasa Siddha and the Siddha Rasarnavam. The text says that when upasana is done by the rule, quicksilver oozes from the Linga of Bala Brahma, the thighs of Subrahmanya, the navel of Ganapati and the mouth of Jogulamba. That is parada, the mercury the alchemists called the seed of Shiva. It is said to turn iron to gold and the mortal body into a perfected yogic vessel. The nine Navabrahma temples are said to hide the nine herbs of the process. Maa's mouth is the furnace.
The tooth, the sword, the water
Mata Sati's upper teeth fell here, and this is the 5th of the 18 great Shakti Peethas. In 1390 the Bahmani sultans broke the temple, but the faithful hid Maa in the Bala Brahmeswara shrine, and Maa was not lost. Her ugra rupa, the fire in her form, is so fierce that the old builders ringed her sanctum with a pool of water to cool her. They were not trying to hold her back. They only made it possible for a householder to stand before her and live. For the sadhaka who wants her raw, the fire is still there.
She is the Mother of Yoginis, Joginula Amma. Offer her your fear and she will take it.
Jai Maa Jogulamba 🙏🏾🔻🌺