Bagalamukhi: The Goddess of Paralyzing Power        Back

• Bagalamukhi is a Goddess of speech, and as such is related to Tara and regarded as a form of her.  When sound becomes manifest as light, Tara becomes Bagalamukhi.  When the brilliant light of speech comes forth, then Tara gains the effulgence of Bagalamukhi and cause all things to become still.  Bagalamukhi is thus the stunning radiance that comes forth from Divine Word and puts human or egoistic word to rest.

• Bagalamukhi gives a power of speech that leaves others silent and grasping for words.  She gives the decisive statement, the irrefutable conclusions, the pronouncement of ultimate truth.  Hence she is propitiated for success in discussions and debates.  No one can defeat her because she posseses the truth, the Self-nature.
• The weapon that puts an end to all conflict and confusion is the weapon of spiritual knowledge, the weapon of Brahman (Brahmastra).  The highest form of the Brahmastra is the question “Who am I?”  or “What is the Self?”
• Bagalamukhi turns each thing into its opposite.  She turns speech into silence, knowledge into ignorance, power into impotence, defeat into victory.  She represents the knowledge whereby each thing must in time becomes its opposite.  As the still point between dualities she allows us to master them.  We contact her grace when we see the opposite hidden in each situation and are no longer deceived by appearances.  To see the  failure hidden in success, the death hidden in life, or the joy hidden in sorrow are ways of contacting her reality.  Bagalamukhi is the secret presence of the opposite wherein each thing is dissolved back into the Unborn and the Uncreate.
• Bagalamukhi is another of the frightening forms of the Goddess.  Her color is yellow.  She is clad in yellow clothing and is adorned with yellow ornaments and yellow flowers (particularly the champak flower).  With her left hand she catches hold of her opponent’s tongue and with her right hand she strikes him on the head with her mace.  She sits upon a golden throne surrounded by red lotuses.  By some accounts she wears the crescent moon as a jewel on her head.