Seated Upon the Waters: The Iconography and Philosophy of Varuni Devi
Varuni Devi's presence in Hindu tradition is closely tied to
the account of Samudra Manthan, the churning of the cosmic ocean by the Devas
and Asuras. She is commonly described as the daughter of Varuna, the god of
water, and his consort Jyeshtha, emerging during the churning along with the
nectar of immortality and other divine treasures, and choosing companionship
with either the Devas or the Asuras depending on the telling. Other traditional
sources describe her differently: the Mahabharata refers to Varuni, also known
as Gauri, as one of Varuna's queens, alongside Vriddhi and Jeshta. This
variation itself reflects a broader pattern in Hindu sacred literature, where a
single devi is honoured through multiple, sometimes overlapping, identities
depending on the school of thought, the region, and the ritual context in which
she is invoked.
Because Varuna presides over the cosmic waters, order, and
the unseen moral law, Varuni's connection to him situates her firmly within the
domain of fluidity, transformation, and the dissolving of boundaries, themes
that carry directly into her iconographic form.
The Idol Form: Seated Goddess of the Four Arms
In Shakta and Tantric textual traditions, Varuni Devi is
envisioned seated in lalitasana, the posture of royal ease, upon a pedestal,
with one leg folded and the other resting downward, suggesting both repose and
readiness. She is shown with four arms, a feature shared with several other
regent-deities of the directions in classical shilpa shastra. Her upper hands
hold bowls containing meat and liquor, while her lower hands hold a lotus and a
vessel. She wears a tall kirita-makuta, along with necklaces, armlets, and
other ornaments befitting a devi of royal and cosmic stature. Beneath her
pedestal is carved a boat, a detail that firmly anchors her identity to the
waters and to her father Varuna, whose own iconographic descriptions place him
amid rivers, oceans, and aquatic vehicles.
This pairing of graceful posture and unconventional
offerings, meat and wine held alongside the lotus of purity, is not incidental.
It reflects a distinctly Tantric visual language in which apparent opposites,
the pure and the intoxicating, the worldly and the transcendent, are held
together within a single divine form.
Symbolism of Her Attributes
Each element of Varuni Devi's form carries layered meaning
within Tantric philosophy:
The bowls of meat and liquor relate to the
Panchamakara, the five substances used in certain Tantric Shakta rites. Rather
than being read literally, these substances symbolise the transcendence of
ordinary categories of purity and impurity, and the aspirant's movement beyond
conventional restraint toward direct spiritual realisation.
The lotus, held in a lower hand, is the
near-universal symbol across Hindu iconography of unblemished consciousness
rising untouched out of turbid water, representing the devi's essential purity
even while she holds substances considered impure by convention.
The vessel, often a kamandalu-like container,
reiterates her connection to water as the source of life, memory, and
dissolution, echoing the vessels carried by her father Varuna and by other
water-associated devatas.
The boat beneath the pedestal is her most distinctive
attribute, marking her as a devi who presides over crossing, whether the
crossing of oceans, of intoxication, or metaphorically of samsara itself. In
Hindu thought, the boat is a recurring image for the vehicle that carries the
soul across the ocean of worldly existence.
The kirita-makuta and ornaments denote her regal and
divine rank, aligning her visually with other Puranic devis and regents rather
than with fierce or ascetic forms of the goddess.
Varuni Among the Yoginis
Varuni also appears as one of the goddesses associated with
the Yogini traditions of eastern and central India. In the sixty-four Yogini
temple at Hirapur in Odisha, a Varuni figure is recorded among the carved
goddesses, shown there in a simpler two-armed standing form upon a pedestal
suggestive of waves, underscoring her enduring identification with the ocean
across different regional and sectarian renderings. This coexistence of a
two-armed Yogini form and a four-armed Tantric form seated in lalitasana illustrates
how a single devi's iconography can shift according to the temple tradition,
the century, and the ritual lineage, while her core identity as a goddess of
water and transformation remains constant.
Philosophical Importance
Within Shakta and Tantric philosophy, forms like Varuni Devi
illustrate a central teaching: that the Devi is not confined to a single
register of holiness, but pervades every category of experience, the pure and
the impure, the mild and the intoxicating, the domestic and the transgressive.
Her seated, ornamented, royal form holding both meat and lotus enacts the
non-dual understanding that divinity is not diminished by contact with the
world's contrasts; rather, it is revealed precisely through the reconciliation
of those contrasts. This is consistent with the broader Tantric emphasis on
realising the sacred within embodied, material existence rather than apart from
it.
Relevance in Contemporary Sculpture and Art
Contemporary temple sculptors and revivalist artists working
in Odisha, Bengal, and other regions where Shakta and Tantric worship remain
active continue to reference such archival descriptions when restoring or
recreating lesser-known devi forms. Varuni Devi, though rarely seen in
mainstream temple installations compared to devis like Lakshmi or Durga, offers
modern artists and scholars a valuable case study in how regional iconometric
texts preserved forms that never became part of the pan-Indian temple mainstream.
In academic and museum contexts, her form is increasingly referenced in
discussions of water symbolism, the Panchamakara doctrine, and the wider
iconographic vocabulary of Tantric Shaktism, making her relevant to ongoing
efforts to document and revive regional Hindu sculptural heritage.
A Note on Regional Variation
As with many Tantric and Shakta devis, Varuni Devi's attributes, the count of her arms, the exact objects in her hands, and even her posture, vary between texts and temple traditions. What remains consistent across these variations is the underlying association with water, with Varuna, and with the theme of transcending ordinary boundaries. It is this consistent core, rather than any single fixed image, that allows worshippers and scholars to identify her across the diverse iconographic record of Hindu sacred art.