The Divine and Demoniac: Mahisa's Heroic Struggle with Durga.

• Author: Rocher, Rosane
• Position: Book Review

By CARMEL BERKSON. Delhi: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1995. Pp. xv + 318. $29.95.

In this unexpected book, photographer and long-time student of Indian art Carmel Berkson ventures into the field of mythology, from a Jungian perspective. Berkson conceives of a primordial myth of an all-powerful half-human, half-animal deity, an embodiment of the controlling forces of nature, which was split into two distinct, separately worshiped components in late prehistoric times. But the memory of their shared origin lingers and prompts, in later times, the buffalo to reunite with the Goddess, but now, after his death. Berkson rejects the popular approach that would make the Goddess all light, reason, and order, and the buffalo an entirely demonic creature. She sees in him a valiant, resurgent hero who attempts "to come to terms with nothing less than the human condition" (p. 8), and with whom the Brahmin priest symbolically identifies. The relationship between Goddess and hero is marked by a constant tension between competing urges for separate and joint existence. The sacrifice of the buffalo, she contends, helps "the devotee to confront and to attempt to overcome atavistic tendencies" (p. 19).

In an initial chapter, Berkson offers a sociological reading of the contemporary Indian family designed to provide a rationale for the continuing importance of the myth. She describes a sensuous, nurturing, but also stifling and ultimately dangerous relationship between mother and son, which prompts him to seek independence at the same time that he continually yearns for her embrace throughout his life. She then proceeds to analyze in turn different parts of the myth: the birth of the hero, his labors, his encounters with the Goddess, and their battle. The sources are primarily, but not exclusively, Puranic, in English translations supplied by aides when none published was available. A chapter on the demon/deity...