‘Havan’ as Essence of Ritual Performance: Worshiping Goddess Banglamukhi in North India

Abstract (English)

Havan or homa is an ancient Vedic ritual in Hinduism that is generally performed with the chanting of mantras (sacred message or text) to invoke divine blessings, purify the environment, mark significant events and festivals, and attain spiritual and material benefits. Besides these reasons, the havans in Banglamukhi temples in north India are performed to protect from enemies and remove obstacles to achieving wishes. Goddess or Maa Banglamukhi is the destroyer of the enemy and performing havan to achieve this is the essence of Her worship.
Goddess Banglamukhi is regarded as the eighth Mahavidya (Great Wisdom) in the Dasha Mahavidya tradition, a group of ten tantrik deities in Hinduism. The havan is performed by a priest in which material or samagri (wood, herbs, ghee, grains, etc.) is offered into a consecrated fire, considered sacred symbolizing purity, transformation, and the divine presence. At Goddess Banglamukhi temple in Kangra district, Himachal Pradesh, the samagri of the havan is quite different. Each havan performed and every item of the samagri used in it is symbolic of the nature of the problem (usually kept secret, except from the Pandit performing the ritual), a kind of language code in Geertz's terminology that gives meaning to the actions performed, producing a specific cultural system. It is similar to the understanding of Catherine Bell's work, emphasizing ritual's dynamic and evolving nature and highlighting its adaptability and capacity for transformation within social contexts, embedded with strategic motives and functions. Using these two theoretical perspectives in particular, this paper seeks to analyze the significance of Goddess Banglamukhi in Maa Banglamukhi temple in district Kangra of Himachal Pradesh in north India, representing the powerful and divine feminine energy in Hinduism, and the performance of havan as the most essential aspect of ritual performance.