Mātaṅgī – The Power of Divine Word

As she strums the veena, objects of creation arise with the chords and dissolve into the silence. Her parrots mimic the veena’s sound to create language. In the silence, objects that have dissolved are carried forth by this echoing capacity of language as memories, dreams and aspirations, fears and disasters, inventions and mistakes, and growth and annihilation. This is how life-forms grow and evolve: objects are referred to in words and images in a resounding expression of duality. With the end of a will-knowledge-action cycle, Matangi’s scimitar severs the object from the word. The birds wake up from the trance. Unbound from the chains of language, creation momentarily dances in freedom from duality. With the beginning of the next cycle, the veena’s strumming begins to bind creation into the trance of duality through language. – Dr. Kavitha Chinnaiyan, ‘Shakti Rising’