Devalok
Temple legend · 3 tellings · East India, North India, Pan-India

The goddess of the full plate: Annapurna at Kashi

Shiva calls the world and its food an illusion; Parvati withdraws and the world starves; Shiva comes to Kashi with a begging bowl and she feeds him by hand. Bengal's Annada Mangal tells the same famine with Shiva dancing for joy and Vishvakarma building her city.

Who is in it

Places: Kashi (Varanasi) · Texts: Annada Mangal (Bharatchandra Ray, 1752-53), Linga Purana, Skanda Purana

The story, beat by beat

  1. Shiva and Parvati argue about the world; Shiva says all that is material, food included, is illusion.
  2. Parvati, who rules the material, disappears to show what she is.
  3. Food vanishes; gods, humans and demons go hungry; even the gods beg and find nothing.
  4. Word comes that one kitchen is still open, in Kashi.
  5. Shiva goes there with a bowl and asks for alms, and finds Parvati as Annapurna with a ladle and a pot.
  6. She feeds him by hand; he admits that food is no illusion to those who hunger, and vows that Kashi will never know hunger under her care.
  7. Shankara's hymn ends every verse by asking her for alms; the Kashi temple shows Shiva at her side with the bowl.
  8. In Bengal's Annada Mangal she empties the world of food, feeds the hungry Shiva, and he dances; Vishvakarma builds her a temple and a city at Kashi; Vyasa, barred from the city, tries to build a rival Kashi and fails.

food withdrawal begging kashi maya

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Temple tradition

Kashi Annapurna temple tradition and the Annapurna Stotram

North India · Varanasi Shakta

The temple beside Vishwanath, rebuilt in 1729 by Peshwa Baji Rao I, tells two stories. In the one the temple calls more widely held, Shiva and Parvati debate and Shiva declares the material world, food included, an illusion. Offended, Parvati vanishes and withdraws nourishment from the earth; a famine falls on gods, humans and demons alike. Shiva appears in Kashi as a beggar with a bowl and asks Annapurna for alms; she feeds him by hand, he acknowledges the place of food, and he vows that Kashi will never know hunger or poverty under her care. In the other, Parvati once closed Shiva's three eyes, the universe went dark and she lost her fair colour; Shiva told her to give food in Kashi, and she took the form of Annapurna with a golden ladle and pot. The temple keeps a brass image for daily sight and a golden one shown once a year at Annakut after Diwali, with Shiva beside her begging for food. The hymn attributed to Shankara, twelve verses, ends each of its first ten verses by asking her for alms, calls her ever full and Shankara's beloved, and closes: Parvati is my mother, Maheshvara my father, Shiva's devotees my kin, the three worlds my country.

The Kashi Annapurna Temple: A Sacred Abode of Nourishment (temple website); Wikipedia: Annapurna (goddess); Annapurna Devi Mandir; Annada Mangal; Bharatchandra Ray § Annapurna_Devi_Mandir; Annapurna Stotram attributed to Adi Shankara, text and meaning (shlokam.org); Wikipedia: Annapurna (goddess); Annapurna Devi Mandir; Annada Mangal; Bharatchandra Ray § Annapurna_(goddess)

Primary text (translation)

Bharatchandra Ray, Annada Mangal, book 1 (Bengal, 1752)

East India · Nadia, Bengal Shakta

Bharatchandra's poem, written for Krishnachandra of Nadia, opens with Sati at Daksha's sacrifice, Daksha left with a goat's head by Nandi, and Parvati's birth and wedding. Then Annapurna depletes the world's food supply and feeds a hungry Shiva, who dances in gratitude. Shiva commissions Vishvakarma to build a temple and a city for her at Kashi. Vyasa, who forbids the worship of Shiva, is barred from Kashi and plans a second Kashi of his own; Annada confronts him disguised as an old woman, and he ends by cursing those who die in his city to be reborn as donkeys. Annapurna then sends her heavenly servants Vasundhar and Vasundhara to the mortal world; Harihor, the earthly Vasundhar, and Bhabananda Majumdar, the patron's ancestor, carry her worship into Bengal. Every poem ends with a signature praising the king of Nadia.

What is different here:

No debate about maya is reported; the famine is her act and the feeding ends in Shiva's dance; the city is built for her by Vishvakarma; Vyasa's rival Kashi; the goddess's road to Bengal.

Reviews of In Praise of Annada (Murty Classical Library translation of Bharatchandra's Annadamangal): the complete review; Parabaas § complete-review; Reviews of In Praise of Annada (Murty Classical Library translation of Bharatchandra's Annadamangal): the complete review; Parabaas § parabaas; Wikipedia: Annapurna (goddess); Annapurna Devi Mandir; Annada Mangal; Bharatchandra Ray § Annada_Mangal; Banglapedia: Agamani-vijaya; Mangalkavya (Annadamangal) § mangalkavya

Encyclopedia

The Puranic attributions (Linga Purana, Skanda Purana) as the encyclopedia reports them

Pan-India All traditions

Wikipedia reports that in the Linga Purana Shiva begs for food for his children when a miracle of Parvati's has emptied the world, and that she comes out as Annapurna and feeds him at his door, after which he builds the Vishwanath temple in her honour; and that in the Skanda Purana the sage Vyasa, led to Kashi by a curse, is fed by Annapurna in the form of a housewife. The Devi Bhagavata is said to call Annapurna the goddess of Kanchi and Vishalakshi the goddess of Kashi. Neither chapter was opened.

What is different here:

Second-hand; records what the Puranas are said to hold without a chapter.

Wikipedia: Annapurna (goddess); Annapurna Devi Mandir; Annada Mangal; Bharatchandra Ray § Annapurna_(goddess); Skanda Maha Purana Vyasa Ashtakam, part 1 (Advaita-l mailing list, 2021)

Sources: The Kashi Annapurna Temple: A Sacred Abode of Nourishment (temple website); Wikipedia: Annapurna (goddess); Annapurna Devi Mandir; Annada Mangal; Bharatchandra Ray; Annapurna Stotram attributed to Adi Shankara, text and meaning (shlokam.org); Reviews of In Praise of Annada (Murty Classical Library translation of Bharatchandra's Annadamangal): the complete review; Parabaas; Banglapedia: Agamani-vijaya; Mangalkavya (Annadamangal); Skanda Maha Purana Vyasa Ashtakam, part 1 (Advaita-l mailing list, 2021)

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