Vaishnaviवैष्णवी

Vaiṣṇavī (वैष्णवी) is the śakti of Viṣṇu among the Saptamātṛkā, the seven mothers who accompany the Goddess in battle and stand together in temple sculpture across India. She mirrors Viṣṇu exactly: dark or cloud-hued, seated on the eagle Garuḍa, bearing the śaṅkha and cakra, the conch and discus, often with the mace and lotus completing the set. Crowned and richly ornamented in Viṣṇu's manner, she carries into feminine form the god's character as sustainer and orderer of the world.

In the texts

In the Devī Māhātmya, Vaiṣṇavī issues from Viṣṇu's body when the gods pour out their powers to aid the Goddess against Śumbha and Niśumbha, and she fights mounted on Garuḍa in the great slaughter of the demon Raktabīja. In the broader Śākta reading the sequence is reversed: the mothers are not fragments given off by the gods but faces of the one Devī, who merely wears each god's form. The name Vaiṣṇavī is accordingly also used of the supreme Goddess herself, as in the celebrated shrine of Vaiṣṇo Devī in the Trikūṭa hills, though the Mātṛkā and the pilgrimage goddess have distinct cults.

Worship

Vaiṣṇavī occupies the third seat in the conventional Mātṛkā panel, after Brahmāṇī and Māheśvarī. The seven are invoked together in tantric ritual, in temple consecration, and in rites of protection, particularly of children and of the household, in which the mothers' fierce maternal character is turned toward guardianship.