The legend of Annapurna, Hindu goddess of nourishment - Antara Raychaudhuri and Iseult Gillespie

Lord Shiva––primordial destroyer of evil,
slayer of demons,

protector, and omniscient observer of the
universe––was testing his wife’s patience.

Historically, the union between Shiva
and Parvati was a glorious one.

They maintained the equilibrium between
thought and action

on which the well-being
of the world depended.

Without Parvati as the agent of energy,
growth, and transformation on earth,

Shiva would become a detached observer,
and the world would remain static.

But together, the two formed a divine
union known as Ardhanarishvara––

a sacred combination

which brought fertility and connection
to all living things.

For these reasons, Parvati was worshipped
far and wide

as the mother of the natural world––

and the essential counterpart to Shiva’s
powers of raw creation.

She oversaw humanity’s material comforts;

and ensured that the earth’s inhabitants
were bonded to each other

physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Yet a rift had grown between these
two formidable forces.

While Parvati sustained daily life with
care and control,

Shiva had begun to be-little his wife’s
essential work––

and insisted on quarreling about
their roles in the universe.

He believed that Brahma, the Creator
of the world,

had conceived the material plane
purely for his own fancy.

And therefore, all material things
were merely distractions called māyā––

nothing but a cosmic illusion.

For millennia Parvati had merely smiled
knowingly

as Shiva dismissed the things she
nurtured.

But upon His latest rebuke,

she knew she had to prove the
importance of her work once and for all.

She took flight from the world,

withdrawing her half of the cosmic
energy that kept the earth turning.

At her disappearance, a sudden, terrifying
and all-encompassing scarcity

enveloped the world in eerie silence.

Without Parvati, the land became dry
and barren.

Rivers shrank and crops
shriveled in the fields.

Hunger descended on humanity.

Parents struggled to console their
starving children

while their own stomachs rumbled.

With nothing to eat, people no longer
gathered over heaped bowls of rice,

but withdrew and shrank from
the darkening world.

To His shock and awe,

Shiva also felt the profound emptiness
left by his wife’s absence.

Despite His supreme power,

He too realized that He was not immune
to the need for sustenance,

and His yearning felt bottomless
and unbearable.

As Shiva despaired over the desolate
earth,

He came to realize that the material
world could not be so easily dismissed.

At her husband’s epiphany,

the compassionate Parvati could no longer
stand by

and watch her devotees wasting away.

To walk among them and
restore their health,

she took the form of a new avatar,

carrying a golden bowl of porridge
and armed with a jewel-encrusted ladle.

As word of this hopeful figure spread,

she was worshipped as Annapurna,
the Goddess of food.

With the arrival of Annapurna,
the world blossomed anew.

People rejoiced at fertility and food,
and communed together to give thanks.

Some believe that Annapurna first appeared
in the sacred city of Kashi,

or the Place of Freedom,
on the banks of the Ganges––

where she opened a kitchen to fill the
bellies of the people

until they could eat no more.

But it was not only mere mortals who were
served at her feast.

Humbled at the scenes of earthly pleasure
blooming all around him,

Lord Shiva himself approached the goddess
with an empty bowl

and begged for food and forgiveness.

For this reason, the supreme deity is
sometimes portrayed as a poor beggar

at the mercy of Annapurna;

holding her golden bowl in her left hand,
while the right forms the abhaya mudra––

a gesture of safety and assurance.

With these symbols, this powerful avatar
makes it clear

that the material world is anything
but an illusion.

Rather, it is a cycle of life that must be
sustained––

from the feeding of open mouths and
rumbling bellies,

to the equilibrium of the earth.