Bhuvaneshvari

Bhuvaneśvarī

"Mistress of the world", and where her shrines actually are

Bhuvaneśvarī — "mistress of the world", bhūvan (world, cosmos) + īśvarī (mistress, goddess) — is a name of Durgā/Mahādevī, and it appears among the divine names given to the goddess in the Māhabhārata's Devī-stotra and in the Mārkṇḍeya Purāṇa. As a cult she is thin. She is not one of the nava-durgā of the North Indian Navarātri sequence, not one of the ten Mahāvidyās in the standard Śāradā list, and not a śakti-pīṭha in the standard lists; what she is instead is a name-form that particular shrines and particular regional bhakti writers have taken up, and the institution of Bhuvaneśvarī worship in this entry's home region — the frontmatter places it in Uttarakhand — is not documented in any source consulted here.

That is worth saying plainly, because a Bhuvaneśvarī page written from a name rather than from a place would invent a cult. The three things a guardian must establish, and which this entry cannot, are: which shrine is meant (there are small Bhuvaneśvarī temples in several north Indian hill towns, and the name is also used for the śakti of particular linga-shrines); whether the shrine is a Durga shrine, a śakti shrine or a sampradāya foundation of a local clan; and what its kalat, pūjā and vow are. The bhakti poetry that uses the name — the Devī-māhātmya stotras and the vernacular songs — is a real but separate thing from the śālā in which a village worships.

The frontmatter's framing of Bhuvaneśvarī as "the fourth Mahāvidyā" is a further problem. The Mahāvidyā sequence has a conventional order that differs between texts, and Bhuvaneśvarī is not a member of it; that number appears to have been attached to her by a later text or a modern list. It should be struck unless a source is produced.

Sources and what is still unverified

• Māhabhārata's Devī-stotra and the Mārkṇḍeya Purāṇa — for the name and its context, at work level.
• Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses — for the Durgā name-forms and their local take-up.
• Uttarakhand District Gazetteers (Government of India gazetteer series) — to be checked, though which shrine is meant is unresolved.
• Unverified and to be struck or sourced: the "fourth Mahāvidyā" numbering, the "embodiment of cosmic space" gloss, and the goddess's local standing.