page_title: Matangi
section_title: Worship
hierarchical_section_title: Matangi / Worship
caption_attribution_description: English: Matangi Yantra
context_page_description: Matangi {Sanskrit: मातङ्गी, Mātaṅgī is a Hindu goddess. She is one of the Mahavidyas, ten Tantric goddesses and an aspect of Devi, the Hindu Divine Mother. She is considered to be the Tantric form of Sarasvati, the goddess of music and learning. Like Sarasvati, Matangi governs speech, music, knowledge and the arts. Her worship is prescribed to acquire supernatural powers, especially gaining control over enemies, attracting people to oneself, acquiring mastery over the arts and gaining supreme knowledge.
  Matangi is often associated with pollution, inauspiciousness and the periphery of Hindu society, which is embodied in her most popular form, known as Uchchhishta-Chandalini or Uchchhishta-Matangini. She is described as an outcaste and offered left-over or partially eaten food with unwashed hands or food after eating, both of which are considered to be impure in classical Hinduism.
  Matangi is represented as emerald green in colour. While Uchchhishta-Matangini carries a noose, sword, goad, and club, her other well-known form, Raja-Matangi, plays the veena and is often pictured with a parrot.
context_section_description: Besides the Mahavidya Bagalamukhi, Matangi is the other Mahavidya, whose worship is primarily prescribed to acquire supernatural powers. A hymn in the Maha-Bhagavata Purana asks her grace to control one's foes, while the Tantrasara says that recitation of her mantra, meditation on her form and her ritual worship gives one to the power to control people and make them attracted to oneself. Tantric sadhakas are regarded to have transcended the pollution by offering her left-over or partially eaten food (Uchchhishta) and thus overcome their ego. Worship of Matangi is described to allow her devotee to face the forbidden and transcend pollution, leading him to salvation or allowing him to gain supernatural powers for worldly goals. The Purashcharyarnava describes pleasing the goddess would result in her answering all the devotee's queries by whispering in her ear.
  Matangi is often worshipped with the mantra syllable Aim, which is associated with Saraswati and is the seed-syllable of knowledge, learning, and teaching. A longer mantra is also used:
  Om Hrim Aim Shrim Namo Bhagvati Ucchishtachandali Shri Matangeswari Sarvajanavasankari Swaha
  
  "Reverence to adorable Matangi, the outcast and residue, who gives control over all creatures"
  Her mantra may be repeated ten thousand times, repeated one thousand times while offering flowers and ghee in a fire sacrifice, or repeated one hundred times while offering water (Arghya) or while offering food to Brahmin priests. Her yantra (sacred geometric diagram), whether physically constructed or mentally envisioned, is used in worship along with the mantra. Offering certain items to a fire sacrifice—particularly those performed at cremation grounds, riverbanks, forests, or crossroads—while repeating the mantra is said to fulfill specific goals. An offering of Bael leaves is said to result in kingship; salt gives the power to control; turmeric gives the power to paralyze; neem twigs bring wealth; and an offering of sandalwood, camphor, and saffron together or a salt and honey mixture grants the power to attract people. A rice-flour bread prepared while repeating her mantra is said to give the power to attract women. It is likewise said that it is possible to make a person one's slave by feeding him or her the ashes of a crow whose stomach was stuffed with a conch and burnt in a cremation ground while repeating the goddess' mantra.
  Leftover or partially eaten food (Uchchhishta) is recommended to be offered to Matangi with the devotee in the polluted Uchchhishta state, that is, having eaten but not washed, with the remains of food in the mouth and hands. An offering of leftovers to Hindu deities or being in the polluted Uchchhishta state is a taboo in mainstream Hinduism. Another taboo that is broken in Matangi worship is the offering to the goddess of a cloth stained with menstrual blood to gain the ability to attract a mate. Menstrual blood is considered polluted in almost all Hindu scriptures and menstruating women are kept away from Hindu worship and temples. The outcaste Matangi community of Nepal collect polluted substances and items related to death and bad luck such as sacrificial animal heads and clothes of the deceased, and offers them at special stones kept at crossroads called chwasas, where the Matangi "consumes" them as an offering, thereby getting rid of the pollution. The Tantrasara also advises offerings to Matangi of meat, fish, cooked rice, milk and incense at crossroads or cremations grounds in the dead of the night to overpower enemies and gain poetic talent. Oblations of Uchchhishta, cat meat and goat meat to the goddess are said to help achieve Supreme knowledge.  A text proclaims Matangi's worship becomes fruitful only if the devotee reveres women as goddesses and refrains from criticizing them.
  No fasts or rituals to purify oneself before worship—typical of Hindu worship—are prescribed for Matangi worship. Anyone can use any mantra for worship, even though he is not initiated or considered unfit for worshipping any other deity. A thousand-name hymn from the Nanayavarta-t
caption: The yantra of Matangi, which is used in her worship
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