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Matangi is often represented as emerald green in colour. While Ucchishta-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.
The Dhyana mantra (a mantra that details the form of the deity on which a devotee should meditate) of the Brhat Tantrasara describes Ucchishta-Matangini, one of the most popular forms of the goddess. Matangi is seated on a corpse and wears red garments, red jewellery and a garland of gunja seeds. The goddess is described as a young, sixteen-year-old maiden with fully developed breasts. She carries a skull and a sword in her two hands, and is offered leftovers.
According to the Shyamaladandakam, Matangi plays a ruby-studded veena and speaks sweetly. The DhyanaMantra describes her to be four-armed, with a dark emerald complexion, full breasts anointed with red kumkum powder, and a crescent moon on her forehead.
She carries a noose, agoad, a sugarcane bow and flower arrows, which the goddess Tripura Sundari is often described to hold. She is also described to love the parrot and is embodied in the nectar of song.
The green complexion is associated with deep knowledge and is also the colour of Budha, the presiding deity of the planet Mercury who governs intelligence.Matangi is often depicted with a parrot in her hands, representing speech. The veena symbolizes her association with music.
The Goddess Matangi
Matangi is often named as the ninth Mahavidya. A list contained within the prose of the Mundamala equates Vishnu's ten avatars with the ten Mahavidyas. The Mahavidyas then surround Shiva from the ten cardinal directions; Matangi stands in the northwest. ith Kali As in this early 19th century South Indian painting, Raja-Matangi is usually depicted playing a veena and with a parrot in her company sound in many Bengali Mangalkavyas. In these texts, however, Parvati is not explicitly identified with Matangi
Matangi represents the power of the spoken word (Vaikhari) as an expression of thoughts and the mind. She also relates to the power of listening and grasping speech and converting it back to knowledge and thought. Besides spoken word, she also governs all other expressions of inner thought and knowledge, like art, music and dance.Matangi presides over the middle part of speech (Madhyama), where ideas are translated into the spoken word and in her highest role, represents Para-Vaikhari—the Supreme Word manifested through speech and that encompasses knowledge of the scriptures. She is described as the goddess of learning and speech, and the bestower of knowledge and talent. She is also called Matrini, the mistress of the sacred mantras.
She also represents the word of a guru, who serves as a spiritual guide. Matangi is described as dwelling in the Throat chakra—the origin of speech—and on the tip of the tongue. She is also associated with a channel called Sarasvati from the third eye to the tip of the tongue.
According to David Frawley, her description as impure refers to the nature of the spoken word, which labels things and stereotypes them, thereby hindering actual contact with the soul of things. The goddess is described as one who helps a person to use words in the right way and to go beyond it to seek the soul and inner knowledge,which lie outside the demarcated boundaries of tradition.Matangi is regarded as a Tantric form of Sarasvati, the goddess of knowledge and the arts of mainstream Hinduism, with whom she shares many traits. Both embody music and are depicted playing the veena. They are also both said to be the Nada (sound or energy) that flows through the Nadi channels in the body through which life force flows. Both are related to rain clouds, thunder and rivers. Though both govern learning and speech, Sarasvati represents the orthodox knowledge of the Brahmins while Matangi—the wild and ecstatic outcast—embodies the "extraordinary" beyond the boundaries of mainstream society, especially inner knowledge.
Matangi is also associated with Ganesha, the elephant-headed god of knowledge and obstacle removal. Both are related to the elephant and learning. Matangi is also sometimes regarded as his consort.Matangi is also described as a minister of the Mahavidya goddess Tripura Sundari or Rajarajeshvari, the Queen of QueensWorship
Matangi is often worshipped with the mantra syllable Aim, which is associated with Sarasvati and is the seed-syllable of knowledge, learning and teaching. A longer mantra of twenty syllables is also used
Om hrim aim srim namo bhagavati ucchishtacandali
sri matangeshvari sarvajanavashankari svaha
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