Shaktism

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Sri Bhuvaneshvari, the form of the Great Goddess Parvati and one of the 10 Mahavidyas, praised in the Devi Gita. with her yantra

Shaktism is a denomination of Hinduism that worships Shakti (or Devi) — the female principle of the divine — in her many forms as the absolute, ultimate godhead. Practitioners of Shaktism (commonly known as Shaktas) conceive the goddess as the personification of the universe's primordial energy and, therefore she is the source of the cosmos. Shaktism is, along with Shaivism and Vaishnavism, one of the three primary monotheistic devotional schools of contemporary Hinduism. In the details of its philosophy and practice, Shaktism greatly resembles Saivism, as the god Shiva is considered the consort of the Divine Mother.

Early Origins

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The roots of Shaktism? A Harappan goddess figurine, c. 3000 B.C.E. (Musée Guimet, Paris)

The roots of Shaktism penetrate deep into India's prehistory. The earliest Mother Goddess figurine unearthed in India near Allahabad and has been carbon-dated back to the Upper Paleolithic, approximately 20,000 B.C.E. Also dating back to that period are collections of colorful stones marked with natural triangles. Discovered near Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh, they are similar to stones still worshiped as Devi by local tribal groups. Moreover, they may be connected to the later use of yantras in the Tantric tradition, in which triangles are symbolically linked to fertility. Thousands of female statuettes dated as early as c. 5500 B.C.E. have been recovered at Mehrgarh, one of the most important Neolithic sites in world archaeology, and a precursor to the great Indus Valley Civilization, suggesting yet another early example of the presence of the Mother Goddess in the Indian context.

The later population centers of the Indus Valley Civilization at Harappa]] and Mohenjo-daro (dated c. 3300 - 1600 B.C.E.) were inhabited by a diverse mix of peoples. The majority came from the adjacent villages to seek the prosperity of the city, and they brought with them their own cults and rituals, including the notion of the feminine divine. These cults of the goddess were promptly given an elevated position in the society, and went on to form the basis of Indus Valley religion. While it is impossible to precisely reconstruct the religious beliefs of a civilization so distantly removed in time, it has been proposed, based on archaeological and anthropological evidence, that this period contains the first seeds of what would become the Shakta religion.

As these philosophies and rituals developed in the northern reaches of the subcontinent, additional layers of Goddess-focused tradition were expanding outward from the sophisticated Dravidian civilizations of the south. The cult of the goddess was also a major aspect of Dravidian religion, and their female deities eventually came to be identified with the Puranic goddesses Parvati, Durga or Kali. The cult of the Sapta Matrikas, or the "Seven Divine Mothers", which is an integral part of the Shakta religion, may also have been inspired by the Dravidians.

Philosophical Development

The Vedas

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A sandstone sculpture of Lajja Gauri or Aditi, also called uttānapad ("she who crouches with legs spread"), c. 650 C.E. (Badami Museum, India).

As the Indus Valley Civilization slowly declined and dispersed, its peoples mixed with other groups to eventually gave rise to Vedic Civilization (c. 1500 - 600 B.C.E.), a more patriarchal society in which female divinity continued to have a place in belief and worship, but generally in a subordinate role, with goddesses serving principally as consorts to the great gods. Nonetheless, the Great Goddess of the Indus Valley and Dravidian religions still loomed large in the Vedas, taking the mysterious form of Aditi, the "Vedic Mother of the Gods". Aditi is mentioned about 80 times in the Rigveda, and her appellation (meaning "without limits" in Sanskrit) marks what is perhaps the earliest name used to personify the infinite Vedic descriptions of Aditi are vividly reflected in the countless Lajja Gauri idols – depicting a faceless, lotus-headed goddess in birthing posture – that have been worshiped throughout India for millennia. An example of such a description reads as follows:

In the first age of the gods, existence was born from non-existence. The quarters of the sky were born from she who crouched with legs spread. The earth was born from she who crouched with legs spread, and from the earth the quarters of the sky were born.

Also in the Vedas, the historically recurrent theme of the Devi's all-encompassing, pan-sexual nature explicitly arises for the first time in such declarations as: "Aditi is the sky, Aditi is the air, Aditi is all gods. [...] Aditi is the Mother, the Father, and the Son. Aditi is whatever shall be born."

Other goddess forms appearing prominently in the Vedic period include the Ushas, the daughters of Surya who govern the dawn and are mentioned more than 300 times in no less than 20 hymns. Prithvi, a variation of the archetypal Indo-European Earth Mother form, is also referenced. More significant is the appearance of two of Hinduism's most widely known and beloved goddesses: Vāc, today better known as Saraswati; and Srī, now better known as Lakshmi in the famous Rigvedic hymn entitled Devi Sukta. Here these goddesses unambiguously declare their divine supremacy, in words still recited by thousands of Hindus each day:

"I am the Sovereign Queen; the treasury of all treasures; the chief of all objects of worship; whose all-pervading Self manifests all gods and goddesses; whose birthplace is in the midst of the causal waters; who in breathing forth gives birth to all created worlds, and yet extends beyond them, so vast am I in greatness."

This suggests that the feminine was indeed venerated as the supreme divine in the Vedic age, even in spite of the generally patriarchal nature of the texts.

The Upanishads

The Upanishads, philosophical commentaries which mark the end of the Vedas, provide little attention to the goddesses. The great Kena Upanishad, however, tells a tale in which the Vedic trinity of Agni, Vayu and Indra – boasting and posturing in the flush of a recent victory – suddenly find themselves bereft of divine power in the presence of a mysterious yaksha, or forest spirit. When Indra tries to approach and identify the yaksha it vanishes, and in its place the Devi appears in the form of a beautiful yakshini, luminous and "highly adorned":

"It was Uma, the daughter of Himavat. Indra said to her, 'Who was that yaksha?' She replied, 'It is Brahman. It is through the victory of Brahman that you have thus become great.' After that he knew that it was Brahman."

Of the Upanishads listed in the Muktika – the final Upanisad of the Hindu canon of 108 texts, cataloging the preceding 107 – only nine are classified as Shakta Upanisads. They are here listed with their associated Vedas; i.e., the Rigveda (RV), the Black Yajurveda (KYV), and the Atharvaveda (AV):

1. Sītā (AV)
2. Annapūrṇa (AV)
3. Devī (AV)
4. Tripurātapani (AV)
5. Tripura (RV)
6. Bhāvana (AV)
7. Saubhāgya (RV)
8. Sarasvatīrahasya (KYV)
9. Bahvṛca (RV)

The canonical Shakta Upanishads are much more recent, mostly dating between the 13th and 18th centuries. While their archaic Sanskrit usages create the impression that they belong to the ancient past, none of the verses can be traced to a Vedic source. For the most part, these Upanishads are sectarian tracts reflecting doctrinal and interpretative differences between the two principal sects of Srividya upasana (a major Tantric form of Shaktism). As a result, the many extant listings of "authentic" Shakta Upanisads are highly variable in their content, inevitably reflecting the respective sectarian biases of their compilers. For non-Tantrics, the Tantric contents of these texts call into question their identity as actual Upanishad.

The Epic Period

Between 400 B.C.E. and 400 C.E. came the age of the Epics, wherein India's two most perenially famous tales, the Mahabharata (c. 400 B.C.E. - 400 C.E.) and the Ramayana (c. 200 B.C.E. - 200 C.E.), came into currency. The Mahabharata is replete with references to Shakta worship, suggesting goddesses of the later Vedas such as Durga, Śrī and Ambika, whose cults became very popular in subsequent ages, must have been widely worshiped during this time. Although mainstream followers of the Vedic religion did not yet count Shiva and Devi within their pantheon, the tribal basis of the Mother Goddess cult seems to have continued on in the days of the Mahabharata, as it does survive even today. The Great Epic suggests that the goddess resides in the Vindhya mountain Range, where she is worshiped by the hunting peoples, who provided with offerings which appease her hunger for wine and meat. However, it is in the Mahabharata's Durga Stotras that the Devi is first revealed in her true character, comprising numerous local goddesses combined into one supreme goddess." This fascination with the goddess appears to continue a trend following from the later Vedic period down to the age of the Mauryas (322-185 B.C.E.) and Shungas (185-73 B.C.E.), empires in which the cult of the feminine divine grew steadily. In fact, it appears that the original tribal religion of the Maurya kings before their mass conversion to Buddhism was that of the Mother Goddess.

The Ramayana, meanwhile, marked the definitive entry of the titular hero's wife Sita into the Hindu pantheon, where she became one of the most popular goddesses. Her wifely dedication and submissiveness to Rama has been interpreted by many followers of bhakti as the devotional ideal. Aside for Sita, however, no goddess of a supreme, Shakta-like character is expounded therein.

The great Tamil epic, Silappatikaram (c. 100 C.E.) was one of several other literary masterpieces from its time indicating the popularity of the goddess cult in South India during the period in which it was composed. Once again, the idea is put forth in this epic that the various goddesses represent different aspects of the same supreme power.

The Puranas

Devi portrayed as Mahishasura Mardini, Slayer of the Buffalo Demon – a central episode of the Devi Mahatmya, and one of the most famous in all of Hindu mythology.

The vast body of religious and cultural compilations known as the Puranas, most of which were composed during the Gupta period (c. 300 - 600 C.E.) provide not only the authoritative body of Indian mythology, but also laid the bedrock for much of popular Hinduism including Shaktism. The most important Puranic Shakta text is by far the Devi Mahatmya, found in the Markandeya Purana. Composed c. 400-500 C.E., the text draws upon a variety of older myths and legends pertaining to the goddess and synthesizes them into a unified narrative. This narrative presents three male figures, a dispossessed king, a merchant betrayed by his family, and a sage whose teachings lead the king and merchant beyond existential suffering. The sage instructs his charges by recounting three different epic battles between the Devi and various demonic adversaries (the three tales being governed by, respectively, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi and Mahasaraswati. Most famous is the story of Mahishasura Mardini, one of the most ubiquitous images in Hindu art and sculpture in which the goddess slays the Buffalo Demon. Among the other important goddess forms introduced by the Devi Mahatmyam into the Sanskritic mainstream are Kali and the Sapta-Matrika ("Seven Mothers").

The Devi Mahatmya marks the birth of "independent Shaktism", where the Goddess is venerated to the rank of the supreme divinity. Previously, the various goddesses had been placed beside corresponding gods as their consorts or shaktis. With the Devi Mahatmya, the cult of Shakti asserted itself as a distinct philosophical and denominational entity which held the female divine to be worthy of worship in and of herself.

Sri Lalita-Tripurasundari (Parvati) enthroned with her left foot upon the Sri Chakra, holding her traditional symbols, the sugarcane bow, flower arrows, noose and goad.

Another important development in the worship of the goddess came within the Brahmanda Purana, which features the Lalita Sahasranama. Sahasranamas literally refer to "thousand-name" hymns, which extoll the various names, deeds and associations of a given deity. Based upon textual evidence, the Lalita Sahasranama is believed to have been composed in South India between the 9th century and 11th centuries CE. The text is closely associated with a section of the Brahmanda Purana entitled Lalitopakhyana ("The Great Narrative of Lalita"), which takes the form of a dialogue between Vishnu's avatar Hayagriva and the great sage Agastya extolling the goddess's physical qualities and mythological exploits. The entire Sahasranama is considered to have high mantric value independent of its content, and certain names or groups of names are prescribed in sadhanas to accomplish particular meditational ends.

Bhakti

The Puranic age also saw the beginnings of the Bhakti movement, a series of new religious matrices propounding intense devotion to personal deities. With the dissolution of the Gupta Empire around 700 C.E., South India was afforded more and more power when compared to the North, in the spheres of both politics and religion. From this time onward, religious movements of the South began to exert tremendous influence upon the religiosity of the North, often in the form of personalistic devotion. For instance "Korravai, the Tamil warrior goddess came to be identified with Durga, who was kendali, a Tamil word meaning the Divine Principle beyond form and name. Thus, Durga came to represent the supreme divinity, embodying for devotees the triple aspects of power, beneficence and wisdom. Many of the larger southern temples of this period had shrines dedicated to the Sapta Matrika along with other important female divinities, and from the earliest period the South had localized cults dedicated of Village mothers concerned with the facts of daily life. These Southern aspects of goddess worship, when synthesized with the religions of the North, elevated the status of the goddess in the developing bhakti tradition.

The Bhakti movement reached a fever pitch between 1200 and 1700 C.E. One of the more famous texts was the Devi-Bhagavata Purana, an 11th-century text which retells the tales of the Devi Mahatmya in much greater length and detail, embellishing them with Shakta philosophical reflections, while recasting many classic tales from other schools of Hinduism (particularly Vaishnavism) in a distinctly Shakta light. The Goddess in the Devi-Bhagavata becomes more of a nurturer, comforter, and teacher of her devotees, rather than a vicious warrior. Her supremacy also becomes evident, as she Devi declares:

"I am Manifest Divinity, Unmanifest Divinity, and Transcendent Divinity. I am Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, as well as Saraswati, Lakshmi and Parvati. I am the Sun and I am the Stars, and I am also the Moon. I am all animals and birds, and I am the outcaste as well, and the thief. I am the low person of dreadful deeds, and the great person of excellent deeds. I am Female, I am Male, and I am Neuter."

The Devi Gita, the final and most famous portion of this vast scripture, quickly rose to prominence as the foremost bhakti-based Shakta work. The Devi Gita is dedicated exclusively to the Devi as Bhuvaneshvari, the benign World-Mother who is actually superior to Shiva." Unlike the majority of the Puranic literature, the Devi Gita itself narrates no wild and bloody battles, but is instead entirely preoccupied with the Goddess's beauty, wisdom, power and the various means by which to worship her. Bhakti enthusiasts, after all, were becoming much less concerned with the dichotomy of goddesses and demons motif in favour of the emotional, devotional fervour directed to the great gods. In keeping with this evolving view, the Devi Gita consistently emphasizes love for the goddess regardless of whether or not a devotee is mail or female.

Forms of the Goddess

Among the manifestations of Devi most favoured for worship by Shaktas are Kali, Durga, and Parvati. Kali is the goddess of destruction and transformation, as well as the devourer of time, as her name implies (kala means "time," and also means "black"). Durga is an epithet of Mahadevi, or "Great Goddess," who is celebrated in the Devi Mahatmya. Parvati is the gentle wife of Shiva, one of the most popular gods of modern Hinduism, and is strongly associated with Kali and other goddesses. These and the various forms of Devi are approached through the myriad different schools and sects of Shaktism, which offer endless varieties of practices seeking to access the shakti (divine energy or power) that is both her nature and her form. Doctrinally and geographically, two main forms of Shaktism can be broadly classified. They are the Srikula, or family of Sri (Lakshmi), strongest in South India; and the Kalikula, or family of Kali, which prevails in Northern and Eastern India.

Hindus in general, and Shaktas in particular, approach the Devi in a myriad of forms, depending on many factors, including family tradition, regional practice, guru lineage, personal resonance and so on. There are thousands of goddess forms, many of them associated with particular temples, geographic entities or even individual villages. The form and function of the female divine also depends upon location. The Brahmanical idea of Shakti has become fused with many local traditions in villages. Village goddesses are thought to punish evil, cure diseases and bring boons and blessings to the people of the township. Shaktism is also fused with local beliefs in villages throughout India. In Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, she is known as Amma (mother). Rural Bengalis know her as Tushu.

However, there are a few highly popular goddess forms that are widely known and worshiped throughout the Hindu world. These principal benevolent goddesses of popular Hinduism are:

1. Durga : The Goddess as Mahadevi, Supreme Divinity.
2. Sri-Lakshmi: The Goddess of Material Fulfillment (wealth, health, fortune, love, beauty, fertility, etc.); consort (shakti) of Vishnu
3. Parvati: The Goddess of Spiritual Fulfillment, Divine Love; consort (shakti) of Shiva
4. Saraswati: The Goddess of Cultural Fulfillment (knowledge, music, arts and sciences, etc.); consort (shakti) of Brahma; identified with Saraswati River
5. Gayatri: The Goddess as Mother of Mantras
6. Ganga: The Goddess as Divine River (Ganges)
7. Sita: The Goddess as Rama's consort
8. Radha: The Goddess as Krishna's Consort

The Ten Mahavidyas

Goddess groups, such as the "Nine Durgas" (Navadurga), "Eight Lakshmis" (Ashta-Lakshmi) and "Seven Mothers" (Sapta-Matrika) are very common in Shaktism. No group, however, better reveals the elemental nature of Shaktism better than the Ten Mahavidyas. These goddesses are sometimes said to be the Shakta counterparts to the Vaishnava Dasavatara ("Ten Avatars of Vishnu").

Through these Mahavidyas, Shaktas believe, "the one Truth is sensed in its ten different facets; the Divine Mother is adored and approached as the ten cosmic personalities." The Ten Mahavidyas are considered to be Tantric in nature, and are usually identified as:

1. Kali: The Goddess as Cosmic Destruction, Death or "Devourer of Time" (primary deity of Kalikula systems)
2. Tara: The Goddess as Guide and Protector
3. Tripurasundari (Shodashi): The Goddess Who is "Beautiful in the Three Worlds" (primary deity of Srikula systems); the "Tantric Parvati"
4. Bhuvaneshvari: The Goddess as World Mother, or Whose Body is the Cosmos
5. Bhairavi: The Fierce Goddess
6. Chhinnamasta: The Self-Decapitated Goddess
7. Dhumavati: The Widow Goddess
8. Bagalamukhi: The Goddess Who Paralyzes Enemies
9. Matangi: The Outcaste Goddess (in Kalikula systems); the Prime Minister of Lalita (in Srikula systems); the "Tantric Saraswati"
10. Kamala: The Lotus Goddess; the "Tantric Lakshmi"

Some traditions assign the five "benevolent" Mahavidyas (usually Tripurasundari, Tara, Bhuvaneshvari, Matangi and Kamala) to the Srikula and the five "fearsome" Mahavidyas (usually Kali, Bhairavi, Chhinnamasta, Dhumavati and Bagalamukhi) to the Kalikula . But such divisions are extremely flexible, as it is stressed that "the path pertains to the sadhaka and not to the deity."

Tantra and Shaktism

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A painting of the Hindu goddess Kali (a terrifying from of Shakti).

One widely misunderstood aspect of Shaktism is its close association in the public mind with Tantra – an ambiguous, loaded concept that suggests everything from orthodox temple worship in the south of India, to black magic and occult practices in North India, to ritualized sex in the West. Not all forms of Shaktism are Tantric in nature, just as not all forms of Tantra are Shaktic in nature, considering the fact that Tantra is a highly variable and shifting classification, the meaning of which may differ depending on the particular historical moment, cultural milieu, and political context. When the term "Tantra" is used in relation to authentic Hindu Shaktism, it most often refers to a class of ritual manuals, and – more broadly – to an esoteric methodology of Goddess-focused spiritual discipline (sadhana). This involves less controversial elements of Tantra such as mantra, yantra, nyasa, mudra and certain elements of traditional kundalini yoga, all practiced under the guidance of a qualified guru after due initiation (diksha) and oral instruction to supplement various written sources. Literary history demonstrates that Vedic-oriented brahmins have been involved in Shakta Tantrism from its incipient stages of development, that is, from at least the sixth century.

More controversial elements, such as the infamous Five Ms or panchamakara (ritualistic consumption of wine, meat, fish, parched grain and participation in sexual intercourse) are indeed employed under certain circumstances by some Tantric Shakta sects. However, these elements tend to be both overemphasized and grossly sensationalized by commentators who are ill-informed regarding authentic Tantric doctrine and practice. Moreover, even within the tradition itself there are wide differences of opinion regarding the proper interpretation of the panchamakara (i.e., literal vs. symbolic meanings; use of "substitute" materials, etc.), and some lineages reject them altogether.

Shakti and Shiva

Shiva and Shakti in the half-male, half-female form of Ardhanari. (Elephanta caves, Mumbai, India.)

Shaktism's focus on the Divine Feminine does not preclude the significance of masculine and neuter visions of divinity. These elements are, however, deemed to be inactive in the absence of Shakti. In Hinduism, Shakti is considered the motivating force behind all action and existence in the phenomenal cosmos. The cosmos itself is Brahman; i.e., the concept of an unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality that provides the divine ground of all being. Masculine potentiality is actualized by feminine dynamism, symbolized by Shakti and embodied in the multitudinous goddesses who are ultimately reconciled into one. As religious historian V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar (1896-1953) has expressed this notion by writing that "Brahman is static Shakti and Shakti is dynamic Brahman."

In religious art, this mutual dependence of Shakti and Brahman is powerfully expressed in the half-male, half-female statue known as Ardhanarisvara or "The lord who is half woman". For such depictions, the female Shakti half is represented by Parvati, and the male Brahman half is represented by her husband, the destroyer God Shiva. While most forms of Hinduism interpret this figure to represent the necessary pairing of male and female in order to create life, and hold Shiva to be the dominant member of this dyad (evident from the derivation of the name), the Shakta interpretation is somewhat different. The Shakta conception of the Devi is that virtually everything in creation, seen or unseen (and including Shiva), is none other than the goddess. Shaktism holds that the feminine represents the dominant power in the universe over and above that of males. However, both genders must be subsumed within the ultimate if it is truly supreme. Shakti is not infinitely superior to the male gods; rather, masculine and the feminine are simply aspects of the transcendent divine.

Worship

Over the course of a worship ceremony (or puja), Shakti is worshipped via the typical means of mantras, mudras, and offerings of sweets and flowers. She is most profoundly worshipped by chanting her bija mantra, which varies depending on which specific goddess is being addressed. As is evident from the many forms of the goddess already discussed, the multifarious nature of the goddess is of the utmost importance. The recognition of the diversity experienced by humans of the one female divine is central to sakti puja; bhed, division within the one goddess, must be revealed and revered so that the full significance of Durga may be comprehended and everything may be reintegrated into the idea, form, and appearance of the goddess. These many aspects must be adored separately and as a whole, otherwise Shakti will not be satisfied.

Worship also depends upon location. For example, animal sacrifice is performed in some places in India, including such major sites as Kalighat in Calcutta, West Bengal, where goats are sacrificed on days of Tuesdays and Saturdays, and Kamakhya in Guwahati, Assam. Black male goats are typically sacrificed, as well as male buffalo during Durga Puja, and this practice is a controversial one. The brahmin performing the sacrifice is not allowed to cause pain to the animal, and must wait for the animal to surrender before cutting off the head with a single stroke. The blood is used to bless icons and worshipers, and the meat cooked and served to the worshipers and poor as prasad. Those who are averse to animal sacrifice, however, will use a pumpkin or melon instead, which has become an increasingly popular and acceptable substitute.

Major Festivals

Major annual festivals throughout India dedicated specifically to the goddess include:

• Durga Puja, the autumn festival of Durga, takes place in October and is celebrated nationally, although it is particularly popular in Bengal. This festival celebrates Durga's victory over the demon Mahishasura, saving both the earth and the heavens. During this time elaborate idols of the goddess are assembled, with every step of their construction scrutinized by rites and rituals. The goddess is worshipped during this time as a guest on earth. At the conclusion of the festival, the goddess is lead in a procession to the nearest body of water, preferably the Ganges, and immersed in the water so as to send her home.

• Divali, the festival of lights, takes place in November and is celebrated nationally. During this festival, worshippers direct their devotions toward Lakshmi, praying for material prosperity and bountiful harvest. Clay images of Lakshmi are worshiped throughout Northern India, and small candles are also placed outside homes in the hope that Lakshmi will stop by to bestow her blessings. Lakshmi is also invoked during this festival so as to counteract the workings of demons.

• Kali Puja takes place in October/November and is celebrated throughout all of India. The main purpose of the festival is to petition the goddess to destroy evil, by diminishing the ego and all negative aspects of the human psyche that hinder material prosperity and spiritual progression.

• Minakshi Kalyanam takes place in April/May and is most popular in the regions of Madurai, located in Tamil Nadu. The festival commemorates the divine wedding of Goddess Meenakshi with Lord Sundareshwar (Shiva). Ornate images of the divine couple are marched in grand processions through the streets, and large numbers of umbrellas and fans are beautifully decorated in authentic royal style during the festival.

• Ambubachi Mela, one of the most important festival to the Shakta Tantrics, is celebrated during June/July specifically in located in Guwahati, Assam. This festival is held at the Kamakhya Temple, in proximity to one of the most famous Shakti peethas where the great goddess is worshiped in the form of a yoni-like stone over which a natural spring flows. During the festival, rituals acknowledge the fusion between the seasonal cycle of monsoon rains and menstruation, both of which are represented as sacred, making mother nature available to all. Both male and female worshippers observe traditional menstrual restriction and seclusion during this time.

Shakti Temples

Gopuram of the Meenakshi temple, a Shakta temple at Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India.

There are 51 important centres of Shakti worship located in the Indian sub-continent, including India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Tibet and even Pakistan. These are called Shakti Peethas (places of strength). These places of worship are consecrated to the goddess Shakti, the female principal of Hinduism and the main deity of the Shakta sect. They are sprinkled throughout the Indian subcontinent .

According to legend, at some time in the Satya Yuga, Daksha performed a yagna (named Vrihaspati) with a desire of taking revenge on Lord Shiva. Daksha was angry because his daughter Sati had married the 'yogi' God Shiva against his wishes. Daksha invited all the deities to the yagna except for Shiva and Sati. The fact that she was not invited did not deter Sati from attending the yagna. She had expressed her desire to attend to Shiva who had tried his best to dissuade her from going. Shiva eventually allowed her to go escorted by his ganas (followers).

But Sati, being an uninvited guest, was not given any respect. Furthermore, Daksha insulted Shiva. Sati was unable to bear her father's insults toward her husband, so she committed suicide by jumping into the pyre.

Enraged at the insult and the injury, Shiva destroyed Daksha's sacrifice, cut off Daksha's head, and replaced it with that of a goat as he restored him to life. Still crazed with grief, he picked up the remains of Sati's body, and danced the dance of destruction through the Universe. The other gods intervened to stop this dance, and the Vishnu's disk, or Sudarshan Chakram, cut through the corpse of Sati. The various parts of the body fell at several spots all through the Indian subcontinent and formed sites which are known as Shakti Peethas today.

At all Shakti Peethas, the Goddess Shakti is accompanied by Lord Bhairava (a manifestation of Lord Shiva).

According to the manuscript old manuscript Mahapithapurana (circa 1690-1720 C.E.), there are 51 such places. Among them, 23 are located in the Bengal region. 14 of these are located in what is now West Bengal, India, while 7 are in what is now Bangladesh.

Preserving the mortal relics of famous and respected individuals was a common practice in ancient India - seen in the Buddhist stupas which preserve the relics of Gautama Buddha. It is believed by some that these 51 peethas preserve the remains of some ancient female sage from whom the legend of Kali could have emerged and then merged with the Purusha- Prakriti (Shiva Shakti) model of Hindu thought.

The modern cities or towns that correspond to these 51 locations can be a matter of dispute, but there are a few that are totally unambiguous - for example, Kalighat in Kolkata/Calcutta and Kamakhya in Assam. According to the Pithanirnaya Tantra the 51 peethas are scattered all over India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Tibet and Pakistan. The Shivacharita besides listing 51 maha-peethas, speaks about 26 more upa-peethas. The Bengali almanac, Vishuddha Siddhanta Panjika too describes the 51 peethas including the present modified addresses. A few of the several accepted listings are given below.. One of the few in South India, Srisailam in Andhra Pradesh became the site for a 2nd century temple. Additionally, there are many temples devoted to various incarnations of the Shakti goddess in most of the villages in India.

Shaktism in the West

The practice of Shaktism is no longer confined to India. Traditional Shakta temples have sprung up across Southeast Asia, the Americas, Europe, Australia and elsewhere – most of them enthusiastically attended by non-Indian as well as Indian diaspora Hindus. Examples in the United States include the Kali Mandir in Laguna Beach, California, "a traditional temple modeled after the Indian public temple ideal"; and Sri Rajarajeshwari Peetam, a Srividya Shakta temple in rural Rush, New York, which was recently the subject an in-depth academic monograph exploring the "dynamics of diaspora Hinduism," including the serious entry and involvement of non-Indians in traditional Hindu religious practice.

Shaktism has also become a focus of some Western spiritual seekers attempting to construct new Goddess-centered faiths. Such groups include Shakti Wicca, which defines itself as "a tradition of eclectic Wicca that draws most of its spiritual inspiration from the Hindu tradition," and Sha'can, self-described as "a tradition based on the tenets of the Craft (commonly referred to as Wicca) and the Shakta path (Goddess-worshipping path of Hindu Tantra)."

An academic study of Kali enthusiasts in the West noted that these sorts of spiritual hybrids are to be expected. "As shown in the histories of all cross-cultural religious transplants, Kali devotionalism in the West must take on its own indigenous forms if it is to adapt to its new environment." However, such East-West fusions can also raise complex and troubling issues of cultural expropriation:

"A variety of writers and thinkers [...] have found Kali an exciting figure for reflection and exploration, notably feminists and participants in New Age spirituality who are attracted to goddess worship. [For them], Kali is a symbol of wholeness and healing, associated especially with repressed female power and sexuality. [However, such interpretations often exhibit] confusion and misrepresentation, stemming from a lack of knowledge of Hindu history among these authors, [who only rarely] draw upon materials written by scholars of the Hindu religious tradition. The majority instead rely chiefly on other popular feminist sources, almost none of which base their interpretations on a close reading of Kali's Indian background. [...] The most important issue arising from this discussion – even more important than the question of 'correct' interpretation – concerns the adoption of other people's religious symbols. [...] It is hard to import the worship of a goddess from another culture: religious associations and connotations have to be learned, imagined or intuited when the deep symbolic meanings embedded in the native culture are not available."

Another powerful motivation behind Western interest in Shaktism has been suggested by Linda Johnsen, a popular writer on Eastern spirituality, who asserts that many central concepts of Shaktism – including aspects of kundalini yoga, as well as goddess worship – were once "common to the Hindu, Chaldean, Greek and Roman civilizations," but were largely lost to the West, as well as the Near and Middle East, with the rise of the Abrahamic religions:

"Of these four great ancient civilizations, working knowledge of the inner forces of enlightenment has survived on a mass scale only in India. Only in India has the inner tradition of the Goddess endured. This is the reason the teachings of India are so precious. They offer us a glimpse of what our own ancient wisdom must have been. The Indians have preserved our lost heritage. [...] Today it is up to us to locate and restore the tradition of the living Goddess. We would do well to begin our search in India, where for not one moment in all of human history have the children of the living Goddess forgotten their Divine Mother."

Significance

Even in the 21st century, it is not uncommon to come across assertions that the Shaiva and Vaishnava schools of Hinduism lead to moksha, or spiritual liberation, whereas Shaktism leads merely to siddhis (occult powers) and bhukti (material enjoyments) – or, at best (according to some Shaiva interpreters), to Shaivism. Such claims are dismissed by serious theologians within Shaktism.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• (a)Bhattacharyya, N. N., History of the Sakta Religion, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd. (New Delhi, 1974, 2d ed. 1996)
• (b)Bhattacharyya, N. N., The Indian Mother Goddess, South Asia Books (New Delhi, 1970, 2d ed. 1977).
• Brooks, Douglas Renfrew, The Secret of the Three Cities: An Introduction to Hindu Shakta Tantrism, The University of Chicago Press (Chicago, 1990).
• Brown, C. MacKenzie, The Triumph of the Goddess: The Canonical Models and Theological Issues of the Devi-Bhagavata Purana, State University of New York Press (Suny Series in Hindu Studies, 1991)
• Dikshitar, V. R. Ramachandra, The Lalita Cult, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Pvt. Ltd. (Delhi, 1942, 2d ed. 1991, 3d ed. 1999)
• Joshi, M. C., "Historical and Iconographical Aspects of Shakta Tantrism," in Harper, Katherine (ed.), The Roots of Tantra, State University of New York Press (Albany, 2002).
• Urban, Hugh B., Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics and Power in the Study of Religion, University of California Press (Berkeley, 2003)
• Woodroffe, Sir John, Sakti and Sakta: Essays and Addresses, Ganesh & Company (Madras, 9th Ed. 1987, reprint of 1927 edition)
• Subramuniyaswami, Satguru Sivaya, Merging with Siva: Hinduism's Contemporary Metaphysics, Himalayan Academy (Hawaii, USA, 1999),
• Phyllis K. Herman, California State University, Northridge (USA), "Siting the Power of the Goddess: Sita Rasoi Shrines in Modern India", International Ramayana Conference Held at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL USA, September 21-23, 2001.
• Hindu Goddesses: Vision of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Traditions (ISBN 81-208-0379-5) by David Kinsley
• Grace and Mercy in Her Wild Hair : Selected Poems to the Mother Goddess, Ramprasad Sen (1720-1781). (ISBN 0-934252-94-7)
• The Play of the Gods: Locality, Ideology, Structure and Time in the Festivals of a Bengali Town, Akos Ostor, University of Chicago Press (1980), (ISBN 0-226-63954-1)
• Cosmic Puja, Swami Satyananda Saraswati, Devi Mandir (2001), (ISBN 1-877795-70-4)
• Kinsley, David. Hindu Goddesses: Vision of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Traditions (ISBN 81-208-0379-5)
• Pintchman, Tracy. The Rise of the Goddess in the Hindu Tradition (ISBN 0-7914-2112-0)

Further reading

• Ostor, Akos, The Play of the Gods: Locality, Ideology, Structure and Time in the Festivals of a Bengali Town, University of Chicago Press (1980). (ISBN 0-226-63954-1)
• Satyananda Saraswati, Swami, Cosmic Puja, Devi Mandir (2001). (ISBN 1-877795-70-4)
• Sen, Ramprasad, Grace and Mercy in Her Wild Hair : Selected Poems to the Mother Goddess. (ISBN 0-934252-94-7)

External links

• Shakti Sadhana: a Hindu spiritual practice that focuses worship upon the Devi. It is also an NGO based in Kerala.
• Sharanya: The Maa Batakali Cultural Mission, Inc.: An international non-profit organization based in San Francisco and Orissa, which teaches Shakta Tantra through a Western framework.
• Sri Swamiji visits Sri Lanka for Shankari Temple Darshan
• Daksha Yagna - The story of Daksha's sacrifice and the origin of the Shakti Pithas
• Gayatri Shaktipeeth, Vatika: An Introduction
• Indian Mythology: Shakti
• A site containing short biographies of several Shakta devotees from the Indian state of Bengal
• Shakti: Listing of usage in Puranic literature
• Shakti temples of India (Includes articles on Shaktism)
• Hindu Goddess worship
• Hindu Goddesses

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