Although feminine deities, frequently but not always fertility goddesses, were a widespread phenomenon in man's early religious experience, 'the idea of female divinity was gradually neglected or rejected by many of the great historic religious traditions. Ultimate reality', C. M. Brown further pointer out, 'came to be conceived basically in terms of masculine forms (the Father, the King), or in terms of a formless and neuter Absolute'. The Hindu tradition, however,
While exceedingly creative in interpreting reality in both its masculine and neuter aspects, also developed the ritual, devotion, and theology of feminine divinity more profusely, and perhaps more profoundly, than any other major religious tradition. Hinduism thus preserves and constantly reaffirms on of man's earliest religious orientations to the universe, an orientation that particularly in the West seems to have been largely forgotten.
The emergence of Saktism and Tantrism throughout India in the sixth and seventh centuries in essence, as noted by M. Eliade, signifies a return to the indigenous spirituality, to he belief in fertility worship the magic of formulas and initiation rites, sacrifices, and, above all to the worship of the female principle. For both the Saktas and the tantrics, woman is the altar, she is the Brahman. Every woman becomes the incarnation of the Sakti; every naked woman incarnates prakrti. 'Hence she is to be looked upon with he same adoration and the same detachment that one exercises in pondering the unfathomable secret of nature, its limitless capacity to create. This religious rediscovery is also the recognition of all that is remote,
'transcendent,' invulnerable in woman: and thus woman comes to symbolize the irreducibility of the sacred and the divine, the inapprehensible essence of the ultimate reality. Woman incarnate both the mystery of creation and the mystery of Being, of everything that is, that incomprehensibly becomes and dies and is reborn.
In Sankhya philosophy, Spirit, or purusa (the male), it the 'great impotent one', the motionless, the contemplative; 'it is prakrti that works, engenders, nourishes. When a great danger threatens the foundations of the cosmos, the gods appeal to the Sakti to avert it.
Among the most important developments in goddess cults was the identification of goddesses with prakrti (nature) and with the sakti(s) or energies of their consorts, developments which not only 'allowed the goddesses to take on important cosmogonic functions, but also resulted in the ascription of the three gunas of prakrti to sakti, often identified with one or another of the goddesses'. In the original Samkhya concept, prakrti, while ever conscious, 'was solely responsible for activity; purusa was inactive and unchanging, though the superior principle, as it alone was conscious'. In Saktism, however, the active prakrti is identified with sakti (energy) herself. 'But since sakti was a conscious power, prakrti was no longer merely the activating material force but, also the power of consciousness. Bu logical extension, the male principle, purusa, would be unconscious without prakrti-sakti. With the development of the trisakti concept, whereby primordial nature is divided into three saktis according to the prevailing gunas (sattva, rajas, tamas), the Devi, as Energy/Power, becomes supreme. Once manifestation has taken place, Energy appears as the substance of everything, pervading everything:
It can be represented as the power of Siva or that of Visnu or that of Brahma. As the power of their combined form, Isvara, it becomes the Supreme Goddess (Bhagavati), the Resplendent-One (Devi)It is only when the qualityless, shapeless, motionless substratum becomes 'spotted through' by the great Energy, center of limitless energies, that the universe can be created, maintained, and destroyed.
As a goldsmith is unable to construct earring without gold, as a potter is unable to construct a jar without mud, so God is unable to create the world without Nature. She is vested with absolute energy; and everyone is energetic through her. Sak means grandeur and ti means valour. She who is the source of grandeur and valor is, therefore, Sakti. Bhag means prosperity, wealth and fame, the source of which all is Bhagavati. She is vested with the female organ, hence she is so called, and on this account the Supreme Lord is called Bhagvana.
In this case prakrti is the material cause of the universe, however, while Brahma or Krsna, who is self-willed, is the efficient cause. In the Devi Bhagavata Purana (1.8.31-51), Sakti alone is present in cause and effect:
The highest Adya Sakti by Her mere will creates and preserves this Universe and She is it who destroys again in time the whole Brahmanda, moving and non-moving; no one is capable to do his respective work be he Brahma, Visnu, Mahesvara, Indra, Fire, Sun, Varuna or any other person whatsoever; verily all the Devas perform the respective actions by the use of this Adya Sakti. That she alone is present in cause and effect in doing every action, can be witnessed vividly.
The term sakti, feminine in gender, had long been associated with the various male deities as their energy but in Saktism 'the energy of each god became personified as his consort, and thus if a god was separated from his consort, he was powerless and inert'. The feminine principle, Brown continues, thus was raised to pre-eminence. The triadic division of primordial nature into three saktis according to the gunas identifies each with one or another form of Sarasvati, Laksmi and Durga for the sake of creation, preservation and destruction of the universe. Thus, just as each one of the gods of the Brahmanic trinity has a Sakti or female consort associated with his particular activity, so too the other gods so that the number of goddesses and the activities with which they become associated are greatly multiplied.
At the same time, however, there is a parallel trend, less concerned with systematic schematisation, 'to identify one goddess with as many other goddesses as possible. Thereby adding to the former's glory. In contrast to the concept of male deities, however, all women are regarded as manifestations of prakrti, as indicated, and in various texts it is reiterated that all goddesses are the digits of Nature, including even the village goddesses. In that Saktism is a direct offshoot of the primitive Mother Goddess cult, so prominent a feature of the religion of agricultural peoples with each village or tribe having their own particular name for the goddess, their number is increased even more. Included among the goddesses worshipped in villages and by tribes in Bolangir district of Orissa, for example, is Mahesvari who is worshipped by the Khaduras, the bangle-makers of the district; Netai Dhovani, the caste goddess of the Dhobas, the washermen; Mahalaksmi and Kalisundari, worshipped by the Naria Gaudas, a section of the cowherd class; Dvaraseni, Patta Mahesvari, Samalai and Raktamalei, worshipped by the Sundhis, the traditional brewers of the district; Banjari, also known as Candi and Ghantaseni, worshipped by the Bhandaris, the barbers of the district; the Gandas regard Mangala as their highest goddess and also believe that she has seven sisters; they also worship Grambati, goddess of the mountain, Basumata, the earth goddess, Masandevata (Candi) and ghosts while their village deity is known as Thanapati; Udaya Paramesvari is the popular goddess among the Kosthas, the weavers of tussar cloth in the district; they also worship twenty-one types of deities of small pox of which Kolthia, Gundi, Sindhirt, Mugia, Pudamatu, Notijhara and Milimila are important; Caunrasi Samalai, Barlor-devata and Thakurani are the important deities of the Keutas, the fisherman caste while Gangamata is their water deity; the Bhulias, a weaving caste, regard Samalesvari as their highest goddess and also worship Hadmai and her consort, Dhanmai and her consort, Kansalei and her consort, Dasmati (the ten sisters) and sat bahen (the seven sisters). Even with orthodox Hindus, as evident in the sixteenth century Bata Abakasa of Balarama Dasa, the number of goddesses attending an imaginary court held by Jagannatha was twice the number of Saiva and Vaisnava delegates combined. In his essay on Saktism in the mid-nineteenth century, H. H. Wilson, overwhelmed by their sheer number, writes that the Supreme Sakti is said to have first assumed sixty (60) different forms, each of which is believed to have a great many modifications. Each of these secondary manifestation of the Sakti is again said to have taken a variety of forms, and so on almost without end.'
In that every woman incarnates prakrti, woman herself is worshipped and to insult any woman is to insult prakrti. According to Sakta doctrine, each man and woman contains within a vast latent magazine of power or sakti and the problem is how to raise and vivify sakti. Every aspirant thus has to realize the latent Female principle within himself, 'and only by becoming female is he entitled to worship the supreme being'. Even a woman or a sudra is therefore entitled to function in the role of the preceptor or guru. The aim of the Sakta worshipper is thus to realize the universe within himself and to become one with the goddess. The successive steps of the spiritual ladder, as outlined by N.N. Bhattacharyya, are constituted by three stages: pasu (animal), vira (heroic) and divya (divine):
In the first stage, the aspirant can worship any sectarian god, but he must follow all the rules of social morality, and by doing so he will be raised to the second or heroic level. In this stage, the aspirant is able to get himself initiated in vamacara and siddhantacara. For the correct understanding of the mystic rites, he requires proper training from a guru (preceptor). Now he has the right to disregard the social conventions about sexual purity and defy taboos about food and drink, since he has to look upon all women as manifestations of Sakti and to be free from all sorts of social prejudices. The ritual of pancamakara-wine, fish, meat, diagram, and coitus-performed in the proper ways under the spiritual guidance of the guru elevates the aspirant to the divya or divine standard, and in this stage he is free to get himself initiated in the kaulacara. The Kaula worshipper of Sakti is above all moral judgements, free from all worldly attachments.
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