Shakti
Shakti is the primordial creative, sustaining and
destructive power of all existence. Although con-
ceived as female in nature, Shakti is not an indi-
vidual goddess, but rather a dynamic quality that
all goddesses (and even all women, at least within
the SHAKTA TANTRIC tradition) are said to possess.
Unbridled, uncontainable, spontaneous, ecstatic,
blissful, and fierce, Shakti flows from manifesta-
tion to dissolution. She is the power to give forth
and to withdraw.
The concept of Shakti is an ancient one and
has pre-VEDIC, prepatriarchal origins. She is often
traced to archaeological discoveries from the
INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION (3500–1700 B.C.E.) and
to other prehistoric cultures throughout western
and central Asia. In India the belief and worship
of her all-pervading nature were pushed under-
ground during the Vedic period. Shakti regains
importance in classical and medieval Hinduism,
in which in many cases this primordial power is
personified as Devi, the GODDESS, and held in even
higher regard than the male deities. Epic texts
such as the Devi Bhagavata, Devi Purana, Kalika
Purana, Markandeya Purana, and Mahabhagavata
Purana accept and worship Shakti as the supreme
nature of reality.
From earliest times the concept of Shakti
appears in discussions of fertility as well as in
reverence of the divine as mother of nature and
cosmos. In the RIG VEDA the term Shakti is not
mentioned; however, various goddess manifesta-
tions (Ratri, USHAS, ADITI, PRITHIVI, Vac-Sarasvati,
goddesses) indicate the presence and influence
that would later develop into the central figures of
the Shakti cult (KALI, DURGA, Ambika, Uma) that
are worshipped today.
The later Shakta Upanishads and tantras (see
TANTRISM) contain philosophical references to
Shakti that equate her with BRAHMAN. In these texts
the dynamic, all-pervading nature of brahman
and Shakti as the fabric underlying all existence
cannot be separated into two. In the Shakta UPA-
NISHADS as well as in the later Shakta tantras we
find references to Shakti’s independent omnipo-
tent nature where the complementary receptive
qualities of the masculine force as Shiva are “but a
corpse” without her activating power.
In the epic RAMAYANA, Shakti does not have
the independent cult status that we find in the
later epics; however, she is held in high regard.
In the MAHABHARATA, Shakti once again regains
the agency and importance that are evident in
the prepatriarchal traditions. Here we learn of her
invincible power as Durga and the Matrikas. She
is also referred to as Kalika, Ambika, Bhadrakali,
Parvati, Mahadevi, and by other names.
Shakti continues to gain importance in the
puranic texts, the earliest of which, the Mar-
kandeya Purana, with its 13 chapters called the
Durga Saptasai and Devi Mahatmya, elaborate the
primordial all-pervading power of Devi. Here she
is philosophically conceived as pure conscious-
ness; the creator, preserver, and destroyer; the one
and the many manifestations of supreme divinity.
Shakti is both immanent and transcendent, illu-
sive and manifest, moving and unmoving. She is
knowledge, will, and action behind all existence.
Here we find Goddess as the absolute reality,
and yet she incarnates from time to time to help
the gods to carry out her divine work. She also
appears to help her devotees conquer the bonds of
human suffering and the limitations of the physi-
cal realm in order to achieve liberation.
In the Markandeya Purana, the goddess is
identified with PRAKRITI, the natural sustaining
power of existence. She takes on various roles
as mother, nurturer, warrior, lover to experience
the LILA (play) of her divine consciousness. In
the Devi Bhagavata Purana, Shakti is divided
into three forms or qualities of existence: sattva
(purity), rajas (passion), tamas (inertia).
As Mahasarasvati, Mahalakshmi, Mahakali,
the Goddess takes the universe from creation
to destruction and back to creation again. The
Goddess’s distinct iconographic forms are expres-
sions of her multiple nature. She has both benevo-
lent and pacific as well as wrathful and terrifyingShakti 399 J