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Posts tagged ‘sakti’

  1. Book Review: A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses

    Indian goddess traditions are of enduring and fascinated attention to scholars and esoteric practitioners alike, yet many of them are virtually unknown beyond the boundaries of regional traditions or have been ignored. An attempt to redress this lacuna is this new anthology, edited by Michael Slouber – A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses: Tales of the Feminine Divine from India and Beyond (University of California Press 2020, 374 pages, Illustrated). Featuring primary translations of the narratives pertaining to twelve relatively unstudied Hindu goddesses. In what sense are these goddesses “forgotten” though? It is certainly not that they are insignificant, but that they are rarely given space in surveys of Hindu goddesses, or that their local, regional character has been lost as the goddess has become identified with more popular forms. Moreover, the scriptural sources which are the basis of these goddesses’ stories have, for the most part, received little attention. These range from some of the less well-known Purāṇas, the early Tantras, and contemporary oral lore and performance.

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  2. Group Book review: Indian Goddesses

    As a follow-up to the group review of books related to Kali in August, I’m going to present short reviews of three books focusing on Indian Goddesses that I’ve found to be very useful – The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India edited by John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulf; David Kinsley’s Hindu Goddesses: Visions of the Divine Feminine in the Hindu Religious Tradition and Lynn Foulston and Stuart Abbott’s Hindu Goddesses: Beliefs and Practices. Continue reading »

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  3. Sakti bodies – III: Geographies of power

    “O twice borns! wherever the pair of feet and the other parts of the dead body of Sati had fallen, Mahadeva being attracted and out of deep attachment to Her stayed Himself, in all those places, assuming the shape of a linga.”
    Kalika Purana 18:46

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  4. Approaching Lalita: three modalities

    “Let my idle chatter be the muttering of prayer, my every manual movement the execution of ritual gesture,
    my walking a ceremonial circumambulation, my eating and other acts the rite of sacrifice,
    my lying down prostration in worship, my every pleasure enjoyed with dedication of myself,
    let whatever activity is mine be some form of worship of you.”
    Saundaryalahari

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  5. Sakti bodies – II: Kali in the Mahabhavagata Purana

    “Oh Kali full of Brahman!
    I’ve searched them all
    Vedas, Agamas, Puranas
    and found You:
    Mahakali
    Krisna, Siva, Rama
    they’re all You
    My Wild-Haired One.”
    Ramprasad Sen

    Kali has been occupying my thoughts a great deal of late, so to take this series of posts forward, I thought I’d take a look at how Kali is represented in the Mahabhavagata Purana, a late medieval text which for the most part, is given over to narratives about the Great Goddess. Continue reading »

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  6. Sakti bodies – I

    “By you is everything supported, by you is the world created: by you is it protected, O Goddess, and you always consume (it) at the end (of time).
    At (its) emanation you have the form of creation; in (its) protection (you have) the form of steadiness; likewise at the end of the world (you have) the form of destruction. O you who consist of this world!
    You are the great knowledge (mahavidya), the great illusion (mahamaya), the great insight (mahamedha) the great memory and the great delusion, the great Goddess (Mahadevi), the great demoness (mahasuri).”
    Devimahatmya 1, 56-58

    Sakti is one of the most fundamental aspects of Tantra – and potentially, one of the most bewildering. Continue reading »

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