The Goddess

Devi, Shakti, Mahadevi

The supreme reality of the Shakta traditions: the Goddess as Brahman and the active power behind all the gods, worshipped as Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, Saraswati, and the one Mahadevi.

A quick reference entry. For the full account, follow the guides below.

Guides and journal

What is Navaratri? Worship
… , nine; ratri , night) is "nine nights." It is the great festival of the Goddess, kept across the first nine nights of a lunar fortnight and closing on the tenth day with the marking of a victory.
Who is the Goddess? Deities
The hymn has no third-person praise of a goddess. It is spoken by the goddess, in the first person, about herself.
Who is Shiva? Deities
Shiva is the supreme reality for the Shaiva traditions, and, by one widely cited estimate, for something like a quarter of all Hindus, though such figures are rough…
Kamakhya: The Temple of the Goddess Temples
A natural spring keeps it always wet. That cleft is the goddess.
Ten Faces of the One Treatise
The three are not separate things. To know the wisdom is to know the goddess is to hold the sound.
Matangi: The Goddess of the Margins Treatise
She is Matangi , and she is the Tantric form of Saraswati, the goddess of speech and music and learning.
The Garland: Why the Ten Are One Treatise
The fire of tapas . The goddess with her own head in her hand.
The Goddess Who Would Not Be Forbidden Treatise
She is Adi Parashakti , the primordial Power, mula-prakriti , the root of nature, the Goddess from whom even Shiva proceeds.
Kali: The Black Mother of Time Treatise
Consciousness, the still ground, is inert without power; the Goddess is the power that makes it live.
Bhuvaneshvari: She Whose Body Is the World Treatise
The universe is not a thing the Goddess made and then stepped back from.
The Circle Open to the Sky Treatise
And the building is the doctrine, made in stone. The powers of the Goddess, given faces Who are the yoginis?
Chhinnamasta: The Goddess Who Cut Off Her Own Head Treatise
Desire, death and feeding are one wheel, not three separate facts, and the goddess is the wheel turning.
The Nine Nights Treatise
For most of the festival year, the Goddess shares the calendar.
The Goddess Takes the Field Treatise
This chapter is about the moment the Goddess stepped to the centre.
What is Shaktism? Lineages
It was folded into a larger work, the Markandeya Purana , as its chapters 81 to 93, and it took on a life of its own. Hindus call it the Devi Mahatmya , the Glory of the Goddess.