DOCTRINES: Shaktas are Hindu
devotees of the Goddess
(Devi) in one of her forms. The goddess is
manifested
in gentle, beautiful forms such as the goddess
Tripurasundari,
or in ferocious, terrifying forms such
as Kali. Shaktas identify absolute
reality with the
Goddess and her gentle or ferocious manifestations
are
but different aspects of her. Kali, although
terrifying, is the mother
of the universe and the
destroyer of ignorance. Through Kali's grace
the
devotee is liberated from karma and the cycle of
reincarnation
(samsara). Shaktas will practice
devotion (bhakti) to the Goddess and at a
popular
level the Goddess is worshipped at innumerable, local
shrines
throughout India. Indeed, most villages will
have their own goddess. The
great goddess manifested
as Durga is worshipped in her own temples,
whereas
local, low-caste goddesses will be worshipped at local
shrines.
These low caste goddesses, while accepting
vegetarian offerings, also demand
alcohol and blood
sacrifice as well. It is necessary to appease
ferocious
goddesses such as Shitala or Mariyaman,
goddesses of smallpox and other
diseases, with blood.
HISTORY: Goddess worship may go back to the
Indus
valley civilisation. The Hindu revelation, the Veda,
contains some
hymns to different Goddesses, but
literary evidence for an all-encompassing
great
goddess only comes with the Epics and Puranas (3rd
cent BCE- 10th
cent CE). These texts, particularly the
Devibhagavata Purana and
Devimahatmya, tell the myth
of the goddess Durga, how she slays the buffalo
demon
and is superior to all the gods. The goddess becomes
particularly
important with Tantrism and there are
Tantras to the ferocious Kali as well
as Tantras to
the gentle Tripurasundari. The Kali cults tended to
be
associated with the cremation ground asceticism of the
skull-bearing
Kapalikas, though worship of Kali was
not restricted to these groups and
today is very
popular, especially in Nepal and Bengal. Indeed, the
famous
Hindu mystic Ramakrishna (1834-86) was a
devotee of Kali and the Bengali poet
Ramprasad Sen
composed devotional poetry to her. Worship of
Tripurasundari
is the focus of the Shri Vidya
tradition.
SYMBOLS: The Shaktas worship
the Goddess in various
iconographic representations. Kali, for example,
is
black, girdled with severed arms, with a garland of
severed heads, with
a lolling tongue and eyes rolling
with intoxication, dancing on the corpse of
Shiva. The
Goddess can also be worshipped as as the
beautiful
Tripurasundari, as a crooked old woman (Kubjika) or as
a young
girl.
ADHERENTS: There are no figures for numbers of
Shaktas. One of
the problems is in distinguishing a
Shakta from a non-Shakta in Hinduism. In
one sense any
person who worships the Goddess is a Shakta,
though
membership of specific traditions would be
more
restricted.
HEADQUARTERS/MAIN CENTRE: Local goddesses
are
worshipped throughout India, though worship of the
great Goddess Kali
is particularly prevalent in Bengal
and Nepal. There are traditionally four
places of
pilgrimage (pithas) - at Uddiyana in the Swat valley,
Jullunder
in the Punjab, Purnagiri (location unknown)
and Kamarupa in Assam. Kamarupa
is the only site in
use.
Source: The Overview of World Religions
Project,
http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/hindu/devot/shaktas.html |