Shakta Deities

The Great Goddess

The Goddess as the supreme reality — Mahadevi, of whom Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, Saraswati and Parvati are aspects. The centre of Shaktism, one of the major traditions of Hinduism, and the subject of the Devi Mahatmya.

The Invincible

The warrior goddess who destroys Mahishasura — worshipped across India during Navaratri and, in Bengal and the east, at Durga Puja. In Shakta theology she is not an assistant to the gods but the supreme reality from whom they draw their power.

She Who Is Time

The fierce form of the Goddess — black, garlanded with skulls, standing on Shiva. Central to Bengali and tantric Shaktism, and understood not as a goddess of destruction but of time, which destroys everything and is not therefore evil.

The Ten Wisdom Goddesses

The ten wisdom goddesses of the Shakta Tantras — Kali, Tara, Tripura Sundari, Bhuvaneshvari, Bhairavi, Chhinnamasta, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, Matangi and Kamalatmika. Not ten deities but one Shakti counted ten ways, deliberately spanning a sixteen-year-old beauty, an old widow and a goddess who has cut off her own head.