Goddess Worship and Bhakti

Abstract

The worship of goddesses has been a vital part of Hinduism for centuries. There are innumerable goddesses whose worship encompasses a wide range of perspectives and practices that vary by language, region, tradition, and context. Some goddesses’ stories and iconography are pan-Indian, such as the supreme Devī in the 6th-century Devī-Māhātmya, while other goddesses’ devotional arenas are regional or limited to a particular locale. Bhakti is generally defined as devotion to a personal deity, including a goddess, expressed in praise texts in Sanskrit and in devotional songs and poetry in vernacular languages. Some goddesses are part of devotional traditions within a Brahmanical socioreligious order and temple orthodoxy in which rituals are performed by a priest; others are part of bhakti movements that resist religious and social norms. Śāktism is, in brief, the worship of the fundamental cosmic power, śakti, conceived of as the Goddess, supreme deity, and ultimate reality, whereas in Śaivism and Vaiṣṇavism the goddess is worshiped as the śakti of the male gods Śiva and Viṣṇu. The goddess is also equated with prakṛti, the material foundation of creation, so Śāktism centers on the sacredness and reality of the material world. Kathleen Erndl notes that although Śāktism pervades Hindu worship, it is more difficult to define than either Śaivism or Vaiṣṇavism (Erndl 2004, cited in General and Historical Overviews, “Śākta,” p. 140). In some Śākta traditions bhakti is the primary mode of attention to the goddess. Contemporary devotees may consider the goddess as transcendent and/or immanent; as ultimate reality and/or intimate Mother. Goddesses are worshiped in iconographic forms, such as images in temples and home shrines, natural sites in the landscape such as rivers or mountains, aniconic forms such as a stone under a tree, or the center of the human heart. Regular or occasional worship practices may be directed to a personal goddess, lineage deity, village protector, or goddesses with particular areas of power, and range from devotion to propitiation, divination, and healing. Rituals may be performed by priests or other specialists, but many are performed by devotees themselves, who may make a vow (Sanskrit vrata) to perform particular rites in exchange for desired goals; these rites include fasting, making particular offerings, body piercing, sacrificing an animal, possession, and going on pilgrimage. In Śākta tantra, the goddess may be worshiped in yantras or sacred diagrams and in mantras or sacred syllables, and women manifest the goddess in ritual contexts. Through esoteric yogic and ritual techniques the practitioner accesses the correspondences between the microcosm of the human body and the macrocosm of the universe to realize the fundamental identity with the goddess in order to achieve powers and ultimate liberation. This article focuses on worship and bhakti practices directed toward goddesses; for broader treatments of these topics, see the separate Oxford Bibliographies Online articles Bhakti, Goddess, and Shaktism. For the worship of goddesses with the gods Shiva and Vishnu, see Shiva and Viṣṇu.