Sakta Cult through Art and Literature in Tamil Country

Abstract

In the Sakta conception, the Mother Goddess is represented as Adisakti, the primordial energy, and the Supreme Being to who even the great gods like Brahma, Vishnu and Siva owe their origin, survival and destruction. This cosmic conception of the Mother Goddess is nothing but a development of the idea of a Mother deity who is supposed to represent the forces that stimulate the generative powers of nature. And again, the conception of a mother deity as the source of universal fecundity is also a development of an empiric notion which personifies the Mother Earth, the upholder of the human, animal and vegetable life which rests on her surface, into a benign goddess who is supposed to look over everything of this phenomenal world with motherly care and affection. Tamil society in the pre-modern period reveals interesting insights into the cult of Sakta and its historical information through an interrogation of the rich literary, inscriptional, art and architectural evidences.