Shaktism holds that Shakti, the divine feminine power, is not the consort, energy or subordinate aspect of a male god but Brahman itself, ultimate reality in its own right, the ground from which the universe, time and even gods such as Vishnu and Shiva proceed. Where other Hindu theologies treat divine power as something a supreme god possesses and wields, Shaktism inverts the relationship: power is prior, and any personal god who appears to act is Shakti's own activity taking a particular form. The doctrine draws on a long Puranic and Tantric literature in which the Goddess, addressed as Devi, Mahadevi or by a specific name such as Durga, Kali or Tripurasundari, is praised in language classical Vedanta reserves for Brahman alone, without a second, without origin, the source and the destroyer of the cosmos in a single act.
The clearest textual statement is the Devi Mahatmya, embedded in the Markandeya Purana, in which the assembled gods, unable to defeat the buffalo demon Mahishasura themselves, pool their individual powers into a single overwhelming Shakti that takes form as the goddess Durga and does what none of them could do alone, a narrative read within Shaktism as demonstrating that the gods' own power was always Shakti's power on loan. The identification of Shakti with Brahman is not merely one Shakta claim among several; it is the doctrine that gives the entire denomination its coherence and its name.