Shaktism

Shri Vidya is the srikula, auspicious lineage, of Shakta tantra, centered on the Goddess Lalita Tripura Sundari as supreme reality.

One of the principal goddess seeds, attached to Bhuvaneshvari and used across Shakta practice.

The temple on the hill above the Brahmaputra is the principal of the seats where the goddess's body is held to have fallen, and its annual festival marks her menstruation.

The seed of attraction, associated with Kali in Shakta practice.

The thousand names of Lalita Tripurasundari, and the central name corpus of the tradition.

The seed of Lakshmi and of abundance, and one of the few bijas transparently derived from an ordinary word.

The nine interlocking triangles are the diagram of the goddess and the seat of her worship, and the ascent through its enclosures is the structure of the rite rather than a picture of it.

The northern Kerala rite in which a costumed performer is understood to become the deity is worship of goddesses and heroes at village level, standing beside the Shakta temple tradition rather than inside it.

Durga carries the trident taken from Shiva, and it appears in the goddess's hands in image and festival, but the Shakta emblem proper is the diagram rather than the weapon.

The geometric diagram is used as the seat of the goddess and as the object of worship in its own right.

Counted as the eighth of the ten Mahavidyas, the set of ten forms of the supreme Goddess in Shakta tantra.

Counted as the fifth of the ten Mahavidyas, the set of ten forms of the supreme Goddess in Shakta tantra.

Devotion to the Goddess, expressed in hymns such as the Devi Mahatmya, is Shaktism's primary devotional mode and path to liberation.

Counted as the fourth of the ten Mahavidyas, the set of ten forms of the supreme Goddess in Shakta tantra.

Shaktism identifies Brahman, ultimate reality, with Shakti, dynamic divine power, against schools that treat ultimate reality as inert consciousness alone.

Counted as the sixth of the ten Mahavidyas, the set of ten forms of the supreme Goddess in Shakta tantra.

The Devi Mahatmya is Shaktism's central scripture, the clearest textual statement of the Goddess as supreme reality.

Counted as the seventh of the ten Mahavidyas, the set of ten forms of the supreme Goddess in Shakta tantra.

Devi, in one of her many forms, is the ishta-devata of Shaktism, worshipped as Brahman itself rather than as a consort or lesser power.

Counted as the first of the ten Mahavidyas, the set of ten forms of the supreme Goddess in Shakta tantra.

One of the shakta pithas, and among the most important of them.

Counted as the tenth of the ten Mahavidyas, the set of ten forms of the supreme Goddess in Shakta tantra.

Shaktism accepts the law of action and result while holding that the Goddess, as the power behind all action whatever, may release the devotee from its consequences through her grace.

Counted as the third of the ten Mahavidyas, listed as Shodashi or Tripura Sundari, the set of ten forms of the supreme Goddess in Shakta tantra.

Counted as the ninth of the ten Mahavidyas, the set of ten forms of the supreme Goddess in Shakta tantra.

Shaktism describes liberation as union with the Goddess, and its tantric schools teach that this may be reached through ritual and the awakening of inner energy rather than by withdrawal from the world.

Mudiyettu enacts the central myth of the Bhadrakali/Kali cult, part of the wider Shakta devotional tradition.

For Shaktas these nine nights are the central festival of the year, each night given to a form of the Goddess and read as her battle with the buffalo demon, culminating in Bengal in Durga Puja and everywhere in the tenth-day victory.

Shakta puja is offered to the Goddess and frequently uses a yantra, a geometric diagram, alongside or instead of an image; some lineages offer animal sacrifice, which most other Hindu traditions do not.

Shaktism holds the round of rebirth to be the play of the Goddess, whose power both spins the world out and, when she wills, releases the devotee from it.

Shaktism's defining doctrine: Shakti, not a subordinate consort but Brahman itself, the ultimate reality from which the universe and the gods proceed.

Shaktism is bound to tantra more closely than any other Hindu tradition, working with mantra, yantra and ritual to rouse the divine energy within, and some of its lineages keep the transgressive left-hand rites that the orthodox refuse.

Counted as the second of the ten Mahavidyas, the set of ten forms of the supreme Goddess in Shakta tantra.

Shaktas honour the cow as other Hindus do, though some Shakta communities, notably in Bengal and Nepal, offer animal sacrifice to the Goddess, which sets them apart from vegetarian traditions.

Shaktism takes the Goddess as ultimate reality rather than consort to a male god, worshipped as Durga, Kali or Parvati, with the male deity understood as inert without her power.

Non-injury is held across the Shakta traditions, with the exception of the blood offering some Shakta lineages make and others do not, which is one of the current's live internal differences.

The self is held across the Shakta traditions, and in the non-dual Shakta schools it is not other than the Goddess.

Ignorance is held across the Shakta traditions.

Giving is held across the Shakta traditions.

Dharma is held across the Shakta traditions.

The teaching lineage is central across the Shakta traditions, and the tantric Shakta schools require initiation from a qualified teacher.

Karma is held across the Shakta traditions.

Shakta theology takes maya to be the Goddess herself in her power of veiling and revealing, so that what conceals and what liberates are one, which is a rival account of the term rather than a rejection of it.

Liberation across the Shakta traditions is union with the Goddess, and much of the current holds worldly enjoyment and liberation to be sought together rather than traded against each other.

Merit and demerit are held across the Shakta traditions.

The indwelling supreme self is held across the Shakta traditions, understood as the Goddess within.

Periodic dissolution is held across the Shakta traditions, and the Goddess is held to survive it as the source the next world issues from.

Collected absorption is held across the Shakta traditions.

Transmigration is held across the Shakta traditions.

Latent impressions are held across the Shakta traditions.

Being, consciousness and bliss are held across the Shakta traditions as descriptions of the Goddess.

Ascetic heat is held across the Shakta traditions.

The three strands are held across the Shakta traditions as the Goddess's own modes, which is why the great goddesses are correlated with them in the Shakta texts.

The Kashmirian nondual schools and the Shakta traditions share a great deal of apparatus, and Abhinavagupta's Trika is worked out with the Goddess at its centre.

The Sri Yantra is the central diagram of Sri Vidya, a Shakta Tantric tradition of goddess worship.