Śākta traditions — the Goddess as supreme
शाक्त
Also written: shakta · shaktism · devi worship · sri vidya · dasha mahavidya · kali · durga · शाक्त
Śāktism holds that the ultimate reality is Śakti — power, energy, the feminine principle — and that Śiva without Her is inert. The position is stated with unusual bluntness in its own literature: without Śakti, Śiva is a corpse.
The Devī Sūkta — the Goddess speaks
अहं रुद्रेभिर्वसुभिश्चराम्यहमादित्यैरुत विश्वदेवैः।
ahaṁ rudrebhir vasubhiś carāmy aham ādityair uta viśvadevaiḥ
I move with the Rudras and the Vasus; I move with the Ādityas and the All-Gods.
The two great streams
| Stream | Presiding form | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Śrīkula | Lalitā Tripurasundarī | The beautiful, benign, orderly aspect. Śrīvidyā, the Śrī Yantra, the fifteen-syllable mantra. Strongest in the south |
| Kālīkula | Kālī, Tārā, Chinnamastā | The fierce, transformative, boundary-crossing aspect. Strongest in Bengal, Assam and Nepal |
Śrīvidyā and the Śrī Yantra
Śrīvidyā is the most refined of the Śākta systems: the Goddess as Lalitā, approached through the Śrī Yantra — nine interlocking triangles forming forty-three smaller ones around a central point — which is simultaneously a map of the cosmos, of the human body, and of the stages of the practitioner's own ascent. The Saundarya Laharī and the Lalitā Sahasranāma belong to this stream.
The ten Mahāvidyās
Kālī, Tārā, Tripurasundarī, Bhuvaneśvarī, Chinnamastā, Bhairavī, Dhūmāvatī, Bagalāmukhī, Mātaṅgī and Kamalā — ten forms of the Goddess covering the whole range from the terrifying to the auspicious, and understood as ten aspects of a single reality rather than ten deities.
Kaula and Samaya
| Kaula — vāmācāra | Samaya — dakṣiṇācāra | |
|---|---|---|
| Practice | External rite, including transgressive elements used deliberately | Entirely internal; the rite performed in the cakras |
| Principle | What binds the ordinary person liberates the practitioner, under a qualified teacher | The same result reached without external means |
| Eligibility | Strict initiation; a small, tested circle | Open, and the form taught by most modern lineages |
The Āgama traditions and the six paths
Śaiva, Śākta, Vaiṣṇava, Gāṇapatya, Saura and Kaumāra — the ṣaṇmata, the six classical paths of worship, their …
Śaiva traditions
Śiva as the supreme: Śaiva Siddhānta, Kashmir Śaivism (Trika), Pāśupata, Kāpālika and Kālāmukha, Vīraśaiva-Liṅ…
Vaiṣṇava traditions
Viṣṇu and His descents: the four sampradāyas, Pāñcarātra and Vaikhānasa, the Ālvārs, the great ācāryas, the Ga…
Gāṇapatya — Gaṇeśa as the supreme
The tradition that holds Gaṇeśa to be the ultimate reality: the Gaṇapati Atharvaśīrṣa, the aṣṭavināyaka, the s…
Saura — the worship of the Sun
The sun as the visible face of the divine: the Gāyatrī, Sūrya Namaskāra, the great sun temples, Chhath, and wh…
Kaumāra — Skanda, Murugan, Kārttikeya
The sixth path: the youth who commands the divine armies and teaches his own father, the six abodes in Tamil N…
Last revised 2026-08-16. Corrections are welcome — see how this site is written.