Page:South-Indian Images of Gods and Goddesses.djvu/204



With each of the chief and minor gods described above are intimately connected one or more goddesses who, so far as the usual routine of worship in temples is concerned, play the subordinate part of consorts, but considered in the higher philosophical sense represent the peculiar energy or virtue of the god without which he could not be in active communion with the world. A cursory analysis of the Hindu cosmogony resolves itself into groups of gods and goddesses, the former being considered the agents or "the lords of karma" and the latter their inseparable power or source of energy. Thus Brahmā, the lord of creation, has the goddess Sarasvatī (the goddess of Learning or Speech) dwelling in his mouth. She presides over learning and is the vāch, logos, (word) which essentially is the first cause of creation; so is Srī or Lakshmī, the consort of Vishnu, the presiding goddess of Wealth and Happiness and hence, also, the energy that sustains or keeps the world going. Siva's consort Pārvatī or Umā likewise, especially in her manifestation as Kālī, is the energy that destroys, that makes the world involve or draw itself into the quiescent state from which it started or evolved. In fact a sect of worshippers called Sāktas, "the adherents of Sakti or Energy," affirm that this Sakti, the feminine element in god, is the sole, if not the preponderating, cause of all visible phenomena. It may be noted that the word sakti is of the feminine gender in the Sanskrit language. Almost every human or divine activity has been personified as a goddess; even the letters of the alphabet being supposed to have their presiding deities. This theory of goddesses has pervaded even Jainism and Buddhism, the latter especially in its Mahāyāna development. Strict Sakti-worshippers do not make any distinction of caste and creed. Perhaps it was thus that Sakti-faith became one of the compromises providing a common meeting ground for the different forms of religion prevailing in India.