During the holy festival of Navratri, devotees all around the world reverently adore Goddess Durga in her nine incarnations.
But did you know that the Hindu religion may not have existed for as long as the cult of Shakti? Here is a longer version of this concept taken from the recently released book “Mata Vaishno Devi: The Bhakti of Shakti.” As the name implies, the book serves as a comprehensive tour to the sacred site in addition to exploring the tales and traditions surrounding the Mata Vaishno Devi temple and Goddess Durga.
Past Events
The history of the Shakti cult predates Hinduism by at least as much. There have been reports of worship of Shakti or Mahadevi on the subcontinent for the past 8,000 years, albeit the origins are unclear.
Thus, before farmers arrived on the subcontinent, the tribes that practiced the cult of Shakti were essentially the original religious adherents of India. This school of thinking and tradition was taken up by the first farmers in India when they arrived in Mehrgarh, one of the oldest places of Indus Valley Civilization’s occupation. Subsequent settlements embraced it during the ensuing centuries. Across the region inhabited by the Indus Valley Civilization, there is proof of feminine devotion and the earliest stages of a Shakti religion. Other religious symbols, like the yoni, first appeared during the Indus Valley period and began to spread over the subcontinent.
Even with the advent of the Vedic Age, worship of Devi and Shakti persisted after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization. A new pantheon of gods emerged with the Vedic Age, and the deities associated with the Cult of Shakti found a position in this pantheon. Since the Vedic Age also brought writing and writings that were created to formulate ceremonies and rituals, this was the time when Shaktism became codified. Among the female deities mentioned in the Vedas, Ushas is the most significant. The Vedas have several hymns that are only dedicated to her. Aditi, Prithvi, and Saraswati are the three Divine Mothers described in the Rig Veda as giving birth to the Vedic gods. In later Hinduism, Prithvi persisted as Bhudevi, the soil goddess.
This statement from the first book of the Rig Veda, “Aditi is the sky, Aditi is the air, Aditi is all gods… Aditi is the mother, the father, and the son,” introduces the historically repeating motif of the Devi being all-encompassing. Aditi is all that is to be born.