Shakti

Deity

Shakti · शक्ति

Shakti is the feminine principle understood as power itself rather than as a consort. She is worshipped as Durga astride her lion, as Kali, as Parvati, and as the village goddess with no name beyond the place she guards — forms treated in the tradition as one.

Her season is Navratri, nine nights kept twice a year, in Chaitra and in Ashwin. The Sharad Navratri of Ashwin is the larger: a kalash installed on the first morning, one of the Nav Durga honoured on each of the nine days, and the reading of the Durga Saptashati — seven hundred verses on the goddess's defeat of Mahishasura — carried through the week.

The Shakti Peethas mark where the parts of Sati's body are said to have fallen as Shiva carried her, each site named for the part and paired with a Bhairava who guards it. The lists disagree on the count: fifty-one is the number most often given, with other traditions counting eighteen, fifty-two or one hundred and eight.

Red is her colour — a red chunri offered at the shrine, red bangles, sindoor. Animal offering has largely given way to coconut and pumpkin at most peethas, though not at all of them.

• Shakti Peethas
• Nav Durga

Shakti Peethas · शक्ति पीठ — Counts differ by tradition — 51, 52 and 108 lists are all attested