SAKTI means strength, power, feminine energy, it is the feminine manifestation of the divine. The veneration of the various forms of Shakti is widespread in India.

Towards the middle of the first millennium a new spiritual and religious current emerged in the Asian subcontinent: shaktism. A myriad of forms of the great mother came alongside  pre-existing Hindu male divinities thus forming divine couples. This current also greatly influenced Buddhism so that the various figures of the Buddha were joined by a female figure. The male divinity representing the immutable is flanked by the female divinity representing strength, power and therefore divine energy. A real religious revolution which also corresponds to a new spiritual view. In the seventh century AD, Shaktism produced its sacred texts: the Tantras.

The deepest roots of Shaktism and Tantrism can be found in the cult of the great mother of the Pedic peoples. Cults that have similarities throughout the rest of the world and bring us back to the origins of spirituality. Kali or  Durga, Black Mothers in the most ancient cultures, Black Goddesses in Ancient Greece or Christian Black Madonnas come from a single prototype. An archaic divinity who resisted the macho traditions, such as the Vedic one, and who resurfaced with new vitality with the cult of Durga and  Kali in all their forms.

 

ea black first appears in the Devi Mahatmya or  Durga Saptasati from the Marcandeya Purana. Devotion to Kali, the goddess who most expresses the great mother archetype, has its fulcrum in Tantrism. Its terrifying form symbolizes power, strength, good that defeats evil, it is the manifestation of divine power. Black because it is the color where everything disappears, also called Digambari (covered with sky), Nude and with large breasts like the primordial goddesses.

Shiva in Mahanirvana Tantra describes it as follows:

As white, yellow and all other colors disappear into black, so all beings enter Kali.

So it is for those who have attained the knowledge of the tools for final liberation, that the attributeless, formless and beneficial Kalashakti (Kali, without Her Time, Kala, ceases to exist) has the color of darkness.

Since the eternal, inexhaustible and beneficial in the form of Kala (Time) is the Nectar itself, therefore the sign of the Moon is placed on His forehead (Nectar flows from the Moon). As She observes the whole universe, which is the product of Time (the Universe is Brahman in the form of Space-Time which is Maya), with her three eyes - the Moon, the Sun, and the Fire - for this She has three eyes.

Since She devours all existence, since She chews all that exists with her ferocious teeth (Kala-danta, the teeth that are Time), therefore the blood is imagined as the clothing of the Queen of the Devas (at the final dissolution) .

As She protects all beings from danger from time to time, and as She directs them into the paths of duty, Her hands are raised to dispel fear and bestow blessings.

Since She encompasses the universe, which is the product of Rajoguna (Passion, active quality), She is described as the Devi who sits on the red lotus, watching Kala drunk from intoxicating wine and playing with the universe. Furthermore, the Devi, whose substance is intelligence, is a witness to all things.

 

The Divine Mother is revered as ten cosmic personalities, the Dasa-Mahavidyas. The Mahavidyas are considered tantric by nature and are usually identified as: