[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India)](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.kane-1930) › v7.c92.32 # History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c92.32 History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c92.32 - **Language:** English ### [v7.c92.32.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.kane-1930.v7.c92.32.1) Even the Ṛgveda speaks of the Śaktis of the great gods of the Vedic pantheon. But the Śakti or Śaktis are of the God himself and not a separate creative principle and sometimes Śakti is meant as part of the poet, priest or sacrificer (as in Ṛg. I. 31. 18, I. 83. 3, IV. 22. 8, X. 25. 5). The word ‘Śakti’ occurs in the Ṛgveda about a dozen times in the singular as well as in the plural, five times with Indra,¹⁶⁷⁶ once with Aśvins (Ṛg. II. 39. 7), twice with pitṛs (I 109. 3, VI. 75. 9) and once with gods in general (X. 88. 10, who are said to have created Agni with their powers). Sometimes, the word ‘Māyā’ is used with regard to Indra instead of the word Śakti. ‘O Indra! I long for your great friendship and powers (śaktīḥ)...understand that you are our great protector; I proclaim your ancient and recent deeds, O Indra endowed with powers (Śaktīvaḥ)!......; ‘Indra assuming¹⁶⁷⁷ many forms by his powers (māyābhiḥ) repairs (to many sacrifices), ten hundred horses are yoked to his chariot’. In these passages there is no question of worshipping śakti or śaktis of the god praised. The more frequent word, however, is ‘Śacī’ (‘śacībhiḥ’ occurring 36 times and ‘śacyā’ 12 times). The word ‘Śacīpati’ (lord of Śacī or power) occurs sixteen times in the Ṛgveda and has been applied in all places to Indra, except once in Ṛg. VII. 67. 5 (where it is applied to Aśvins). ### [v7.c92.32.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.kane-1930.v7.c92.32.2) It cannot be said that in the Ṛgveda ‘Śacī’ is the wife of Indra (as it is said in later mythology), since the plural is more frequent than Śacī in the singular and since Aśvins also are called ‘Śacīpati’. once. Similarly, the word ‘Śacīvaḥ’ occurs eleven times, in nine of which it is addressed to Indra but it is once applied to Agni (Ṛg. III. 21. 4) and once to Soma (Ṛg. IX. 87. 9). The ideas associated with the words ‘Śakti’ and ‘Śacī’ are those of creation, protection, valour, and bounty. In Ṛg. I. 56. 4 Indra’s power is called ‘Devī taviṣī’ but the word Śacī does not occur in that verse. There is a sublime hymn (Ṛg. X. 125) of the power of Vāk (speech), wherein Vāk is said to associate with Rudras, Ādityas, Vasus, all gods and is declared to support Mitra and Varuṇa, Indra and Agni, the Aśvins, Soma, Tvaṣṭṛ, Pūṣan and Bhaga. Vāk is said to stretch the bow for Rudra in order that the destructive enemy of \*brahma\* (prayer or God Brahmā) may be killed, that Vāk stands occupying all worlds and that her body touches heaven, that it is beyond heaven and the earth, that Vāk stands so vast by its greatness'. Vāk becomes the principle of all energy. According to the Nighaṇṭu (I. 11), menā, gnāḥ and śacī are three of the 57 words meaning 'Vāk'. In Tai. S. V. 1. 7. 2 the metres are called 'gnās'. Ṛg. I. 164. 41 is an enigmatic description of Vāk explained in Nirukta XI. 40. ### [v7.c92.32.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.kane-1930.v7.c92.32.3) It should be noticed that, just as Devī or Śakti is associated with Śiva in later literature, so are Indrāṇī, Varuṇānī, Agnāyī, Rodasī associated with Indra, Varuṇa, Agni and Maruts respectively as wives. 'I invoke Indrāṇī,¹⁶⁷⁸ Varuṇānī and Agnāyī for my welfare and for drinking Soma', 'May the women, the wives of gods, partake of the offering, viz. Indrāṇī, Agnāyī, the brilliant (wife) of the Aśvins, Rodasī; may Varuṇānī listen (to our laud); may the goddesses partake (of offerings) at the time (appropriate) for women'. It must be said, however, that these goddesses (\*devīḥ\*) play a very subordinate part in the Ṛgveda. No direct connection can be traced between these Vedic goddesses and the later conception of Devī or Śakti. Indrāṇī is invoked for protection in Ṛg. I. 22. 12, II. 32. 8, V. 46. 8, X. 86. 11-12. In Ṛg V. 46. 8 Indrāṇī and three others are called Devapatnīs and 'gnās'. In Ṛg. I. 61. 8 it is said that the gnās, the wives of gods, wove, when Indra struck the demon Ahi, a song of worship. The word 'gnā' occurs 20 times in the Ṛg. in the nominative, objective, instrumental and locative and is an Indo-European word for wife (Greek has it). Vide Nir III. 21 where 'menā' and 'gnā' occur. In the Kenopaniṣad Umā Haimavatī (daughter of Himavat) tells of \*Brahma\* to the gods Agni, Vāyu and Indra (III. 12). ### [v7.c92.32.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.kane-1930.v7.c92.32.4) In the Śvetāśvataropaniṣad it is said 'they (brahmavādins) endowed with meditation and Yoga saw Śakti (power) abiding as non-different from God and concealed (from comprehension) by its own attributes (or by sattva, rajas and tamas).' The same Upanisad (in VI. 8) speaks of \*Brahma\* as possessing the highest Śakti¹⁶⁷⁹ in various forms and this text is quoted by Śaṅkarācārya on Vedāntasūtra II. 1. 24. In the \*bhāṣya\* on Vedāntasūtra II. 1. 30 and in the sūtra itself \*Brahma\* is said to be endowed with all powers. Vide also Śvetāśva. IV. 1. The Nārāyaṇopaniṣad contains an invocation of Durgā-devī¹⁶⁸⁰ 'I approach as a refuge the blazing goddess Durgā, brilliant like fire, luminous owing to \*tapas\*, that is resorted to for (yielding) the rewards of religious actions; O goddess possessed of excellent might! adoration to your power'. Rāghavabhaṭṭa¹⁶⁸¹ avers that Tantra cult is based on Śruti as can be seen from the Upaniṣads called Rāmapūrvottara-tāpanīya and Nṛsiṁhapūrvottara-tāpanīya. Similarly, Bhāskararāya in his commentary Setubandha on Vāmakeśvaratantra mentions several Upaniṣads as treating in detail of the bhakti of Mahātripura-sundarī and interprets Ṛg. V. 47. 4 'catvāri īṁ' as referring to Kādividyā. But all these Upaniṣads seem to be purposely composed to bolster up the \*tantras\* that had come to be looked down upon and they are mostly mentioned by late medievel writers like Rāghavabhaṭṭa and Bhāskararāya. ### [v7.c92.32.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.kane-1930.v7.c92.32.5) There are two great hymns addressed to Durgā in the Mahābhārata,¹⁶⁸² viz. in Virāṭaparva (chap. 6) by Yudhiṣṭhira and the other in Bhīṣmaparva (chap. 23) by Arjuna, but they are discarded as apocryphal in the Poona critical edition. The Gangadhara stone Inscription of Viśvavarman of 480 of the Mālava era (424 A.D.) refers to Mātṛs (Mother Goddesses) and Tantra.¹⁶⁸³ The Bṛ S. 57. 56 mentions the groups of Mātṛs. The Vṛddha-Hārīta-smṛti recommends that the householder should not enter places of Śaiva, Bauddha, Skānda and Śākta¹⁶⁸⁴ cults. The Viṣṇupurāṇa¹⁶⁸⁵ (one of the earliest among extant Purāṇas) speaks of the whole world as that of Viṣṇu, who is the highest \*Brahma\* and is endowed with Śakti, enumerates some of the names of Durgā as Āryā, Vedagarbhā, Ambikā, Bhadrā, Bhadra-kālī, Kṣemadā, Bhāgyadā and winds up by stating that when Durgā is worshipped with offerings of wine, flesh, various kinds of foods, she, being pleased, would fulfil all desires of men. In the Kādambarī of Bāṇabhaṭṭa there is a long description of the temple of Caṇḍikā at a few days' journey from Ujjayinī, where there was an old Draviḍa devotee, in which the following points deserve to be noted, viz. ### [v7.c92.32.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.kane-1930.v7.c92.32.6) offerings of the heads of animals, lion as \*vāhana\*, the slaughter of Mahiṣāsura, the doctrines of Pāśupatas written down on small books of palm leaves containing jugglery, tantra and mantras, Durgā-stotra written on a piece of cloth, ruined temples of the Mātṛs and description of the Draviḍa devotee as knowing thousands of wonderful stories about Śrīparvata. Bāṇa describes at length what queen Vilāsavatī, pining for a son, began doing to placate all Gods viz. sleeping in the shrines of Caṇḍikā where guggulu was being incessantly burnt, taking auspicious baths on nights of dark 14th in public squares where magic circles had been drawn by great magicians, visiting temples of Mātṛs, wearing amulets inside which were pieces of birch leaves on which mantras had been written with yellow pigment, and, when delivery was near, her bed was rendered holy with various herbs, roots and yantras (figures or diagrams). In the Harṣacarita (III) there is a reference to magic circles and to human sacrifices in the description of the Śaiva ascetic Bhairavācārya who had all the Śaiva-saṁhitās by heart, who performed the \*japa\* of a mahāmantra called Mahākālahṛdaya a crore of times in a cemetery and wanted the help of Puṣpabhūti (an ancestor of Emperor Harṣa) for perfection in that mantra to be achieved by subduing a \*vetāla\* and who ultimately attained to the position of Vidyādhara and rose into the starry firmament. ### [v7.c92.32.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.kane-1930.v7.c92.32.7) In the last Introductory verse of the Harṣacarita the Emperor Harṣa is, by means of puns, called the Śrīparvata in yielding all Siddhis (supernatural powers, or fulfilment) according to the wishes of all suppliants¹⁶⁸⁶ These descriptions from the works of Bāṇa (first half of 7th century) show how even long before the 7th century A. D. the worship of Caṇḍī with flesh and the Śākta or Tāntrik paraphernalia of mantras, siddhis, maṇḍalas and yantras had gripped the minds of all Indian people, great and small, rich and poor. In the Mālatīmādhava (Act V) we have a gruesome picture of human sacrifice to Cāmuṇḍā. In the same drama Saudāminī is described as observing the vows of a Kāpālika on Śrīparvata and as having secured supernatural powers by means of mantras. Śrīparvata is mentioned as a holy place of Śiva and Devī in Vanaparva 85. 19-20. The Vāsavadattā of Subandhu (p. 87 of Hall's ed.) speaks of Śrīparvata as 'Sannihita-mallikārjunaḥ.' Later on a few passages from Sanskrit and Prakrit literature will be cited to show how the teaching of Tāntrik practices led to great moral debasement and revolting orgies in the name of religion. --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.kane-1930.v7.c92.32](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.kane-1930.v7.c92.32) · Pramāṇa