An Outline of the Religious Literature of India c10.2

c10.2

§ 189. The date with which our chapter opens is meant to coincide with the time when the Śākta systems began to appear; for they are unquestionably the most noteworthy product of these times. The exaltation and the adoration of goddesses is manifestly the first characteristic of these new theologies; but other forms of faith and practice were very prominent: an immense extension of the use of magic spells; a belief in the existence of occult channels and ganglia in the human frame, and in the presence of the goddess herself—coiled up like a snake and asleep—in the chief ganglion; a new type of hypnotic meditation believed to be potent to wake the goddess; and, in some sects, the inclusion in the cult of foul, gruesome, and degrading practices.