Book review

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Tittle : The Saktas : An introductory and Comparative Study

Author : Ernest A. Payne

Publisher : Dover Publication, Inc, Mineola, N.Y

ISBN : 0-486-29866-3

 

Many elements in the Indian religion have been neglected, or

adversely criticized, simply because they have been distasteful to

Westerm students and Saktism is one of the phases on Indian religion

which has received much condemnation and abuse, it is also one of the

phases which has been little studied especially its philosophical

side. Yet throughout India, and particularly in Bengal, there are

hundreds of thousands of Saktas, and they are the product of the most

important and widespread movements with Hinduism, a movement however

dark some of its expression may be , has produced some remarkable

type of genuine piety, and a considerable literature.

There are three chief characteristic of Saktism namely :

1) Diety as Destroyer

2) Its conception of God as Mother

3) Its attention to ceremonial

 

Each of these features can be paralleled in other forms of Hinduism,

but nowhere are they so combined and emphasized as in Sakta Sect.

 

Basic philosophy of Sakta is that Siva is the unchanging

Consciousness and sakti is its changing Power appearing as mind and

matter. Such philosophical justification for certain Sakta beliefs

can be found in the Tantras, as well as in the more modern works

like the Principle of Tantra which was translated and edited by

Avalon. In Saktism, indeed, as elsewhere in Hinduism, we have two

orders of religion living side by side. They are mutually tolerant of

each other and in many occasion assume the other to be a phase of

itself. One is Philosophic, the other popular; one universalistic,

the other local; one spiritual, the other magical.

 

Saktism is a movement as complex as any within Hinduism. In this book

Ernest A. Payne approach the study of the Sakta in the following

ways :

1) describing the sect

2) outline its practices

3) considering the rise of the Sakta ideas in the religious

literature in Hinduism

4) examining the possible cause of its popularity and the origin

of some of its beliefs.

5) To find an understanding the devotion to be found among the

Saktas

6) Connection of Saktism and modern Nationalist Movement in

India.

7) For better understanding, a comparison is made with other

systems of beliefs and practices.

 

 

 

Om ParaShaktiye Namaha