Mother Goddesses in Early Indian Religion
The worship of the Mother Goddess is well known as an important feature of Ancient Indian Religious life. The present work attempts to make a systematic study of the subject. The work is clearly divisible into three parts. The first part consisting of the first four chapters begins with the general aspects of the wide prevalance of belief in female deities and the gradual evolution of the cult of the Great Goddess. The next two chapters, i.e. 2nd and 3rd seek to trace the evolution of the goddesses through the long span of the Vedic period. The fourth chapter seeks to analyse the culmination of the goddesses as it developed in the Epic-puranic period. The most important concept of this period is that of 'Sakti" (power). The second part of the work consisting of the fifth and sixth chapters is devoted to the goddesses in Jainism and Budhism. The goddesses as worshipped in Jain and Buddhist religions are to a large extent direct copies of the Brahmanical goddesses. The third part of the book comprising the seventh chapter is devoted to the worship of popular goddesses such as Matrs and various local deities worshipped in the different regions. The work seeks to utilise archaeological as well as literary evidence and traces the evolution of various forms of Mother Worship from prehistoric times.
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